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S3 Ep202: RSS - April - Eric
87 Plays4 years ago
Join Dave, Jake, and special guest Eric as they talk about burgers, LAN party, games they should not have played as much as they did, and technical difficulties in this week's episode!
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Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
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Transcript
Introductions and Weather Talk
00:00:00
Speaker
Music
00:00:44
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake, and I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? Wet. It's raining a lot. Oh, okay. Not inside. I'm good. I'm dry. I'm as dry as, uh...
00:01:00
Speaker
Anyway, how's it going tonight, Eric? Oh, even more wet than that. Oh, geez. Oh, my goodness. Oh, yeah. Are you a slippery Sam over there?
00:01:10
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. We got thankfully, uh, we moved recently and if I was back at the old house, I'd probably have to get like a kayak or something just to be able to go down the street. But here it looks like they actually figured out how to like manage water, which is pretty nice. So that's a nice little change. Sometimes if you make like little holes for the water across the road, that'll actually like help out.
00:01:35
Speaker
Yeah, I could drill holes in the driveway or something, try to get extra water to go through. I mean, that's what you do, right? Yeah. It's like aeration, but with water, there's probably a word for it. Yeah. Because right now with your driveway, it's essentially like the ground can't act as a water sponge. So really, you're shooting yourself in the foot. With a water gun. Or you just dig a trench into your neighbor's yard.
00:02:02
Speaker
Not my problem anymore. Water goes over there. It's like, like I'd listen to you, water boy. Aqueducts don't need to be so high. It's something the Romans never learned. You can just have ground aqueducts. The neighbor has a pool here, so I'm just trying to help make sure their pool stays nice and filled. Does this mean a good neighbor? All of the drainage water into their pool.
00:02:28
Speaker
You've got like a pump in the street bringing the water up elevation and into their pool. But we do have the previous homeowners left a garden here and it looks like I could probably grow rice in there or something if it rains this much. Get some patties.
Burger Mixes and Creative Restaurant Ideas
00:02:48
Speaker
Yeah. Just in that spot. What's the mix you're going for, these patties? Beef, turkey. Ooh, beef and pork, 50-50.
00:02:58
Speaker
Beef and venison, 50-50. Also, beef and venison, meatloaf, topped here. I will die on this hill. Invite me to that hill. I would like to eat that. Might have to wait until November, December, but absolutely. There's definitely a joke in this since it started talking about rice patties, about like fake meat. It's like, oh yeah, beef and venison, like into a patty, but like combo fake meat.
00:03:26
Speaker
with plants. I don't think I'm ready for that yet. Like impossible burger. I could do, but if it was like, Oh, impossible burger plus Turkey, I'd be like, what are you? Yeah, that would, what do you throw me for that? Like imaginary or did you just got to get like in another plane of existence? If you're going to do double impossible. Yeah. Would that just be a possible burger then? It's a burger. There you go. It's a burger. Yeah. The search engine optimization for the brand a burger.
00:03:55
Speaker
is going to be very difficult. That is an uphill battle. That's the marketing department's problem. Yeah. But what you could do is stick with the plant-based patty and then do a meat bun. Okay. You turn nature on its head. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. So to all those listeners out there that are trying to start their own restaurant, a free idea for you.
00:04:22
Speaker
Don't forget about us little folk when you make it big. KFC's like, got it. Oh yeah. Double down. It's like a triple down, man. Yeah. No, it's pretty ridiculous. I think even multiple, how do you guys feel about multiple patties and a burger?
Fast Food Insights and Calorie Talk
00:04:41
Speaker
No. No? Just in general?
00:04:43
Speaker
I am a small lad. I am petite. I'm Lilliputian, if you will. Petite. We do call you petite. Oh, look, it's named the Pocket Prince. We get it. I can eat a burger, but I don't think I could eat like a double patty burger, unless we're talking fast food.
00:05:02
Speaker
Slider types. Yeah white castle. Yeah, I could do a couple of those for sure But I like a normal like restaurant burger. I don't think I could really swing to patties. How about you? Yeah Yeah, I I guess I was thinking about it from the fast food perspective the the the motivation for this actually came from I saw a Wendy's menu
00:05:24
Speaker
I don't know if you guys have seen like a Wendy's menu recently, but it's just like it's exponential like on the number of patties and different types of meat that they have like stack onto it. And it's so far beyond anything. Same.
00:05:40
Speaker
They kind of get aggressive with it, like, oh, do you want, it's like one, two, three, and then heaven forbid you actually look at the calorie count for this. Yeah, don't do that. It's like two days worth of calories in one of those sandwiches alone. That sounds, hear me out, that sounds efficient.
00:05:56
Speaker
The human body. Yeah, because what you do, you'll eat those and then you'll feel so horrible, you're going to sleep until the calorie count evens out. So maybe that's why they do those things. But real talk, who is actually eating one of those triple burgers? That is way too much. With like bacon and cheese between every slice and like not a vegetable to be seen. Oh no, not in the same zip code for sure. No.
00:06:25
Speaker
It's like drizzled in sauce and probably with like a slice of like just like a chicken fillet on it for no reason also. Why don't you not just get two sandwiches at that point? I like bread, honestly. I mean, I do. You say that there's only four slices of meat. I'm going to get two sandwiches. It's like in my games when they say ratio, I'm like, yeah, it's the ratio of meat to bread to other toppings.
