Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
S3 Ep231: Gaming in October 2022
82 Plays3 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they talk about ultraviolence, the Dota 2 International, Biden as a Guilty Gear player, games that released this month, and more in this week's episode!
Intro:
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Intro:
- Dota 2 Music - The Battle Pass 2022
- Dota 2 - Shifting Snows (Frosthaven Theme -The Greeviling)
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:09
Speaker
Oh. Oh. Oh.
Introduction: Soapstone Podcast and Adult Swim's Flintstones
00:00:35
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? Yeah, but I do. I'm that Jew. How's it going, everybody? That was it. That was the opening of the Flintstones, actually. Very controversial for its time. Yeah, I really like their Passover episode. It's good. Did you see the what was it? Adult swim, like?
00:01:04
Speaker
corrupted Flintstones shorts and things like that. Trying to remember exactly what it was from. It's not ringing a bell, but I know Adult Swim has done some older stuff with what I guess is now called a boomerang content, which is just old Cartoon Network stuff. Yeah. Okay, I found
Pibby and Zombie Halloween Special
00:01:25
Speaker
it. I found it. Thank you for buying me time. It was come and learn with Pibby.
00:01:30
Speaker
which was a short that aired on their YouTube channel, October of last year, actually. So it was their Halloween thing, very applicable. And it basically has like a bunch of characters from other
00:01:44
Speaker
universes or whatever, but it's this very ideal idyllic kid show, cartoony and very clearly meant for kids. And then like the universe starts to like come apart and like all of these characters are like zombie eyes and all this stuff. It's I want to say zombified, but also that does sound familiar. I might have seen this at some point. It's ringing a bell on the back of my brain.
00:02:13
Speaker
I just very loud when I clicked it. I'll send you the link, but I mean, obviously it's not great podcast content if we have a two minute, 38 second silence and then come back to it. Yeah, that just from the thumbnail does look familiar. Uh huh. Do you have too many cooks? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Same thing.
00:02:38
Speaker
Yeah, I watched that once. And it was unsettling enough that I haven't watched it since. But I feel like I need to go back and re-experience that.
Hyperviolence and Humor in Media
00:02:46
Speaker
And then also, the entirety of, please hug me, I'm scared. Or don't hug me, I'm scared, right? Don't hug me, I'm scared. Yep. Yep, yep. Green is not a creative color. I think it had the YouTube episodes as some stand-alones. But then it also had a show or something.
00:03:06
Speaker
Not familiar with the show, but I don't know. Yeah, that whole universe is just like it's all very tangentially uncomfortable. And I feel like I need to embrace a little bit more of that. It's like. It's like super happy tree friends discomfort. It's like things are just wrong, basically. That was like. I think my first instance of experiencing like hyper violence. Mm hmm.
00:03:34
Speaker
And I wasn't crazy about it. Oh yeah. I like it more so now in like more so like context of like doom. Yes. Fucking murdering some demons. Yeah. Or like moral combat where it's kind of.
00:03:49
Speaker
I guess in the vein, but still kind of comedic to a degree. Yeah. Versus happy tree friends at the time was like, never kid friendly at any point. Um, but it very much kind of skewed what was projected as cute and happy into, Oh, okay. And that's blood and guts. And you're like, okay. Yeah. Yeah. That definitely started with itchy and scratchy for me from Simpsons, which is basically just the precursor really.
00:04:18
Speaker
Um, and I know in particular, like their Halloween episodes, they went like a little bit more. They kind of like pushed up against the ratings board to a certain extent there. Um, I'm not like a huge fan of that either. Um, cause I think it's possible to have like a gore plus trauma, which is not really what I'm into. Like if something's going to be ultra violence, I prefer it to be like doom. It's an arcade game, right? Basically it's, it's meant to be an arcade game.
00:04:48
Speaker
It's one of the reasons there was, what was the particular thing? Oh, Doom 3. In Doom 3, there's a transformation of like one of the civilians basically into like a floating suicide skull thing. And this one actually like, I remember it.
00:05:12
Speaker
from being like literally 13, 14 or whatever when I first saw a friend playing that game because like the lady is like help me first and then like transforms into this demon and you have to shoot it and stuff. I'm like, I'm sad.
Monetization in Gaming: Duke Nukem to Overwatch 2
00:05:28
Speaker
Like I didn't enjoy that. That's not Doom 2016 rip and tear.
