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S3 Ep247: Ranni and the Sucrose Father
76 Plays3 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they talk about the doctor's office, upcoming Elden Ring DLC, the Destiny 2 expansion (briefly), and even more in this week's episode!
Intro:
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Intro:
- Elden Ring OST - Formidable Foe I
- Lightfall OST - Ready to Roll
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Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
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Transcript
Frustration with Wait Times
00:00:27
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soap Zone. My name is Jake, and I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? I'm upsetty spaghetti. Yeah? I had work, and then I had a doctor's appointment, and then I was like, after the doctor's appointment, I'm gonna come home, go to the gym,
00:00:48
Speaker
Eat and then record the podcast and the doctor's appointment is like hey What if we had you waiting for an hour and a half and I'm like that would be so cool. Thank you Right naturally I can I can feel the animosity coming from me to my doctor by the time like he showed up I mean, I know he had other patients and stuff but like the fuck
00:01:12
Speaker
Because I feel like I could actually go back to my previous eye doctor, get seen and come back quicker. It's like a 45 minute drive. Yeah, I mean, an hour and a half is pretty ridiculous. I don't think that should be acceptable pretty much anywhere. One nice thing I've seen on Google is like if you're looking at a place that will say like average wait time.
Google's Wait Time Feature
00:01:33
Speaker
Like we got to get some blood work done pretty soon here. And it's just like the average wait time is like two minutes. And I interpret that as there is no wait time. Right. Yeah. But if I saw a place and it was an hour and a half, I would be considering my life choices. Yeah, it's. I got to find somebody else, I think, because they're usually just a slower office and maybe they are understaffed. I don't know. But.
Time Management at Doctor's Appointments
00:02:03
Speaker
I mean, for me, it bugs me because I could be doing other things and not just sitting on my ass and just waiting.
00:02:10
Speaker
Well, I mean, it's a failure of their business at some capacity, right? Yeah, 100%. Just to rail against small businesses for a bit, you know? They're not small. Not that small. So if you say, hey, we want you to come in at this point, this time for an appointment, there's maybe 15 minutes on the front or the back. Maybe you show up early, and they're like, hey, we can see you early. Awesome. Best outcome possible.
00:02:36
Speaker
show up a little early and it still takes 10 minutes after the time, whatever, within acceptable bounds. But if it's an hour and a half off, what that means is they don't know how to keep track of time, or
00:02:49
Speaker
there's a problem that they're just not addressing in their scheduling process. Like an hour and a half is a long time to be off. So I will say like I was seen for certain things like the initial like you come in, somebody checks your eyes between like two different things. Like I'm fine with like, hey, you have to burn 15, 20 minutes up front and then you get seen and you get moved to another room for another 15 minutes, right? Right. Doctor's office used to that happens. But
00:03:18
Speaker
there was just that period afterwards where I'm just like, okay, and they're like, oh, we're gonna move you into this room and then the doctor will be here shortly. And I have to wait another 25 minutes and like, thankfully I live very close, but like I could have just gone home and you could have texted me, I wanna come back or anything. So, the next time I have that specific doctor, not that office, but that specific doctor, I think I'm gonna come in like a half hour late and be like, what's up?
00:03:44
Speaker
Yeah. And if you're like, why aren't you here? I'll be like, I mean, every time I've been here, like you haven't seen me at the time they told me. So go fuck yourselves. And if they have an issue with that, maybe I just do find a doctor. I don't know.
00:03:58
Speaker
Yeah, but it's happened more than once, and it's it gets under my skin.
Comparison with Car Service Experiences
00:04:03
Speaker
Yeah, this is the degradation of humanity. I was going to. Yeah, I started validating you and then I was like, no, maybe this is the wrong place, because if you come in half an hour late and they still see you, then this does mean that the next person is screwed. And this is this is how it all falls apart. I was the last person seen today. OK, well, there's not a lot for that then.
00:04:25
Speaker
I think forever on that much waiting time, maybe it was slightly less. When I was getting work done on my car, they were like, do you have anybody here? Like, anybody take you back? Like, there was some more stuff they needed to take care of, as is sometimes the case when you get your car in to be inspected. They're like, hey, you're supposed to have two axles. And I'm like, oh, geez. And they're like, well, if you're going to get this extra work done, it might take a bit longer. Do you want us to shuttle you home?
00:04:54
Speaker
And I was like, OK, sure. And so they did that. I like resumed working. I worked in stuff and then they gave me a call up and they're like, well, your car's ready. We'll send out the shuttle. You can come back. And it was just like a lady in a van like that or SUV is what it was. That was it. Just had a nice conversation. We talked about stickers on cars and
00:05:19
Speaker
Yeah, it was like it was probably about that much time. So unless your eye doctor is offering you a shuttle between these these steps, then I think the experience is not as good as it could be.
Service Industry Expectations
00:05:31
Speaker
Yeah. Like we were talking just before the podcast about how I'm very. I don't want to say the term neurotic or controlling, but I don't like having variables that don't need to be there.
00:05:45
Speaker
So, if I have like a schedule, I'm like, oh, I'm meeting somebody for dinner, what time? Six. Okay, then I'll meet you at six. Now, it's fine if you're a little bit early or a little bit late or if you're going to be even later, like you let me know. Cool. If I'm sitting there like dick in a hand until like seven, the police have probably already been called because they're like dick in my hand. You're at the eye doctor. Yeah.
00:06:09
Speaker
And the one I did. Yeah. Is that a joke track? Yeah, it just it bugs me to no end when it's something that can be avoided or worst case, just communicated. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like that's a pretty reasonable baseline. If I go to a I'm not done with this rant, apparently. If I go to a goddamn restaurant, right?
00:06:31
Speaker
And they're like, hey, wait with you shortly. Fine. I'll order a drink. I'll hang out. I'm not like I'm out to be out, right? Right. I'm there to have my food needs catered to. I'm not cooking or doing these dishes. I'm out. I'm paying for the experience. Cool. It's fine if there are delays. If you never talk to me and nobody ever comes up to like take my food order or you take the food order and I don't see for half an hour, we're gonna have a fucking issue.