00:06:47
Speaker
Well, they're just trying to watch their carbs, you know, trying to ease up a little bit. So just put it all together. Although I will say I used to eat when I went to five guys more frequently, which wasn't that
LAN Parties: Social Dynamics and Activities
00:06:59
Speaker
frequently to begin with. But I would get the regular burger, which is two patties and just like a gargantuan amount of toppings. But nowadays, I don't think I could do that. That is like
00:07:10
Speaker
way too much. And also for if I'm moving around and actually burning those calories, that would make more sense. But it's not the case right now. I think that's the better mix, though, is like if you wanted a burger to go hard, I'd rather it goes hard on the toppings than like multiple patties, because that's the downside to like a Wendy's meat burger is you take a bite and it is
00:07:35
Speaker
conservatively 5% bread and like 95% meat. Um, and I don't know, like, I kind of like a nice classic with vegetables, you know, hamburger. Sure. A with and not a without. Yeah. That's fair.
00:07:54
Speaker
Don't get that Philly joke, but, um, that's pretty much the way the whiz wit was waiting. That's where it's at, man. So also, uh, who the fuck is this guy who just walked into our podcast? I have no idea. We haven't done intros in a bit. Who are you and how do you know? How'd you get here? How do you know us? So I, I, uh, saw this zoom link posted on Reddit, comment thread, and I jumped in here. Uh, I'm Eric.
00:08:23
Speaker
friends with, with Jake and Dave here, which is a college buddy of you hooligans. That's true. Yeah. And post college buddy. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, post college acquaintance enough to the point to let me loiter and ride your coattails into internet success. That is
00:08:46
Speaker
That is where we are headed with this. If you enjoyed your time with Eric on this episode, check out his new podcast. Right. It just like explodes like the most popular. I got to make something so I can plug it here real quick. Just make something paint, slap it down on Facebook. Call it a day. Yeah, I feel you kind of you kind of underselling selling it. I know I've talked to
00:09:14
Speaker
to Dave about this, but, um, so like the main function or the core of the discord server is essentially land party. Like that is basically what it's about. I named it kind of funny. It's basically about land party. Um,
00:09:31
Speaker
And I think I told Dave this in confidence, so I'll just say it here on the internet. But if I ever die, you're my candidate to take over the Discord server. Oh my goodness. What an honor. Godfather of the Discord server. Yeah. Eric, you give me the word. We'll make it happen. That is a wow. Well, thank you very much. But yeah, the rationale for that, the reason for it is for the people who are out there that don't know us. Statistically, that's zero of our listeners.
00:10:01
Speaker
Like Eric is the founder and pusher of land party. If we ever got like too, too much, we're just like over here, like doing spreadsheets and business stuff. Maybe it's just me with the spreadsheets. I don't know. Um, he's just like, no, stop it. Stop it. Drink game. Here you go. Repeat and talk somewhere in there. Yeah.
00:10:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's good times. I'm glad we're still able to do it here too, even though it's been virtual, but we're still able to get together, which is really nice. And that's what's important because I mean, we've been doing this, I think I've been hosting it since either 2009 or 2010. I forget exactly when we started hosting it privately because we did it at college. We had one land party each semester. And then to fill that gap,
00:10:54
Speaker
between those semesters, I just, when I was still living at home, we had a house with a big open basement. It looks like it was a rancher that had giant one room basement pretty much. It was just perfect for stashing like 30 computers in. And once we figured out which outlets went to which circuits and which circuits not to overload and everything. And it was like, Oh, this is fantastic.
00:11:19
Speaker
Yeah, it was a good time doing all that and i'm looking forward to eventually getting back to in person. Oh, yeah Yeah, that'll be really great to do again. Hopefully hopefully in Lancaster Yeah, well that'd be convenient for me But but we'll see I guess that's right. Just you nobody else Yeah, no, no one else that will be nearby or moved there by that point but i've also had the opportunity to go to some public land parties as well and those can be
00:11:46
Speaker
quite hoppin' occasions, because there's some that's, there's actually one that's gonna be hosted when it starts up again. Oh yeah. Pretty much in Reading here, right in Why Missing? And then there's another one that usually shares venue space with the Too Many Games convention over in Oaks. Gotcha. And whenever they start those again, I'll probably be hooting and hollering about all those, because doing it in public is a lot of fun and, um,
00:12:15
Speaker
Yeah. Talk about land party, right? Land party, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are you guys talking about? I thought we were talking about land party the whole time. I'm confused. How do you like the social vibe of essentially doing pubs and experiencing live actual people who you don't know at the gate? They may actually kill you if you kill them in a video game.
00:12:43
Speaker
Very interesting dynamic because in the same way that when we go in person and you already know everybody and you have that bond, it's like, all right, we're all here for video games. We're all having a great time. Everyone's laughing. Some people are drinking. We're just giggling our faces off.
00:13:02
Speaker
You you go into the public lands with that mindset already of okay i'm going to spend the next 48 ish hours with uh 299 of my new best friends for the next two days Everyone is just having a great time Some people can be a bit more reserved but others can certainly be boisterous and just have an absolute blast and as long as you take part in
00:13:27
Speaker
Some of the different community events like they'll of course there's lots of tournaments if it's a good land They'll do all sorts of silly side events that will get you out of your seat It's it's a great time like the one in It was in like Lancaster area and now it's going to be in Reading One of this they would have a bunch of video game tournaments, but they had trivia contest they had an onion eating contest which was probably the most hype event of everything and
00:13:55
Speaker
Are these raw onions? I have to ask. They were raw onions. I think it was like a sweet onion that's like the size of a kickball or something. And the one dude ate it in like 60 seconds flat and other people were like just losing their lunch over this stuff. And they had a mouse throwing contest as well. That was very fun.