00:05:32
Speaker
It's a complete emotional. It's more like R.E.P. Here are my tears. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. I like that. That's really. Oh, I'm spinning up the joke engine while you're going, Jake. The other one I thought of is it's really promising that the woman, you know, has enough social capacity to ask a stranger for help, too. Whereas I'd be I'd be too shy in the moment. Yeah. I think if you were if you literally be held like hell
00:06:01
Speaker
break out and then a Marine showed up. Maybe you're like, yeah, it'll take my chances. I'd be like, listen, I still don't support the military. I actually have one other example there and a very similar one, but Duke Nukem Forever had, on top of all of its other issues, there were sections where there were women
00:06:24
Speaker
that were being basically like transformed into like alien beings. And they were like, help us, Duke, and all this stuff. They literally like call out for help. And you have to like punch, kill them to progress. They're just obstacles. It's like it's the most like out of character slash like out of being appropriate interaction in that entire game.
00:06:54
Speaker
And that's a game that has Duke Nuka in it. I'll play the newer Doom. Thanks. That's the takeaway. I like how I said Jew and you're like, we got to talk about violent things. It's like, whoa, buddy. To be fair, you said you started with you like ultra violence, but within particular sphere. So I was like,
00:07:22
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like it's generally for me, it's a nice aesthetic that fits into certain things. Like if Smash had it, I'd be a fan of it because I would have grown up with it. Right. Trying to think of other games like that, but there's probably not as many as I would actually think. I guess for me, it's the same in like other media. I don't really like ultraviolet violence in movies either.
00:07:53
Speaker
Like it's, it has to be pretty specific. I don't like gore. So I'm at the age where I don't even look when they draw blood anymore. Yeah. I don't know. It's good to know. Good to know what you're into and what you're not into as, as important as it is to know what your kinks are. You've also got to know what your kinks aren't right. That's the life lesson
Dota 2: Tournaments, Prize Pools, and Sound Issues
00:08:16
Speaker
today. So.
00:08:18
Speaker
You won't know unless you try. Hit me up. So it's impossible to segue off that to anything, I think. Do you want to give it a shot, though? So this month's episode, the one episode we've done this month, the rest were all done way earlier. I just, you know, got backlogged. There's five this month, by the way. Five episodes this month. Can you believe that crap? You're fucking welcome.
00:08:46
Speaker
Yeah, we moved this back for gaming in October to be closer to the end of the month, hoping that more things would kind of come out. Would that be games or news topics that we could relate to the month of October? Unfortunately, I don't think there's like a crazy, a crazy strong roster of stuff here.
00:09:09
Speaker
Nothing's immediately on my radar game wise for upcoming. Sure. But there's still some notable things to talk about for sure. There actually is one thing I am decently hyped about because it's related to a game that I play. OK. That's good. Are you following Dota 2 at all? I know that there's an international going on.
00:09:29
Speaker
there is and that's that's the big old tournament at the end of the quote unquote gaming season where they play for a giant prize pool and everything it's it's the event for dota 2 and historically has always raked in a lot of money
00:09:44
Speaker
I'm sure it still does, but it's not as big as it was. I think when we talked about it before, we're like, oh my God, every year at TI, it grows by like 10 million or something. I think this is the first year where it hasn't, but they also kind of skipped a year of TI due to COVID and other issues.
00:10:04
Speaker
Getting back to it, I think they're having some issues overall with production and how it's going. The players aren't even in a sound booth. They're just right in front of the audience. You're like, cool. Hope nobody says a slur to distract me. Or says a slur in general. Fuck those people. Definitely. That's a liability.
00:10:30
Speaker
Yes, it's just, I don't know, it doesn't seem like good planning. But I think that is wrapping up this weekend. Yep. Because I think they had a couple of day hiatus before they go to the finals and the semifinals. So I'll be curious to see what happens there. I always want to watch some high level play.
00:10:47
Speaker
But this isn't even the thing I wanted to talk about. It's that valve for maybe it's a forgiveness thing for how bad it's gone, or just in general a peace offering to the fans and the players. They're giving away a free arcana to anybody who has played like 10 games. You don't even need the compendium.
00:11:10
Speaker
Or I guess it's called a battle pass now, but so you get the battle pass for free. OK, or if you already have it, you get 10 levels of the battle pass. I see you also get a month of Dota plus, which gets you access to some other stuff and some stats and info, usually like a nominal monthly fee and the free arcane on top of that, which the arcane is really like 35 bucks alone. Yeah, they're usually pretty pricey. I looked at it. I actually did look at this beforehand. It's the faceless void.
00:11:40
Speaker
tentacle beast that basically it's it's not if they would have made the face a little bit different it could have been an illithid but it's not it's just very close to that right it's really close to a mind flayer
00:11:57
Speaker
That's cool aesthetic though. Oh, yeah. It looks really good. Did you actually pick up? Did you log in to the game silently and pick up? Okay. I haven't, I haven't picked it up. I actually didn't know it was free to everybody. I did see on the companion page that there wasn't like a level associated with it, but I thought you still would need to buy the battle pass. I didn't realize there was a free track.