00:06:58
Speaker
Now I'm not going to be mean in Yale cause I'm very non-confrontational, but like, wait, I can hear it. I can hear it. I refuse to do it to anybody's face. I just behind their back and like, I'm never supporting that business again. Cause it's just like, what the fuck? Yeah, no, I think that's fair.
Poor Service Experiences
00:07:20
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's just service, right? If somebody else does it better or there's an expectation that people should be doing it better then, I mean, it's the vote with your wallet problem if you can, if you have the benefit of being able to pick some place that's going to value your time a little bit more.
00:07:27
Speaker
Um,
00:07:39
Speaker
Because I mean, at the very least, if there was an hour and a half wait, I would expect some rationale to be provided. Not just like, sorry, you took so long. That's that's that's you. That's it's not even baseline at that point. But like I left my cat in the oven, you know, anything like that. Right. Like to just kind of explain or justify why it was taking so long. Maybe you're just like, sorry, the last patient
00:08:06
Speaker
They have like so many issues going on and they just go into like HIPAA violation after HIPAA violation, kind of like justifying everything this other patient had going on. That would be fine. I'm here for that. But like, yeah, if it's nothing and you're just sitting there existing in a blank void watching a soap opera, maybe if you're lucky.
00:08:28
Speaker
that when they were talking about scheduling the next appointment, they're like, hey, is the afternoon or morning? Usually, probably afternoon, so it doesn't collide with work as much. And they're like, how is 130? And I was like, well, how long is the appointment? And that kind of gave me this look like, we don't know. And I was like, OK, then it needs to be later. And they're like, oh, I can't see 345. And I was like, OK.
00:08:53
Speaker
And then the document joke like, oh, but you should probably bring a book. Right. And then I was like, oh, maybe I can just order in some food. So like the tension is there. I think it is understood that I am and I am not happy with how they do stuff.
Positive Dental Experience
00:09:10
Speaker
And like he comes in, he's like, hey, how's it going? Like, yeah, like I've been waiting for you. Let's fucking do this. I can leave. Yeah.
00:09:20
Speaker
The other doctor's nicest by and like if she's late, she's like, hey, sorry about that. So what's going on? Yeah, I'm like, okay, that's fine. Like you've given me the courtesy so I can give you courtesy. Yes. But otherwise, if I'm paying you money and for a service and there's issues with that.
00:09:38
Speaker
I might not be so like smiley and cheery. That's all. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's fair. I had a the counterpoint to this is the last time I went to the dentist, I had to find a new dentist. I don't think I've told this episode on podcast, at least not for the March episode of Talkcast. And so last time I went to the dentist, I had to find a new dentist and I was just like, you know, feeling stuff out, seeing how the process works. People seemed
00:10:06
Speaker
Pretty, pretty energetic. It was a good office, things like that. I also like. So there's plenty of there's plenty of things to dislike about being at the dentist, but dentists and dental assistants, for the most part, are just like the best people.
00:10:23
Speaker
Dental hygienists will always be in my top category of people. Dentists? Depends. Yes. Dentists maybe can be hit or miss. But at this place, they were both freaking great. They're just like, oh, what do you want to watch on TV? And I'm just like, oh, I mean, I'm not ready to answer that question. I don't know. They're just like, oh, you know, we got what was it?
00:10:44
Speaker
Um, MacGyver, there's like, I don't know. Like you just have MacGyver and like, yeah, there's a, there's a 24 seven MacGyver channel. And I'm just like, okay. I guess I, I wasn't sure what pivot TV television needed to take in order to stay relevant in this post internet era. 24 hour MacGyver is apparently what it's at.
Impact of Service Standards
00:11:03
Speaker
Um, and so we like talked about the episode and all this stuff and, uh, and then the dentist showed up and he was the most friendly dentist I've ever seen. He's literally just like, Hey, I mean, you can call me doctor first name, uh, or just first name or whatever. And I'm like, I'm going to say, I like how you didn't docs their first name.
00:11:22
Speaker
Yes. Well, I'm not. Well, I guess that's fair. But I don't want to provide enough clues that someone somewhere can like form a triangle. But they're like, you can like if anything goes on, it's like, here's the follow up, here's a referral. If like these meds aren't working, because I had to have
00:11:46
Speaker
I had to have some what is it? What's the term? The antibiotics. And they're like, oh, yeah, just call us up. He's like, doesn't really matter if it's at night. Like, I'll pick up the phone. I'm just like, OK. Like he's like, yeah, just my personal number. Here you go. Just call. And I'm like, I just showed up. Right. This is a lot for a first visit, but it was like the most accommodating experience.
00:12:17
Speaker
And that was different than your story. So I'm just saying it doesn't have to be that way. Stop going to your eye, doctor. Go to my dentist. There you go. We need to drill out your eyes. OK. As long as they're friendly when they do it, that's all that matters, really.
00:12:39
Speaker
make me pretty Steinman. I think in general, people were expecting just a baseline as far as whatever average they've had across various customer service interactions. So that when it is lacking, you're like, you couldn't even do the fucking bare minimum.
00:12:57
Speaker
And when they go above and beyond at all, you're like, oh, holy shit, they actually give a shit. And that's that's huge. And you really remember that.
Eye Doctor Recommendations
00:13:04
Speaker
Oh, yeah. There is a did you ever grow the shawarma place with us? I'm not sure. Would have been in Allentown. No answer would be no. OK. Well, we used to like go there after like some hikes or more so like when I live closer to the area. But the food was amazing. It was like, I think a family run with like maybe some other employees.
00:13:27
Speaker
but like the main guy who worked there I think was like in his thirties maybe but he was very like a gung-ho, your current boss type of energy as far as like customer service and it just it really showed and like helped the experience because like
00:13:46
Speaker
Even if the food for some reason did not taste good, I'd be like, oh, I enjoyed this person's demeanor so much. Yeah, it made it a nice experience. Yeah. No, it makes a difference. Absolutely does. That's it. I have nothing. I was like, do I have a combo off that? Can I can I keep the conversation going to the 15 minute mark? No, I think 14 minutes about as good as we can do on that one.
00:14:18
Speaker
Yeah, so I need a new eye doctor, so please let me know in the comments if you have an eye doctor. With no information of where I'm at, just think global.