00:14:19
Speaker
Live or USB? A computer mouse. You had to throw it. It was probably like 30 feet or so and
Memorable LAN Party Experiences
00:14:28
Speaker
there was like a target. Whoever got close to that target, you win some fun door prize or something along with the raffles and all sorts of other stuff.
00:14:36
Speaker
What's weird is like I feel I could do that one. Right? Like I feel like I know the weight of my mouse enough to place it at a distance. But do you want to throw your actual computer? No, no, I definitely want to keep that because it's actually they provide ones for you for that one. That's good. But they do all sorts of raffles and other nonsense. And I like to try to emulate some of that for the private lands as well, just because it's
00:15:04
Speaker
You know, we can still we still have our tabletop that usually take that's more often taken over for some of the more recent lands and we have a few I try to do a few of the tournaments with some small prizes just to keep things more interesting here, but I Would highly suggest if you enjoy private lands look at local public lands as well and invite all your friends Yeah, I mean
00:15:32
Speaker
It would definitely be a step outside of my comfort zone, but we already have some plans for that. I mean, we moved recently, which I think was mentioned here at some point. Um, and we know there's like a game store nearby. Um, and we've never really had a game store. I know like we've had.
00:15:48
Speaker
friends that would go for Friday Night Magic or something like that, which I imagine is really cool. Some people go for D&D. I don't know. That's a little bit much for me. I love D&D. I don't know if I could play it with like randoms. Yeah. Because some people are into weird stuff.
00:16:06
Speaker
And I'm like, when I'm running D&D, I'm like, all right, no weird stuff. That's the first rule. And if you need me to, I can define that rule, actually. But hopefully you know what I mean. But yeah, I get what you're saying with the LAN party thing. I think the closest I came to a public LAN was Magfest.
00:16:28
Speaker
They had a LAN one year. It was just like a room completely full of computers, a bunch of sweaty nerds, and people are having crazy time. It's really cool. When we did Magfest stuff, they had it broken out in Dealers Hall, where it just buy a bunch of merch. They had an arcade for more stand-up actual arcade machines. But then they have a LAN center, where it just has different types of consoles set up with
00:16:53
Speaker
selection of games you run to controller by just loading them your badge for a little bit and I played like Soul Calibur 3 with a stranger for like 20 minutes nice guy got my ass beat really hard but then we fist bumped and fucked off and I was like that was a nice time and you can just go and play with people or just experience some retro stuff but a lot of people have the same mindset are there which is cool
00:17:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's what's great about public lands and gaming conventions like that. Yeah, MagFest, I know, did some. There's DreamHack, that's like, I think they do down in Texas and then a few other places. And also in Texas is QuakeCon. I don't know if PAX does bring you in computer lands or exactly.
00:17:38
Speaker
but those are some of the major ones, but there's other local ones that I had mentioned. It's called Fightsland and RGBland are the Pennsylvania ones. Gotcha. Okay, nice. Hopefully I can be closer and maybe check out one of those. Oh, you'll hear me. You will hear me hollering about those as soon as a date gets sent out. That's for sure. Hell yeah.
00:18:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's something to be said for like that social environment too. I know we've got other topics to hit, but like now I'm thinking about the psychology of land parties and you mentioned this, it's like all of these people and you don't have all of these barriers between you that you usually would. And like, I have been to some events that are like that, like church camp or something like that. You know, everybody's there for the same reason you're there.
00:18:27
Speaker
And so you kind of like don't have ice in the same way that you usually would to break and actually like talk to somebody.
00:18:37
Speaker
That's a really cool vibe. I assume concerts are like that too, or 100%. Yeah. It's like going to church, basically. It's like a religious experience, because everybody's there to see the same band.
LAN Parties vs. Concerts: A Social Comparison
00:18:52
Speaker
It's not people like, I like music. What's playing tonight? And they show up. Right. The radio. We got tickets. We play in weeks in advance. And then you get to hear the songs that you love from a band that you love.
00:19:03
Speaker
And then you're just vibing with those people who were like, one part of this song, and then everyone sings the lyrics to it. And if you like mashing, there's that too, depending on the band.
00:19:15
Speaker
In orchestra, it's always a little weird. Bro, my tux got ripped. I would say, Jake, for you, definitely check out some stuff. Because even if it's weird, you don't like it, you then know you don't like it and you can find something else. But a lot of times you find, more so often than not, it's, oh, that was a cool thing. I didn't know that I would like that.
00:19:44
Speaker
Right. Now you have some local friends who are maybe playing some board games or something else at the game shop.
00:19:52
Speaker
You walk in, give them the finger guns. They're like, hey, what's up, Jake? Yeah, give them the finger. You know, friendly gesture amongst friends. Yeah, finger them. Friendly gesture amongst friends. That's one way to make it memorable. Nice to meet you. Do you guys have any positive standout memories from a LAN or gaming socialization
Video Games and Personal Connections
00:20:17
Speaker
events? No. No, just kidding.