00:12:19
Speaker
My understanding, and I've only logged in briefly once to check this. I think if you just progress your battle pass enough, you will unlock faceless void as the Arcana for this upcoming thing. I think the free Arcana applies to everything quote unquote historical. So like the existing ones. So from your, your shitty, here's our prototype Lena, which looks exactly the same up to your, uh,
00:12:50
Speaker
The Phantom Assassin was this decently recentish one. It was cool. Yeah. Um, I didn't notice IO on there. I wasn't looking too hard. Yeah. Cause that also might've been tied with a battle pass progression. Gotcha. But like I already have the Rubik one, which is fun. And I got the pudge one for myself because I love, love playing some pudge.
00:13:16
Speaker
I'm glad you brought this one up, though. One, I should watch the finals. I do want to see. I feel like it's going to be a shock to
Free Games and Recent Releases
00:13:25
Speaker
see what the game is like in current year with how far I've been out of it. But I had this full comparison thing set up for the Blizzard monetization scheme with Overwatch 2 and how Valve paved the way for it in a way.
00:13:41
Speaker
It's going to be great. You know, just look forward to that rather than actually talking about it as the next topic. I'll just allude to it, you know, get people ready. But yeah, I don't have anything else for Dota 2.
00:13:57
Speaker
So anyways, if we get to the core of this monetization scheme, now I have a big list of games that came out this month and a lot of them are actually early access to launch or kind of like an unofficial launch. Like technically Overwatch 2 came out in October. It was playable for many windows before that. It doesn't have the PVD part, whatever. Officially it launched this month for whatever points that gets them.
00:14:26
Speaker
I mean, I would, I would count that. Have you been playing any Overwatch 2? Not at all. I haven't watched the game. I patched it twice. I was like, maybe, but then I kept playing Destiny. I think I played like three rounds with Discord peeps and
00:14:44
Speaker
I've been not caring about overwatch in general for a while, but it feels very much like the same type of thing. So it's again, it's not for me. And then also like the issues they had with launch and then how they are locking heroes behind some progression and whatnot.
00:15:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's the stuff that I wanted to talk about because we've talked about monetization schemes a couple times. Can we also say that anytime we add scheme to the end of a thing, baseline sounds nefarious. Yes, yes, yes. Very true. But it's a popular conception right now and I think largely people agree with it. There's articles out there that are just like,
00:15:30
Speaker
Why are why was the holiday Halloween bundle of skins like? $27 or whatever it was like That's all completely completely fair and I don't think it's really defensible But the thing that really gets me is it got me it got me thinking about this when there was a particular thing that was unfolded so okay a little bit of grounding work and
00:15:55
Speaker
Overwatch has a battle pass as a free track as a paid track as most of them do you can buy levels as many battle passes allow you to and At the tail end of it it goes up to level 80. They have a bunch of titles you can get basically The extend if you got a bunch of levels beyond that I think it caps out at level 200 and
00:16:20
Speaker
And with the rate of progression, if you're getting that rank, it's because you bought it pretty much. Right. Like my wife plays the game a lot. She's most of the way through the battle pass, but that's still not even halfway to 200. Right. So like, yeah, yeah, it's a lot. I see I see them on most days, too. Mm hmm. Yeah, exactly.
00:16:45
Speaker
Um, but what I was thinking of is as soon as I saw like the titles, I was like, who, uh, what were the, what was the other place I saw this and it's DOTA. It was the DOTA compendiums, um, that had like an experience track. You know, you get challenges, you bought the compendium, you get your challenges, you're getting experience, you're leveling it up. You're getting some rewards, sometimes consumable, sometimes cosmetic, a lot of loot boxes. Um, but they would always have these like crazy out there.
00:17:14
Speaker
really high level rewards, culminating with level 1000, which was you would get an offer basically, and they would ship you out a mini-statuette of the Aegis. It's like, hey, any whales out in chat?
00:17:33
Speaker
Yeah, like that's very much the thing because the people I play Dota with, they play Dota. I'm watching them play now. I actually got invited to play, but I was like, I'm maybe next one. We'll see how long this podcast takes. But like they play so frequently and it is still impossible for them to get that far. Even slug shout out to slug who will never listen to this. He bought like
00:18:02
Speaker
20 packs of levels, I think, to be like 500 something. That's how he wants to spend his money. He enjoys the game a lot. It's one of the few games he really plays and enjoys. Awesome, right? Even so, he's not going to get near that fucking 1,000 point.
00:18:20
Speaker
unless he again paid all that money. And then it's like, yeah, sure, we'll give you a token, literally a physical token of our appreciation for that thing. But it's similar to arcades or anything else where the money that you're investing is never going to match the payout. It all becomes what you are valuing intrinsically for cosmetics or this is a representation of a fond memory or a time in my life type thing.