Personal Updates and Gaming News
00:14:29
Speaker
Think global. Think global, but also they need to take my insurance. Rather, my insurance needs to be willing to pay that. There's a difference between the two. Yes, yes, yes. Sorry, I took so long of a tirade. How are you doing? What's up? What have you been up to? I'm doing pretty well.
00:14:48
Speaker
There's stuff like we got to talk about at some point for news for this month, for March, but we usually save that towards the end. I feel like there's some stuff we should mention anyways. Just because there's going to be more between now and the end and we may even get more details for things. Okay. What's on your mind? So there was like a picture and some text that was posted for a game and it's like the Elden Ring DLC.
00:15:23
Speaker
I am excited, one, that it is confirmed. I think everybody was under the assumption it would be. Yeah. And people were making some guesses like, what do you think will be in the Elder Ring DLC? Having literally no, no information. It's Ronnie as a first person shooter. He's just. Dude, I would. Anything Ronnie, I'm a simp for Ronnie. That's that's obvious, but that's fair. I think that's fair.
00:15:43
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was something that happened recently.
00:15:52
Speaker
But did you actually take a look at the picture and did you watch the video? I did. I did. So I actually have seen almost nothing from body since Elden Ring launched because I kind of just fell out of the ecosystem. I was like, ah, his previous video, like it's 47 minutes, but like, holy shit, actually really good. Not that stuff was bad, but like that was really engaging for me. And actually, it ties to this a little bit.
00:16:19
Speaker
But what are your current knee-jerk reactions off of the tweet then? Well, to finish that thought, I did see I did see Votti's video on this one. So they're right under my argument. So I know that the previous video was about Micah.
00:16:37
Speaker
Mikala, Mikalash, host of The Nightmare. I want to say Mikala, and that's that's wrong. Mikala, Mikala is a white girl in the suburbs. Mikala, right. So that's kind of that was that was the theory about who the person on the horse may be. And what like there's an aside, FromSoft really has a thing for like the
00:17:07
Speaker
Androgynous is the wrong word, but like fanboy male, fanboy fanboy fanboy dizzy for like a long freaking time. Certain tropes or things like that just continue to exist, like Dark Sun Gwyndolin being an example of that or in the lineup.
00:17:29
Speaker
all of their games will have like, oh, do you want a massive dragon? You're like, yeah, that'd be kind of cool. Pretty consistent with that. There is like the, I was an adventurer, but I mean, shit sucks. So, hmm. Right. Yeah. And then you're like, well, I'm going to keep dying and progressing in the game, but I'll see you later. And you'll be really pissed about something I did. You're like, see ya.
00:17:54
Speaker
having a lady who helps you level up, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. Emerald Herald from the most popular game in the series, Dark Souls 2. Actually called Green Lady by a certain IGN guide. Oh, yeah. Good. But yeah, I mean, we have almost no details. There's
00:18:14
Speaker
presumably, either two trees or some corruption stuff going on with the tree. And the DLC name is Shadow over Innsmouth or something. I don't know. Shadows of the Earth Tree, I think. Wow.
Speculations on Elden Ring DLC
00:18:26
Speaker
Fucking throwing out the Who's the author who talks about the Lovecraft. HP Lovecraft. Yeah.
00:18:36
Speaker
Which I mean, also tie in through like Bloodborne stuff, but yeah. Shadow of the Air Tree, do you at least do you think it is a prequel or a sequel or an alternate? I mean, it's hard to say because the flow of the flow of time is convoluted in Lordran, as you know. Oh, I'll get the fuck his ties.
00:18:54
Speaker
For anybody who hasn't played these games, we've covered four different FromSoft games in one sentence now. I really don't know. I do kind of... I don't know. The endings go in a bunch of different directions, not spoiling anything particular for Elden Ring. Not that it would matter. For those who listen to our Elden Ring episode, I actually think that the endings are...
00:19:17
Speaker
one of the weakest parts. It's very much just like, I don't really care. The game is done. OK, there's like two Indians that are interesting.
00:19:27
Speaker
There's Ronnie's ending, which I think is cool. Implications and all this stuff. Simp. Simp. Yeah, pretty much simp. Sniper Monkey. And there's Frenzy Flame, which is just super cool looking. And yeah, anyways, I'm about to get to those spoilers again, but it doesn't matter. There's not really a way to reconcile that as far as putting it into post game. And I would think that
00:19:59
Speaker
So I'm going to undermine my own argument. But in the past, I would say FromSoft has done a lot of like just jab the DLC into the middle of the story. The time that this is undermined is Dark Souls 3, actually, where it was very much.
00:20:19
Speaker
We're jabbing the DLC at the end of everything. Hold on now. Hold on now, Sir Jacob, as I put up my Dark Souls three glasses. So the first DLC. Was that Ashes of Ariando? I think so, yes. Yeah. So the first part of it is actually at the church. Hmm.
00:20:45
Speaker
You can you can get into the DLC at the church, which very much like. Let's say that's the first way you went to get the first Lord Soul, right? Pretty early or very much in the midst of the game versus Ring and City, which was very much tacked on at the end. Yes. Although, actually, now that I'm thinking about it, even even the Ring City DLC, the reason it's tacked on at the end is because of time skip.
00:21:16
Speaker
It's not even in the post game like if you beat the game normally It's not like you go on and do the DLC True which is hmm. I didn't think about that. But yeah, so Argument stands like they do DLC in the middle so people can talk about how they would reconcile Potentially different endings and all of that leading into this easy answer. They don't What if they don't?
00:21:44
Speaker
So, I mean, for a lot of stuff that we've had like a painted world, I think community consensus from the, you know, three YouTube videos I've watched, not reading any comments or any forums, etc.
00:21:58
Speaker
The theory is that it's going to be a dream or recollection of an earlier time before like the urge tree came to such prominence, which is why they're showing a young Mikala because when you see Mikala in game, something's wrong, but it's not like the young Mikala that's described throughout the entirety of the lore, whereas on
00:22:24
Speaker
torrent, which if you watch the body video video, torrent was previously Michael is. Yeah, that's that are heavily, heavily believed to be for a number of reasons. So I think it's going to be going back to that. Interesting. So we get to see an earlier time.