00:20:22
Speaker
I can answer immediately. I see that Eric's in his thoughtful post. Yeah, you go and then I'll throw it to Eric. I've had a lot of good ones. Very few of them actually have anything to do with video games, though. And I think that that's become more the case as
00:20:39
Speaker
life goes on. I enjoy the video games and sometimes I'm frustrated if everyone else is talking and no one will play the video games when I want to play the video games. But at the same time, like one time at LAN party, we were outside by the pool and literally just, I mean, like I don't drink, so I was sober.
00:20:58
Speaker
or having a heart-to-heart discussion about life stuff. It didn't require anything to lift inhibitions. It was just like, hey, under the stars, let's just talk about serious topics for a bit.
00:21:18
Speaker
My memory is terrible, so if I remembered that, then it had to be meaningful, if that means anything. But not necessarily what you expect when you go to a LAN party to play video games and eat cookies. To be fair, I did eat some cookies, and I was pretty drunk, but I did appreciate that three-hour conversation. Right, yeah. On my end, there's a few. Between looking at the private ones, I'd certainly say
00:21:50
Speaker
One of my favorite things is always just doing the, the opening shot to just start off the ceremony. It's, it's great. Just getting, getting everyone hyped together. That's always so much fun to do. Um, and one of the, I think it was like right about when Overwatch came out. So it was probably like 2016 or 2017. Yeah. We were all, we were playing around and, um,
00:22:18
Speaker
I got, it was like one of the last games that we played at the LAN, one of the last matches, and I got a tourbillon play of the game, and I started getting, like I got a card too at the end, and I was like, all right, if I don't get 12 votes, LAN's canceled. 12 votes pop up. Nailed it. LAN's back on. That's amazing. For public ones,
00:22:45
Speaker
The first time I went to a public land at RGB land, I was volunteering there and helping out. And I also competed in a bunch of tournaments.
00:22:57
Speaker
I'm trying to think here. I got in second place in one of the Counter Strike tournaments and it was like they had an arms race tournament. I got in second place and the guy that got first place we cherry picked to go on our five on five team, which won first place. That was pretty exciting. And they had for all the stuff you did, you got points for the weekend and the top
00:23:20
Speaker
20 ish people points wise got to compete in the MVP tournament and I got to that stand for I Don't know. I forgot. I fell asleep during that class minimum viable product. Yes And I was able to get second place in that tournament and that was that was just really really exciting being a part of
00:23:44
Speaker
for the first time, attending a land, not worrying too much about, okay, what all is going on? Are people gonna be...
00:23:52
Speaker
playing games where people are going to be doing this or that or, you know, all the things that come with hosting and hosting an event like that. And now I can be a participant. And it was just a really, really memorable experience the whole weekend. Absolutely enjoyed it. And because of that, I was like, I got to do this all the time. And that's what picked up my interest in doing some more of the public ones too.
00:24:18
Speaker
Yeah, that's the origin story. Pretty much, yeah. I'm waiting for the next RGB LAN, because that was a fourth one. They're waiting to do the fifth one still. I guess it'll be, wow, it'll be three years this June since they hosted. I wonder why. They're lazy. I'll say it. Yeah. I'm hoping to get another chance at the MVP title, get the ultimate redemption story.
00:24:44
Speaker
Heck yeah. That'd be pretty sick. You'd be like, remember me? Well, you will. I also have to issue a correction really quickly with the Urban Dictionary. It's actually Most Visible Penis. Oh, okay. Put your goddamn cock on. I wish I remembered the Dave Chappelle sketch that was from. Well, you shall take my word on it, but I'm pretty sure it's from that. Yeah.
00:25:14
Speaker
It sounds like a Dave Chappelle sketch. I think mine would have to be just.
00:25:22
Speaker
It's not like a specific, like one thing. It's more of every time we go, we create dumb, funny memories. And then that feeds into the next year or the next one and the next one, the next one. So like at this point we have like a whole host of like, remember the one time that Justin yelled, Deska was like really drunk and slept under a tape. We have stuff like that for everybody. And I love that like that legacy lives on and it's like a fun ongoing meme.
00:25:52
Speaker
It's just like the legacy that gets built up that I love. We need a lore master for these lands at this point. Yeah, you could have like a...
00:26:02
Speaker
Specific date and he like here's like a highlight of something I've tried to keep a little bit of a summary on some of the past lands With this one website that That I was working on with AJ for a little bit we had a little section just like here's a snippet about this land and so on just so I
00:26:26
Speaker
Could remember and if I ever got off of Facebook Which I did then I won't be able to look at some of the past events and be like, oh, when do we do this? What happened this time? Right so on So it's kicking around somewhere, but we don't have like a fan Wikipedia page just that's what I'm saying That's what I was gonna suggest to those out there listening with the position is open and
00:26:50
Speaker
You already mentioned just Justin and like we call him wikis and pie for different reasons. So I don't know if he would accept this responsibility as well, but it definitely would be a format that would be good for it. I think. Oh, absolutely. Just saying he already has a server hosting the discord bots. So I don't know. That's true. That's true. Yeah. He's got, he's a network man. Now he can be the lore master to the man of many hats. Yeah. It's got a lot of hats.
00:27:18
Speaker
TF2 style, I like it. Hopefully they sell for high value too. He's got like buds. Yeah, just a crate full of them. What was it? A towering pile of hat, I think was one of those TF2 hats really like that. Oh my goodness. Just a bunch stacked on top of each other. I remember I had a hat that had a rubber duck that floated around the top of it. You got an unusual.