00:22:50
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, time travel is actually not just injected in the middle, but literally DLC is time travel is also very popular in the Dark Souls space. Like the Painted World is not literally time travel, but it didn't need to be. The whole point was just take you someplace else entirely. Yeah. And then the second DLC.
00:23:14
Speaker
It definitely has aspects of time travel for the finale, I would say. Understating it to the point where it's basically like false, the way that I said it. And going all the way back to Dark Souls 1, what was the DLC name for that? I know Prepared to Die Edition is the one that baked it in.
00:23:43
Speaker
Crap, I can't remember. But what would have been this stuff with Artorias and Manus? Yeah, I have to look it up. I was really hoping I could remember, but I can't. When I played, it was baked in already. So Artorias of the Abyss. So you were definitely, definitely very close. And you had the operative name in there. That one was also time travel. It was find a golem, kill the golem. There's a girl in it.
00:24:11
Speaker
Now there's a portal. Go through the portal. Okay. The DLC happens. Become friends with the dog. That was, that's, I mean, that's, that's the story of Dark Souls one in summary.
00:24:25
Speaker
So wouldn't surprise me if you're correct on the take here. And I mean, this is one of like four or five of
Exploration of Potential DLC Scenarios
00:24:35
Speaker
bodies theories. I think this one has a pretty good chance of being correct. I'd be fine if I was wrong entirely. But let's presume that I'm correct for all things going forward. What would you like to see out of a time skip back?
00:24:40
Speaker
Um,
00:24:52
Speaker
Interesting. Right. So they have to add new spells and miracles and stuff like that. Dark Souls one. Right. Right. Fair. All of the was so loose, Lucille, Lucille, one of those words, mushroom town, all the spells from that that kingdom. And so I'd expect something like that. Basically, like these would be the old world spells if it's going back in time. More stuff having to do with order.
00:25:25
Speaker
And yeah, I guess I really don't know what the arc is. I almost wonder if this would be something that's like leading into the events of the base game, like a prequel leading into minor spoilers for Elden Ring, but like a destined death. And what if what if we kill what if we kill Godwin?
00:25:52
Speaker
That would make our characters even cooler than they already are at the end of the game. Real talk. I would love to have a Godwin fight at a point because holy fuck, would that be awesome? Yeah. But like post game Godwin.
00:26:07
Speaker
Can you imagine if they release this DLC and then they just add some voice lines where like all of these important characters like you seem kind of familiar and then you go and you do the DLC time skip thing to go back in time and like close the loop and it's you and the assassins in the Night of the Black Knives. And that's the reason that everyone's like you seem familiar. That would be interesting. That would be really good I think.
00:26:35
Speaker
But do you think we'll actually encounter any of the I mean, obviously, besides Mikala being shown there, will you? They're a part of the story, maybe from like a narrative standpoint and just lore wise, not actually seen or interacted with. Yeah. Are there any characters you would like to see pre Elden Ring when we join? I mean, it really depends. Pre rot red on. Right.
00:27:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think man this seems this seems more and more plausible that this is what they're gonna play because There's there's again. I have the entire body backlog to catch up on so maybe this is blatantly wrong But it seems like a lot of time passed between the shattering of the Elden Ring and when the player characters show up Yeah to actually go through the world and
00:27:28
Speaker
I think that's the most likely place this would start. It's just like somewhere around shattering a little bit post shattering. See some some uncorrupted star scourge would be great. Starscream, his name is. And yeah, I mean, potentially you could see depending on when it happens, maybe Ronnie pre doll pre doll phase. Who's to say?
00:27:59
Speaker
Again, Sempin, Sempin for Ronnie, the tagline. This is going to be the episode title at this point, actually. I just thought that was going to be perfect. Sempin for Ronnie. What am I looking forward to?
00:28:18
Speaker
I mean, I would love to see deeper into the world by them showing some more stuff pre everything that happened. Maybe we can get to see a certain Dragon Lord with a third head. Okay. Yeah, that might be too far back, but.
00:28:34
Speaker
I would like to see more of the world fleshed out, but also I would like to have actual Mikola content. So maybe we get to see more stuff about Halig Tree or Halig Tree coming to be or fighting Mikola or something. But also like I want new stuff too. I don't want them to be like,
00:28:59
Speaker
Hey, here's what you know. Here's what it was before. Like, I want some new stuff, too, that introduces questions, theories, concerns. You know, what's going to happen is the intro is going to be a cut scene because this is not generally how Primsoft does things. But the intro is a cut scene and your character is just this hooded figure in an inn and Moog is going to walk in.
00:29:24
Speaker
and be like, I need you to retrieve a package. And that's going to be the plot of the game. It's literally just getting Micola, the whole thing. So it's just one long escort mission. Yes, it literally just retrieved the abduct this person for me. It's going to have a stealth sequence where you have to not be seen by bladed, lazy, millennia.
00:29:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, Blade of Mikala, of course. You can't be seen by her because you have to be able to fight her outside of the DLC. You got to sneak past, and the game has a stealth system. So there's evidence that my theory is correct here. And then you just abduct the child, and you're out. Sounds, yeah. Yeah, that's going to happen. It's as plausible as anything else, I think.
00:30:19
Speaker
I was going to mention another possible pre-boss or pre-character, which would be a snake guy. Snake guy. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Judge Dred. No, what's his name? Red Manor. Rickard. Rikerd. Captain Rikerd. Lord Rikerd, yeah. Yeah. I immediately thought of the sword. I was like, the sword is really good for faith builds. Oh, right. Right. That's not what we're looking for.
00:30:49
Speaker
Yeah, no, there's there'd be a lot of potential for seeing people at like some stage of corruption. Now, the most interesting to me would be if it was the shattering. Right. But I don't think it's going to be that I think it's going to be a little bit more tightly knit. No, I.
00:31:08
Speaker
I think part of the appeal is like knowing there's like a deep lore and kind of having some questions about how specifically everything came to be. Like for everything with... Dear God, I'm just full of brain for it's tonight and normal for it's...
00:31:29
Speaker
Like, as far as there being, like, imperians and having the same mother and father and them being the same person, like, how that plays out, like, I don't need to know all the specifics of that. Certain things can be a mystery, and I like that. Yeah. I really just want new areas because, like, they're designed for everything. It's just that's not a consecrated snowfield, which is largely huge and white.
00:31:59
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I would just take the Haley tree with not full of scarlet rot. That's I'm fine with that. And they can just put the entire game there and I'm fine. Exactly the same.
FromSoft's Storytelling and Design
00:32:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it seems like we're going to have to come back and see how correct or incorrect our theories were if we remember. But like a pre collapse or in the process of collapsing. Realm would be big, because like
00:32:28
Speaker
I can't remember everywhere around the hail tree, but there's so much potential in Elden Ring to be like there was a branch and that entire branch was a land and that land is gone in present day, but it wasn't gone back then, right? Like they show many ways they can do it. Yeah, like maybe there was some submerged thing, but I mean, I guess we need to be accessible then throughout the game to a degree. But also like there is the idea of like
00:32:56
Speaker
We never really get to experience Ronnie's great ruin, do we? Hmm. Hmm. Interesting. So Ronnie is a boss fight, is what you're saying. We're just going to break time. This conflicts with my simpingness. I don't know. Sniper monkey. There's like a lot of places that they could go. I don't think there's any wrong answer as far as that was a bad choice for them to make.
00:33:22
Speaker
I think whatever it is, I'm going to eat up the content and then be like, that was fun. I missed a lot of the important stuff and then watch videos for three years. But I'm just excited that it's going to happen in the same way, like with silk song. I'm just waiting for it to happen so I can experience it. And I'll just be along for the ride. And I don't think there was, um,
00:33:43
Speaker
There was no sort of announcement, right? There was just, or like for a release date, no date, just, Hey, we are doing a DLC. Gotcha. I searched for it real quick and they said, uh, an article says reported, it will be after armored core six, which doesn't really surprise much. Um, but that would put it towards the end of the year, potentially.
00:34:10
Speaker
Oh, I'm going to take back everything I said. It's going to be a Mecca based DLC. Ah, OK. Gotcha. Gotcha. This is this is their transitional piece. They're going to try to get people into the armored core series by like just adding a DLC that is a demo for their other game. Yeah.
00:34:32
Speaker
No, no, anyway, that was where it goes. Yeah, I mean, same. I was thinking about it and I was like, man, I haven't really put that much time into Elden Ring compared to all the other soul series, because like I pretty much had the one play through maybe like one and a half something like that legally binding. If I get you sit on the podcast, can we do a remote play together? We can even have other people as well. But Nate was saying that like it was pretty, pretty good.
00:35:03
Speaker
Yeah, I think we talked about it at one point, and I think it was both. We're both like, that's probably a pretty good idea. I would need to figure out my setup for it, because I don't know if I would want to sit in front of a computer for it. No, I'd probably be fine. Yeah, I think that could be cool. Hopefully they maintain compatibility once the DLC launches, too. But I suspect some of those mods and things like that will need to be patched. Oh, for sure.
00:35:31
Speaker
And then I was going to say to finish that thought, I was like, man, I just haven't put the time into Elden Ring. And then I looked at some point, it was like 120 hours. So I was like, oh, right. Because I did do a play through, so I still put as much time into this as any other JRPG I've ever played. So like, yeah, still counts, still counts. I guess I went like one JRPG then. Mm hmm.
00:35:56
Speaker
But what else do you have on your news list? The other thing that came out was Destiny that happened this week. Don't want to talk about spoilers. Don't even really want to talk about details because they've spent an hour talking about it before the podcast. But just wanted to touch on generalized impressions, maybe. How have you been enjoying or not enjoying your experience so far with it? Yeah. Like.
00:36:25
Speaker
I need to play around more so with the new subclass before I make any definitive verdict. Because they kind of, as you go through the campaign, they'll kind of feed it, drip feed it to you a little bit, and you get used to some of the abilities and powers. And it was kind of fun from what I played of it. But at this point, it's not like I would use this in this situation versus a different subclass. And I still have to unlock things for it.
00:36:54
Speaker
curious to see what the raid is going to be because the raids will always have like the most intricate design and mechanics compared to everything else, which makes sense. But like for like the new area, like I'm not crazily impressed by it or anything that happened so far. Like it's all been fine.
00:37:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a pretty reasonable take. I can't answer one of your questions though. You're saying you're excited to see what the new rate will be. It's root of nightmares. We have the name. We know nothing else about it, but there you go. Answering your technical question. That'll come out next week. But I mean, obviously we won't have more, unless they release some details and I don't think they will, we won't have more to say about it between now and then. I agree with the fine approximation for most of the
00:37:48
Speaker
expansion itself. The part that I'm more of a fan of is all the system changes that rolled out alongside Lightfall. They got rid of this whole idea that your level is going up across the season. It still exists. You still have a season level, but that's not what's shown to other people. Instead, the thing that's shown to other people is
00:38:08
Speaker
How far along the new player track are you basically? Because it goes all the way to 10 and everybody who was already playing the game got put at six.
00:38:19
Speaker
But if you just start the game, you start at one, and it's literally just like, did you make it through the tutorial? Great job. Now you're at two. Did you learn some of the basic content of the game? Great. Now you're at three, et cetera, et cetera. So if you see that number, you actually know how much, how far along a player is. Kind of pointless now because pretty much everyone's at six.
00:38:40
Speaker
But in the future, you're going to see somebody and you see 10 and you're just like, I'm not going to interact with that person. There are no lifer, right? But you see someone one and you're like, I'm not going to interact with that person. They just picked up the game, both completely rational responses. But I mean, theoretically, from like a matchmaking perspective,
00:38:59
Speaker
That could be beneficial as well. I mean, not like you get to choose who you're going to play with. Yeah. But I can't see them putting like a hey, you just finished the tutorial person with somebody who's a level 10 or 11. Like they've just been grinding it out. Yeah, I think like a year from now or so, admittedly, that's where like the last expansion in this arc. Now, maybe the last expansion for this need to I don't know.
Destiny 2 Expansion Impressions
00:39:24
Speaker
That's the interesting thing for this expansion is we know that it's one removed. It's the penultimate expansion and the 10 year saga of Destiny 2. But anyways, one year from now, if you're like starting up a raid group and you're like, okay, let's pull some randoms in and they're like all level ones, you're like, how did you make it out of the, like go back, finish the tutorial so you can be level two, right?