00:27:46
Speaker
Yes. So for $75 now, quite a few steam games. Yeah, that's probably a good deal. The market crashed eventually. Yeah. It was like, uh, NFT 0.1 is the unusual hats. Uh-huh. That's really funny. Digital currency is just, it's a, it's a fascinating field. I know that there's literally analysts and people who only operate within digital currency now.
00:28:14
Speaker
And I'm not even talking about cryptocurrency. Obviously, people operate in that, but like for games and things like that. And it blows my mind. Does does Eve online do like a virtual currency? Yeah, yeah, they have ask, which which is actually kind of funny because it's like the Icelandic currency as well. It's also just their local currency. They're like, yeah, I put it in the video game. I thought it was just space currency because a lot of tabletop games that are space themed have is because the currency as well.
00:28:43
Speaker
Yeah. Well, it could be a, um, maybe it's a coincidence. I'm not sure. Does Iceland have a space program we don't know about? If there was a lore master for the podcast, they could look this up for us. Um, but yeah, they, uh, they, they, they definitely do that. It's really funny actually, because it's almost presumptuous, um, to be like, okay, far future.
00:29:04
Speaker
far-flung space civilization. And in fact, the portal that they used to get there was destroyed, the Evegate in this case, and they're completely separated from mankind. What currency would they use? The US dollar. And you're like, okay, yeah, sure. I know Second Life had a big virtual currency thing too, and you could like buy and sell their virtual currency so people would
00:29:31
Speaker
they would make things or make experiences in Second Life. And that would be like their job because you could turn a profit on some of that stuff. Make a cool digital shirt and sell it for digital money and trade it for real money. That's so crazy to make, to be like, I understand like
00:29:52
Speaker
you can create something within something else and it'll still have value. Like if you make digital art, it's still art. Um, and so globally accessible, but to have something as niche is like, it's just in the game where people are like, yes, right. But like I've bought cosmetics before and that's essentially what that is. Yeah.
00:30:14
Speaker
Yeah, I guess so. It's not crazy. Like particularly if it's a game you spend a lot of time on, you're just like, Oh, this would be, this would be really cool. It's just vanity. It's all vanity, but you know, what's wrong with that? You know, show something off. I don't wear a mono, mono color shirts with no design on them. I don't wear plain white tees all the time. Maybe with a Supreme shirt on. The Supreme brick is, is just out of camera frame here.
00:30:41
Speaker
Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. No, it's fun, though. Yeah. There's a lot of good games out there, a lot of interesting games out there. And I know you guys always like talking about your favorite games that you like to play. But the real reason that I jumped onto this show. Uh-oh. Well, OK, the second real reason, the first real reason, like I said, is to ride your internet fame into success. The second reason. You're going to have to make a job. Yeah.
Worst Video Games Discussion
00:31:10
Speaker
The second reason was to ask what are some of the worst games that you guys have played slash owned? Because you guys always talk about some of the best games and so on. I was curious what your thoughts were about that. And I can open it up if to give you guys a moment to think too. I would appreciate the moment for sure. And Jake, just for our purposes, I'm going to say we should discount anything that
00:31:36
Speaker
Is below the steam refund time this has to be something we've actually put some time over two over two hours over two hours Okay. All right. Well, my first idea for that then might be invalidated because i've owned it I don't remember buying it because it was so old. It was quest 64 Way back in the day for for n64. It was a
00:31:57
Speaker
a really nice looking but incredibly boring rpg back in i think it said 1998 it was released i was very the the opening sequence you're in this like giant tower and it's like oh we gotta do this thing run to this village to go talk to a generic person and you run down this tower for like 10 or 15 minutes before anything actually happens it's like
00:32:24
Speaker
something out of that like a Monty Python movie where it just goes on forever and ever. And it kind of was like a warm up for how the game operated. Go talk to this guy. Run for 15 minutes. Go talk to this other guy. Run for 15 more minutes. Fight this person.
00:32:40
Speaker
When you're like 10 years old, you're trying to have fun, not run. DayZ wasn't a concept yet, so the running simulator idea wasn't really, it was a little too soon for its time. But the worst game that I've bought and played for more than two hours, regretfully, was Duke Nukem Forever.
00:33:02
Speaker
Oh, I was a good answer so so excited because I've I owned Duke Nukem zero hour Play Duke Nukem 3d. I was like, oh man, this is gonna be great And then I kept waiting and waiting and waiting and finally got it and I was like, okay It's gonna be awesome and after like the two-hour load times I played through some of it and it just felt like a game that you already played four years ago it just it was just
00:33:32
Speaker
dated and slow and it was sad because it's Duke Nukem. It had funny writing, but it took you like 20 minutes to get from one bit to the next.
00:33:47
Speaker
Yeah, I remember that. If I can piggyback off that, while I still think of my own answer, because I remember playing Dick Newcomb forever. And I also don't remember if I ultimately beat it or not. And there was like an occasional moment where it's just like the writing was great. This was kind of a hilarious joke or they just undermined the genre or something like that. But part of the problem I think it had was like it was trying to riff off of all of these popular shooters and like make fun of them.
00:34:13
Speaker
But then like gameplay wise, it wasn't a better game, right? So it's just like taking cheap shots, but not really backing it up. It didn't have any actual reason to stand on its own feet there. It's just like, okay, I get that you're making fun of Halo, but also it's more playable than this. So like what am I supposed to do here? And it's just some weird moments too. Also in the story, it's just really weird tonal shifts and things.