00:39:54
Speaker
Um, so I think that's the goal and it is more useful information. Um, they also redid the build system, which is good. Not going to go in details there, but I, unless you were playing destiny pretty continually for the last couple of years, that probably became an indecipherable mess unless you were just like, destiny has shit menus and information for stuff like that. Like is real bad.
00:40:22
Speaker
Um, but they've simplified it and made it more accessible. You can actually have different build loadouts. Loadouts are big, which is huge. So now I can just be like, Oh, we're doing this type of content. PvP. Boom. Done. Oh, I need to have specifically solar. Oh, here's my solar built done. Yeah. But being able to switch between the two versus like managing inventory and all this other bullshit. I will say like,
00:40:50
Speaker
I love loadouts. Loadouts are 100% the right direction, but it seems impossible for Destiny to implement something or Bungie to implement something and not also screw it up at the same time. Like, I don't know why, but that's just part of the nature of their development. So they roll out loadouts, right? Great, great UI, very fast, very responsive, easy to overwrite. You can pick an emblem for it. You can pick a color for it. You can pick a name for it. Not that you type, but like from presets.
00:41:21
Speaker
for each build. Now, that would make sense. I'm going into UI discussion. This is for the UX designers out there. That would make sense to have for this number of properties, say those, like I say three, name, color, and symbol, those three properties. You could have like a combination lock if you turned it on its side, basically, or like it's a pillar, right? Where you go to name, and then you can use left or right controls, forward and back, right?
00:41:50
Speaker
Or you can go down to the next thing, to the color, forward and back, select color. It would be better to have a pop-out menu where you could pick an option in a grid or something like that, but that's fine. No, that's advanced. That's not even on the table. We're not even considering that here. And then go to the logo and go forward and back to pick a logo. That's not the way it works. You get to pick up one button that is assigned to change logo, one for change color, and one for change name.
00:42:18
Speaker
And all it does is cycle in one direction. So if you miss it, you have to go all the way back around.
00:42:26
Speaker
Yeah, like their UI has never been good. And as somebody who's worked on UI quite a bit, there's certain things like, oh, this is obvious where this is not accessible to a user, or it's a huge pain in the ass, or it's the wrong type of control entirely. What do you do? Select the thing. Should that be a searchable dropdown list or give you a grid view where you can select something? Or scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll.
00:42:55
Speaker
Like it's really easy to make scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll in comparison. But like, again, they're not a small fucking company. So I don't know why they have these types of issues. It's literally like if I saw this in a pull request, my comment would just be like, well, first reject. But then the comment would be. OK, but do it better.
00:43:20
Speaker
Make it not suck. Make it seem like you thought about how this would be used in actual gameplay.
00:43:30
Speaker
You don't even have to actually think about it. Just make it seem like you thought about it and then we can ship it. But right now it doesn't even seem I really like attacking one particular member of development right now. That's not necessarily my intention. But like it has had to be approved and this had to get past people. And like it has to be done on a controller is not an excuse. Right. D pads have existed.
00:43:55
Speaker
I'm not sure actually for for a while. So like, yeah, I mean, Nintendo. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Should even Atari the multiple directions supported somebody. But this is it seems like such a pedantic minor thing. But this is the reason I pointed out is because it's like it's emblematic of a bigger problem. It's emblematic of a bigger problem. That's all I'm saying is like usually
00:44:25
Speaker
When Bungie is like, we have something great, they just, it's impossible for them not to inject an Achilles heel into anything they do. And it's really weird when you're designing other parts of the armor. It's like, does, do bracers need a heel? Do, does the chest pauldron need a heel? Like I got that the shoes needed to heal, but why does everything need an Achilles heel? And that's unfortunately.
00:44:53
Speaker
That's unfortunately the design. So in this case, loadouts great. Nine steps forward. You do get one step back. Yeah. So anyways, the UI is my main thing, so that takes like four points off of my score.
00:45:11
Speaker
Otherwise, I do like a lot that they're doing and it's fun to play with people. And that's what's important at the end of the day. It's the only reason I play. Yeah. Like if people stop playing, I wouldn't be like, oh, I'm going to hop on and, you know, level some stuff up. No, no, no. This is a social thing. Yeah. And if I'm leveling up and so I can do more social things.
00:45:31
Speaker
Yeah, I am curious to see how this is going to get hit in reviews because I do anticipate there's there's there's going to be a hit. We didn't really talk about the plot and I don't want to, but early impressions from a lot of people, myself included, are. Write a book. Because that would be a much easier way to learn anything that's going on right now than the way that you've tried to convey it. Right. Yeah.
00:46:02
Speaker
I have to imagine there's always some rich white person behind some of the poor decisions in game development in general. I like to. Makes me feel better. Yeah, me too. Thank you old white man for existing so we can blame you for all the shit that you do.
00:46:19
Speaker
But also fuck old white men because someone's got a sugar daddy. Right. Like I like that we realized that was that was a lead. That's where the joke was. Yeah. There was a time I had to be back in like high school or like early college where like I coined. I shouldn't say coined the term. I started using the term a lot in
00:46:38
Speaker
my social circles, instead of sugar daddy, I would call them sucrose father because it sounded funnier to me. Yeah. But it's not like it would ever come up normally in conversation. So I'd have to like inject it in like, oh, you mean like a sucrose father? And they're like, what? Like sucrose, sugar, father, daddy. And they're like, right. OK. As any sort of good reference, it needs to be identified. It needs to be defined 100 percent of the time every time. Yeah. That's how you know that you really hate gold.
00:47:09
Speaker
It's like you're writing it. It's like you're writing an essay and the the first time that you use an abbreviation or something, you define it. But the term is actually just so esoteric that you define it every single time. Yeah. We were on Discord the other day and I forget what kind of dumb comment or joke that I made, but I had to explain it and then somebody laughed and like, oh, yes, the sign of a good joke is that it has to be explained.
00:47:42
Speaker
Yeah, Destiny 2 has been the new kick for this week amidst Valheim stuff. Oh, sure. Yeah, we did that a bit. We have a new content though. Oh, yeah, it's definitely still we'll do more build stuff. I didn't play since Misland actually, so I haven't seen Misland content.
00:48:04
Speaker
at all. So I do want to get there. I definitely want to circle back. It was kind of a foregone conclusion that when Destiny dropped, that was a lot of time. Yeah. Yeah, I was going to be on the grind so we can do that raid and try to get it clear. And it's time sensitive. We're all about where Valheim is not. It's the exact opposite. Right. Valheim is like very chill. I'm just going to go sailing for a bit.
00:48:34
Speaker
hit some trees, gather some resources, build something cool. And Destiny's just like there are five sources of Pentacles left. There are three days to reset. You have two evenings, you know, something like that. So yeah, I.
00:48:52
Speaker
That's why I'm going to slow down on Destiny pretty quickly, because people will be like booking ahead. I'll be like, I wanted to eat dinner tonight or go to the gym or just go outside and touch grass briefly. Or just I wouldn't be in the mood to play Destiny that one night. Right. And admittedly, that is one of the advantages of treating Destiny as an MMO light. You don't really have that requirement to always go in there and do stuff.
00:49:20
Speaker
But even though it's a light MMO, it still has that MMO aspect, which really encourages people to like to inject the NOS at the beginning of an expansion or season. Yeah. So that's definitely right now playing more than normal. But if I'm not having fun with the game.
00:49:39
Speaker
Or I'm just not in the mood for it. Like, I won't force myself to do stuff anymore. Oh my gosh. Like, I have no grind set in my mindset, you know? Hmm. Like, I'll play something for a couple hours. I'm like, that was fun. And then I'll just change gears, so I'm not getting burnt out on it. I think that's fair. I don't agree with it, but I think it's fair. It's probably healthier than my take. Which is, if you're going to do anything, do it well. You know, I've heard that saying.
00:50:09
Speaker
and then that pairs very nicely with another saying that I live by which is only do one thing and that's it. Don't half ass two things, whole ass one thing. Exactly. Exactly.
00:50:26
Speaker
I mean, I get that, but like nothing, nothing, but I effectively have two different social groups, at least as far as discord is concerned. So like there's the college group discord where it's a lot of destiny overlap in some other games. And then there's like the Dota 2 discord, which is like an entirely different group of people. So I'll kind of jump back and forth between
00:50:51
Speaker
Who's playing what or if they're like oh hop on do this thing or just being social different groups. Yeah, so It's hard for me to just do one One thing statically. I have to change it up something Something along the way. I Think that's fair and I mean I am the same way. I usually have a variety game. So it's like if destiny is a primary or
00:51:16
Speaker
The problem, and not the problem, but I do have like, during a primary push, I will play just one game. And currently that's Destiny, but usually it's gonna be something like weeklies for Destiny, and then I'm gonna try to pull somebody into a Starcraft match or something like that. Like we've been going through the, oh, this is another thing that's worth talking about in the remaining time, just monopolize it. I have all the topics today.
00:51:42
Speaker
Um, the, uh, wings of Liberty campaign for Starcraft two. Um,
00:51:50
Speaker
Over the last couple of years, the community has been using the arcade mode to convert every single campaign mission into three player co-op. So they're hard, like we're playing on hard difficulty, which is usually like it's OK, you know, like it's a little hard. And there are difficulties above this. There's also difficulties below this. The lowest difficulty is games journalist in the mod.
00:52:16
Speaker
Which I love. That's good. But they retool all the maps. So if there was one spawn point when some crystals and some Vespene, you get three. They retooled all the enemy spawns. They retooled the timing. So like you have to work together. There was times where I was like, I'm going to build bunkers and I'm going to be super defensive and I'm not going to push out at all. And this is my one job.
00:52:42
Speaker
And then I was playing with Dan and Ian and they like pushed across the map and their armies are just like dead gone. And it's like, OK, we got to retry the map and I will also make units. Yeah. So it's it's been really fun, but they made it through the entirety of the campaign for those who have or have not played Starcraft. There's upgrades that are persistent.
00:53:05
Speaker
through the campaign, and they added those to the mod.
Game Modding Communities
00:53:07
Speaker
There's a phase between each map where you can spend resources to get these persistent upgrades. And they expanded the system even. And that saves all the way through. There's literally a map you can launch that's just clear your data. Otherwise, it's persistent.
00:53:24
Speaker
Damn, it's incredibly cool. And as of I think last year, they've completed all of the campaigns for Wings of Liberty, Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void campaigns. So the entirety of the overarching released in three separate games, in quotes, Starcraft experience can be played in co-op, which is incredibly cool.
00:53:51
Speaker
Which is something that Blizzard would never do. The credit I give Blizzard on this is that they made the arcade mode and gave people the tools that they could do this. But I give the community the credit for actually doing it. Yeah. So like Super Mario Maker, if you're like, I don't give a fuck about Mario, but it is crazy to see what the community comes up with to
00:54:17
Speaker
build off of that stuff. And like the people who make these insane challenges and people who can actually pull them off. It's all driven by like a really passionate community who gives a fuck about it. And that's always really cool to see. So like any time you have a modern community for a game, it usually is not like we change the textures to be this. Right. Yeah. We looked at the game files, we spent like a month and it's like they do crazy insane shit.
00:54:44
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know if when the last time you watched like an inferno plus video, it's been a hot minute. Yeah. So if you remember, he used to do Dark Souls stuff and now he just does crazy mod bullshit. Like sometimes still with Dark Souls stuff, like he had like a.
00:55:00
Speaker
you're playing Dark Souls on Blood Gulch and Halo. Okay. And he's also like done like the inverse and he's made like a Halo 2 mod where it's like a Minecraft level and like the blocks are like destructible. Okay. Like he's done so much insane stuff but like you see how much effort he puts into it.
00:55:24
Speaker
Because you have to like learn how all that stuff works intimately before we can actually attempt to even delve into it. But it's a lot of trial and error and testing and again, the people who do this are very passionate about doing it. Oh yeah, absolutely. I like to see the fruits of their labor but I don't want to grow any fruit, you know what I mean? I get that, yeah.
00:55:47
Speaker
I will respect you from a distance. Nice fruit. Yeah, I get that impression when I like to watch speed running analysis videos. There's a YouTube bro. I've watched a fair number of his videos. He's named Tomatoanus, which is a great name.