00:34:44
Speaker
I did think of a game, if Dave's still thinking. I mean, I have one, but I was going to continue because I figured Duke Nukem Forever was not also yours. Yes, I won't by coincidence. No, I didn't. Completely on that. Literally have a start for it. Maybe we'll leave this and maybe we won't. Who's to say? But, um,
00:35:14
Speaker
I was thinking about console games. I was like, Oh man, there's gotta be some bad console games that I didn't play, but I was kind of blessed. We got an N64 with like golden eye and like Majora's mask and Ocarina time. And like all of these great games is like, none of these are, none of these are bad. Um, so I have to go with like an esoteric, almost PC game, but like graveyard keeper, um, which is literally like a graveyard simulation game.
00:35:44
Speaker
And it's one of the few games that I've ever given a negative review on Steam. And I played the game for like 40 hours. So I literally beat the game, and then I thought about it for a second. And I went back and I left a negative review.
00:36:06
Speaker
But I don't know. Maybe you guys have had this type of experience. Have you ever had a game that was like in the moment? You're like, this could be leading somewhere. And then you get like a tidbit and you're like, okay, I think this next part is leading somewhere. And you get like a tidbit and you're like, I think maybe, and it's just enough to string you along until the end. But at the top of that peak, you look back and you realize like all this drops, like none of it meant anything. And it was completely pointless.
00:36:35
Speaker
Oh, yeah. 100 percent. Like the one I'm going to do is to put on the execution block is help point alpha, which is an actual souls like, but it's futuristic space themed. To be fair, a lot of the things were pretty interesting in the game. Gameplay was all right. It had enough to be like, this is an interesting take on it and I want to see where it goes. And I spent like
00:37:01
Speaker
probably 10 hours playing it and then I'm like, game fucking sucks. And I also left a negative steam review because I had an issue where the difficulty got way too high and I had to do some bullshit to get it fixed. And then I played it for another 16 hours and I didn't feel better about it afterwards. I was just trying to scratch the itch of what was my lack of the souls like at the time.
00:37:23
Speaker
Right. This is desperation. It was the souls like any port in a storm. And it just made me mad that certain things it was fairly lacking in. And I was like, this is blasphemy. So I did actually leave a review for it. But blasphemy was a better game. 100%. It was really cool-faming Spanish calve.
00:37:46
Speaker
Yeah. I'm trying to think outside the outside of that, like old games, maybe like army men one was just very difficult to play. This is like the toys games, right? Yeah. Very difficult to play. You kind of just died if you got shot. It was kind of like America's army now that they think about it. But I mean, did you mind it at that age?
00:38:13
Speaker
But I'm pretty sure you were the one talking. We're back from technical difficulties. We don't know what's going on.
00:38:18
Speaker
I'm just hitting the lag switch constantly. I need to save that for when we play Smash. Um, that's fair. But I was saying, did you mind it at the time, like the gameplay of army men or just looking back, you're like, Oh, it's kind of dated. I think I just cheated. I just went to like cheat code central.com and I was like, this game's too hard and vulnerability reveal fog of war. Call it a day. I was a little kid and, uh, since the pride and accomplishment wasn't enough to drive me forward.
00:38:47
Speaker
That's fair. I did that on Starcraft campaign very soon. Operation Sea Wall. Power Overwhelming. And Radio Freezerg if you didn't have music to listen to. So Eric.
00:39:08
Speaker
I was so ready for the clap. Uh, nobody actually did anyways. Uh, we're back once more. You guys probably didn't notice we left. That's a little hurtful, but we were talking about army men or something probably doesn't matter anymore. Kids play dumb games. I definitely did cumbersome controls. Yeah. Very true. Um, but
00:39:36
Speaker
Nothing changed. I still play games that are bad. Speaking of, what are your guys' thoughts on Overwatch 2?
00:39:47
Speaker
We have a time limit. Well, I know Eric's a big Overwatch guy is a fan who's excited for two coming out and what they're going to change with it. I very much like it as a social game with people, but I don't seek it out. And I think Jake will also play with people, but also is more a fan than I am. Yeah. I guess we went to, we went to the grand finals.
00:40:13
Speaker
So that does mean something, you know. Do you guys still have the jerseys? Yeah. Still got it. Nice.
00:40:20
Speaker
From a esports fan perspective, I hate Overwatch 2 because they roll out this game and say, hey, check this out. We're going to make the sequel to this game in three years. So who cares what happens now? See you guys in a little bit. It's a great way to alienate your fan base. And then you look at games on the other end like League of Legends, Dota, Counter Strike.
00:40:46
Speaker
Even Rainbow Six Siege, they're not working on their sequels. They're not trying to roll out a new product. They're enhancing the existing product. It's not like you don't have baseball 2 coming out. It's going to fix everything or anything. Baseball 1 has kind of been around for a bit. They need to patch it at the very least, I think.
00:41:09
Speaker
Well, for any sports fans out there, they did actually release the equivalent of a patch where for baseball, it's kind of weird. You have the American League and the National League and in the National League, if you were a pitcher, you had to also go to bat.
00:41:26
Speaker
And pitchers are notoriously poor hitters. But in the American League, you had someone else that jumped in and bat for you. And now they decided, you know what? No more pitchers going to bat. So now the pitchers no longer have to hit. And that's the latest patch for baseball. Quick, quick sports side note that actually makes sense, though. Like if I'm a goalie.
00:41:53
Speaker
Let me do my fucking thing. Don't put me out there. And my job is, our batter's going up the pitch like, it's your turn, Timmy.
Baseball Rule Changes Compared to Video Game Updates
00:42:01
Speaker
I know you've been practicing the swings, but you gotta do your overhand now. Yeah.
00:42:07
Speaker
Yeah, I have no I'm a weirdo then because I um, I I like watching the uh Not really. I don't really like watching pitchers try to hit because usually They're like I said very very poor hitters But I think it's an important part of the game for things like hockey and whatnot You know, you're not you're not going to have a goalie trap go out there and shooting but for baseball It's like you're playing on one side of the field make them play on the other side of the field
00:42:33
Speaker
It's just I don't know. That's just my perspective, but it's it's what you need to Keep people actually watching the games because usually when the pitcher comes up to bat, it's like oh cool bathroom break. Here we go, right? And I guess maybe that was that was a great segue Maybe that's what they're dealing with with overwatch too, you know, like
00:42:55
Speaker
I feel like as an e-sport, it was doing pretty well, I feel, maybe. The announcement of Overwatch 2 definitely put a damper, dampener on everything, and then not delivering Overwatch 2 in any reasonable amount of time. My ideal announcement to deliverable is within a year, I think. Yeah, absolutely. Ideally the same fiscal year, actually.
00:43:20
Speaker
January, February, whatever comes out in November. That's a decent amount of time. I think Oblivion was announced within like five months, six months, something like that. It was like Gamescom straight up into November. And I was like, dang, I don't have time to not be excited for this anymore. Whereas Overwatch 2 is the exact opposite of that. It's like it's it's been in the pipe forever. Yes, there was a global pandemic in the middle, but
00:43:48
Speaker
probably the biggest factor was they were trying to distract away from the time it was the Diablo fiasco, I guess. Man, I sure hope the Diablo fiasco is the worst thing they have to deal with. Yeah, right. Looking back on it doesn't seem nearly as bad compared to everything.
00:44:10
Speaker
Um, maybe for the next one, they'll just in a few months, I'll say, Oh, overwatch three's coming out 2025 before two launches. He's going to smother it. No, it's freaking ridiculous. They might at this point. It wouldn't surprise me. Blizzard.
00:44:29
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I'm excited for it. Terrible graphics. Gameplay is awful. 10 out of 10. Reprehensible staff. I play it every day. They're rolling out the, uh, beta for that soon, right? Yeah. They're going to have to close beta. Um, it's going to have, um,
00:44:51
Speaker
Sojourn, Sojourn, Sojourn, Sojourn, Sojourn. Sojourn, I think is the way to say your name. One more time. Sojourn. Oh, OK. It's Torbjorn, female. Oh, OK. Yeah. Are they giving her a similar kit? I have no idea what she does. Looked at anything for this character. I don't actually know if we have any information about what she does. Does she have a hat like Bastion does? Because that is paramount to the gameplay.
00:45:19
Speaker
That's what we should do. We should get Paramount to fund Overwatch and get some content in here. I will say I'd be with Yellowstone and Bar Rescue. Uh-huh.
00:45:30
Speaker
I got to say, I do miss the days of a new hero coming out, a new character. And then everyone would gather around whichever computer was there. This is usually at work at the time over a lunch break. And people would be like, oh, these are the abilities. And then we talk about the possible meta shifts and synergies. And it was really fun. Oh, yeah. And you hop on Discord, you'd be like, do you see the new character? And then again, you talk about it the whole evening. It's exciting to see a game that you love have a major shift.
00:45:58
Speaker
I guess the sports equivalent is like this team's getting a new player or some other major change. Yeah. This guy's cheating and no one's got him yet. How long can we write this? No. Yeah, I do
Skepticism about Overwatch 2 and Gaming Community Impact
00:46:14
Speaker
miss that. And it's a saddening fact that like recently Overwatch has had about as many
00:46:21
Speaker
Content updates as Heroes of the Storm has. It's around the same number of released heroes across the last year or two. So it's like, this doesn't really feel like your AAA product that you're still supporting as much. I think I've seen more recent content updates for Team Fortress 2. Yeah, right. That's a little telling. Yeah.
00:46:48
Speaker
It's almost cheating, though, because Valve can literally be like, hey, community, do you like all that free stuff you're making? Like, can we just use some of that? OK, cool. Let's package it together, ship it out. Here's a custom map. I think that's what it was, too. I mean, it works, though, right? Like, it is fresh content for the community. I wish people could. I mean, I guess Workshop exists, but it's not feeding into the mainstream line gameplay of Overwatch. No.
00:47:15
Speaker
I mean, I think left for dead two had a map that was player made that eventually got added. Yeah. It's a cold, whatever stream river, something like that. Yeah. You actually got it and you nailed it cold, whatever stream river or something like that. Uh, this was Ellis. Ellis was saying the name of the map. Yeah. No, it's a, it's a way to do it. Realistically though. Like, are you guys going to play overwatch too?
00:47:47
Speaker
I probably will, reluctantly. And then I'll go, oh, it's been so bad. But I don't know. As long as I think the main driver, the same thing with regular Overwatch is, you know, are the boys on? You know, I want to play games with my friends. Right. Yeah, sure. Overwatch too. Let's try it out. I'm not playing this for you, Blizzard. I'm playing it for them. Do it for them. Do it for the boys.