00:56:08
Speaker
for youtuber incredibly friendly by the way like mental health break in the middle of the thing where he's like make he's like if you guys aren't doing fine then like reminder that you know
00:56:18
Speaker
wherever, whenever you're going through, like life goes on, we can get through this and all this stuff. Reach out if you can, things like that. It's like legitimately just a great tier person. And then every video starts with, hey, it's tomato, it's tomato. But like deeply analytical.
00:56:39
Speaker
speedrun breakdowns for all of these games. Bioshock was one of them, which has like a crazy glitch with corpse surfing, where it's like you stand on top of the corpse and you use telekinesis and the physics are like, I give up and you're just out, like out of bounds across the map.
00:56:58
Speaker
And it's just crazy because in some cases these speed runners are learning the game systems in ways that the developers legitimately never did, particularly if they picked up an engine that already existed. And what you were saying reminded me of that.
00:57:17
Speaker
The community is so insane and involved in these games that they love that anything that can be picked apart will be picked apart. It's just really cool. It's really cool to see. So I might have to catch up on some of those Inferno Plus videos.
00:57:40
Speaker
I can definitely link you some and to anybody else who's listening as well. But you can also just Google it. I'm not going to individually link you. Maybe if you post a comment, I'll think about it. Yeah. But if you want the links, just send us send me an email. I'll think about it. Uh huh. But that's one of the things with the gaming community where
00:58:01
Speaker
Passion can be a good thing. There's always these times where passion can be a bad thing that spirals into negativity or toxic behavior. Yeah. Gamers. Gamers. Not like the gaming community, but yes. Gamers, right?
Importance of Constructive Feedback
00:58:16
Speaker
Gamers. But in the same way that we're voicing our opinions about things we like and dislike about Destiny 2, it's, again, like we said a million times, I'll keep saying it. It's because we care, right?
00:58:29
Speaker
And as long as it's done in a constructive way, awesome. Always communicate and provide feedback for anything that you do in life, not just video games. But if there's like a media that you're consuming and you're expecting something out of it, convey it. Again, do so in like a positive manner. If somebody like writes a book and it's like the third one in a series and you like books one and two and then three wasn't exactly what you wanted for your perfect story. I mean, say like
00:59:00
Speaker
Maybe interact with your community around that who's following the book or on a message board. Or if you want to tweet the author, be like, hey, here's my thoughts. I'd be like this and this. Maybe this doesn't make sense. Could you explain it to me? Like, do it in a constructive and positive way. Don't say, hey, this thing sucks. Because the worst way to have a conversation with anybody is just by saying, hey, fuck you.
00:59:21
Speaker
Okay, how do I go from there in a positive way, right? First officer, I would like to open with a personal attack. I will end all of my grievances. It's like you go up and you kick somebody with the shins and then you look at them, it's like now it's your turn to say something. You don't get anywhere with that.
00:59:40
Speaker
It is fine and good to desire change. And you need to take steps to do so for sure. Yeah. But again, like, don't be a cunt. That's like such a such an important rule for so many things. Just don't be a cunt. Yeah, I mean, that's good. I was talking about my eye doctor earlier. I'm not going to ever like be rude to his face. I'll be passive aggressive to a degree. Sure. And maybe I should be more vocal. Like, hey,
01:00:08
Speaker
I like you guys, you're very close, but like this weight thing is kind of insane. Can we either do something about it or can you refer me to somebody where this won't be an active issue for me? Because I do value my time.
01:00:22
Speaker
You just have to be careful if I die as well. I'm glad. OK. Now my joke. You had a very good point. I agree with the point. All of that. You just have to be careful with an eye doctor who's capable of killing you in the way that the eye poke device
01:00:40
Speaker
kills Isaac in dead space. Like, as long as that doesn't happen, you're okay. There's a time and a place to bring up something if they're holding a possibly dangerous medical instrument near your face, maybe hold off before you curse out your dentist. Yeah, consider your position. But
01:01:03
Speaker
I think that's pretty good advice. It's very close to what we talked about last time. So we're maintaining theming, I think, as far as trying to be productive in conversations and things like that. If you're going to be critical, well, first off, evaluate if it's a situation where the person is receptive to critical feedback, because that's not all the time. And here's a good way to check. Here's a good way to check. Ask them. Do you want to know my honest feedback on this?
01:01:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of times people say, yeah, we're like, eh, not not really. Do you want my honest feedback on how long it took? How long I've been waiting? Yeah, because then, you know, you've started communication and then the follow up is saying this is bad. This game is dead, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
01:01:54
Speaker
That's not great feedback. Actually, even just saying this is bad is kind of bad feedback. I remember somewhat famously, there was people were talking about how feedback works for games. And the consensus seemed to be, you can't really trust players to give you ideas for how things should be fixed. But don't tell you if something's wrong.
01:02:23
Speaker
We both work in the same field of technology. And sometimes you have to interface with the business. I hope to God you don't have to do so directly. But in general, the business is, for lack of a better term, stupid. They don't know what they want. They know their business day-to-day needs, but they don't know how to convey it to you in a way that makes sense. They've not thought about it end-to-end. Here are the moving pieces. They're like, I need this to happen.
01:02:54
Speaker
But that's why I like I hate getting a bug or ticker like, hey, this thing's broken.
Episode Conclusion and Call to Action
01:02:59
Speaker
What's broken? What did you do? Like, give me any details to then like start a dialogue off of and like get more information. And this sucks. And this one sucks. Yeah. Is the is the computer on like? Yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah. But regardless, you know,
01:03:26
Speaker
The advice, try not to hurt other people. That's my ending point. I'll take the end advice. Try not to hurt other people.
01:03:34
Speaker
And if you enjoy hurting other people, try not to do that, as that character from Hotline Miami says. Something like that. But if you guys have any life advice or you want that list of Inferno Plus links that Dave is promising, you can request that via email at soapstonepodcastatgmail.com. Or you can join the Inferno Plus discussion on Facebook at the Inferno Plus fan club at facebook.com slash soapstonepodcast.
01:04:28
Speaker
And as always, we'll see you in the next one.