00:48:12
Speaker
Yeah, I'm in the same boat. I also am a little bit excited for the PvE stuff, because I don't know, I legitimately, as I get older and older, I find petting my will against that of another human being is less and less interesting. And I'm just like, ah, just shuffle into my corner and re-confite bots. So I guess we're not playing Smash tonight.
00:48:35
Speaker
I mean, I understand that though. And their PvE content has been pretty fun. Like I like when they do little events of like, hey, you have your four people against the bots. Yeah. And they actually make it interesting and challenging. It's a nice fun little event to do as a break from PvP gameplay. I feel like if they put the effort into that, like because those were passable to good, I think is how I would rate them. But like if they're literally putting that effort into like a PvE campaign, then like
00:49:04
Speaker
Sweet. Awesome. You can leave the multiplayer, the PvP similar, which they are for the most part, it seems like outside of making it 5v5. So like, I don't know. We'll see how it is, I guess. But if people play it, I'm probably also going to play it, especially if Microsoft gives me some ethical footing that I can stand on. I mean, that would definitely help.
00:49:28
Speaker
But as far as other games that at least don't currently have a scandal to know of, how do you guys feel about any recent games or upcoming games?
Excitement for Upcoming Games
00:49:42
Speaker
I am.
00:49:44
Speaker
thinking the last game that I bought is oh man I don't even know it has been a long I think the last the most recent game I've picked up is Doom Eternal I am far behind on the latest in gaming so I'd have to lean on you guys a little bit here
00:49:59
Speaker
That's fair. I know a certain little bird. You told me that they were excited for another Horizon game that came out recently. Oh, yes. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I got to come out from under my rock and I got to check out that Horizon Forbidden West because Horizon Zero Dawn was banging big fan. Yeah, it's got stuff. It's probably the most recent game that I put, like I put like 50 hours into that. And I can't remember the last time I did that for an adventure game or something like that. Right. Yeah.
00:50:30
Speaker
I will get back to it. I've got a lot going on right now. And then Elden Ring is plenty fine whenever I play in a single player game. But it is, it is definitely on the list. It's just the shadow of Elden Ring. You don't think a ring should cast a shadow as large as it does, right? Because we were just talking about Halo a minute ago. It's not even a solid shape. But yeah, it's hard to think about playing other stuff right now. We'll see though.
00:50:59
Speaker
No, only the entire internet is talking about that game. I know, right? Yes, it's like, okay. Recommendations are all over it. It's like, it's literally throwing me videos that are like, oh yeah, there's like 700 views for some guy who kills another guy in PvP. And like, nothing interesting happens in YouTube. It's like, this is for you. Enjoy, consume, consumer. Like, okay, fine. Great algorithm.
Elden Ring Content Saturation Online
00:51:25
Speaker
So you will watch this and you will enjoy it. It searches Elden Ring, takes the top three results and just puts it in my recommended. Yeah. And then it does it every 10 minutes. Where the top results are just the most recent. There's no better qualifying aspect of them. I don't get the body stuff. Who's that guy? It's just...
00:51:44
Speaker
Somebody who uploaded it has two views. They have like 1,000 subscribers. He hasn't made much content for it, actually. He's kind of being outpaced by a bunch of like junior content creators who are doing more stuff right now. Yeah, Yumfa. Yeah. Unrelated, I did watch, I started watching Yumfa's No Walking Dark Souls 3. I don't know what that one is.
00:52:12
Speaker
It's trying to beat Dark Souls 3 without doing anything on the left anaholic stick. Oh. Yeah. That sounds incredibly boring. You do attacks and like weapon animations to move your character. And then you use a bow to like, re-aim yourself.
00:52:30
Speaker
It sounds really dumb when I describe it, but he makes those challenge runs entertaining. I don't know. That is insane. That's where I'm at now. I don't play games I like as much as I watch other people play games that I like in interesting ways. So I enjoy the PvP content for Elden Ring and other stuff.
Farewell and Future Collaborations
00:52:53
Speaker
Live vicariously through other people. That is fair.
00:52:59
Speaker
I'll be honest though, like I don't know what it's going to come out to you after like we see how much audio we lost, but we've been recording for like three or four hours at this point. Um, I'm getting really tired. So I don't know. Thank you, Eric, for coming on the show.
00:53:18
Speaker
Oh, thanks for letting me loiter. It's a wonderful hanging out with you guys. Yeah, it's been good to have you here. Thanks for letting us farm you for content, you know? Anytime. So the seeds of friendship, so that later you can come back and harvest the content.
00:53:38
Speaker
No, it's good. It's great having you on. You're an excellent guest. If we can get you back in the future, I think I speak for myself when I say I would be in favor of it. I won't make Dave make a judgment here on the, while we're live, but you know, it's fine. Puts out the gladiator stuff. The listeners never know.
00:54:01
Speaker
But if you guys out there have any ideas for future episodes or celebrity guests who are desperate enough to perhaps join us on the podcast, in addition to the celebrity guests we got this evening, then please send in those recommendations, send in those CVs to soapstonepodcast.gmail.com or
00:54:22
Speaker
I think, I think Facebook's still around. Facebook.com slash Hopestone podcast. We'll see. I don't know. We'll keep just pushing the link out there and eventually it's just not going to work one day. So as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good night. See ya.