00:18:48
Speaker
Which is fine. I do them with food. It just, it then disappears. Thankfully I have some candy ginger that's been around for any eternity. It might be poison at this point. I can't stand raw ginger though, so I don't know.
Early Access Games and Updates
00:19:04
Speaker
I mean, I'm going to probably try and give you some. I still have three pounds. Oh, geez. Yeah, not that though.
00:19:14
Speaker
So talking about the Dota battle path, I did a little bit of research to try to catch up to where it's at because it's evolved a little bit. I actually missed that it was free. But they still have the deal where you can pay for levels. And it's for 24 levels. It is $9.99 US dollars, which I think has been pretty consistent for around its lifespan. Oh, yeah, for sure. So if you were to just outright buy level
00:19:44
Speaker
1,000. That's a lot of money. That is a whole lot of money. That's 41 purchases, which would be $416. Is that right? I actually thought it would be a little bit more. Is that right? Oh, that's right with my price range. Fuck it if he has five. Never mind. Yeah, no, go valve. This is great.
00:20:10
Speaker
Why did I think it was going to be a lot more than that? But that kind of works out. Usually, stuff like that, they'll give you a better deal up front because they're kind of like a foot in the door, like, hey, you want to get in, play with your friends, catch up quick? Hey, buy this level pack. Yeah, and you get it at a cheaper rate than you would for us at a point later on.
00:20:29
Speaker
Yeah, this would be the best deal, or the best deal, in quotes. By best deal, I mean the most levels for the US currency. But still, $416 is a lot of money, but I think I talked about it in the Dota episode. There's some level of acceptance about that within the community because Valve tends to pack these Battle Passes a lot, and
00:20:54
Speaker
Uh, even more importantly than that, 25% of the proceeds go to the international prize pool. So like when I was buying for like the Enigma, uh, bracers, which are, is going to be my go-to example forever. Um, I know it was over a hundred dollars and I had to get the, you know, the battle pass up to a certain tier and I could get the item. Um,
00:21:20
Speaker
I didn't feel bad about it in the moment. Cause it was like, I mean, some of the money's going to the players, right? If anything, I'm just supporting the players. That's why I get scratch off lottery tickets because it benefits older Pennsylvania. Yes, exactly. Um, but the reality is like valve takes 75%. Right. It could be 50 50. It could have been 75 25. Like, do they need the money?
00:21:45
Speaker
No, no, they don't. They're not going under. Valve has tons of money. But corporations don't usually ask, do we need the money? They ask, how much money can we get? And that kind of brought me back to what Blizzard's been doing with like Overwatch 2. And its monetization scheme is like super screwed up right now, where, you know, they have the battle pass and then they have all these other purchases that they want to ask people for. And that's the part that I think
00:22:15
Speaker
That's where
Philosophy of Game Monetization
00:22:16
Speaker
I kind of fall off the bandwagon because I get like free to play games need to make money because you have to pay people's salaries. And you probably also want to appease a board, right? But like how many how many angles do you want to be attacked from when it comes for people asking you for money? Right. Well, I don't like I like the option to be able to buy stuff.
00:22:43
Speaker
It's like, hey, we have a store thing. Cool. I'm definitely going to check it out because I'm a consumer wholeheartedly in my consumer. I will go check that out and maybe even buy something. But I don't like when it's kind of flaunted out, like.
00:22:56
Speaker
Hey, check out this thing. We got this. It's 30% off. You need these mystery V bucks. And I'm like, it feels like a hassle now for me to get involved in your, at that point I do call it monetization scheme. Yeah. Like a classic trick is always the,
00:23:14
Speaker
Flash factor early. It's the one thing I hate that a lot of games will do. I think Dota 2 does as well. It's like, hey, you need this much in-game currency. Okay. You need to buy at least like these chunks, 500, 1,000, 1,500. And the things cost like, oh,
00:23:35
Speaker
This costs 1,700 things. You're like, well, I guess I got to get two with this thing. But it always has you putting more money up. So you always have some money left over. And you're like, well, I can't use that money for anything else. I guess I'll just add some stuff to it and buy something else. And that kind of always keeps your wallet open to a degree instead of you just saying, fuck it. I don't care if there's $2 left on this gift card. I'm going to throw that shit out. Even the battle pass. Stuff like that bugs me a lot.
00:24:02
Speaker
Even the increments, like what I described for Dota, the most money efficient one is 24 levels, not 25. Right. So even if it starts at level one, like, and you buy four instances of 24 levels, you're not level a hundred, which is probably you, usually that's where you put like a break point for a big item or something. Right. Um, so then you're forced to play Dota or hear me out. I can just buy another one. Exactly.
00:24:33
Speaker
Um, yeah, it kind of sucks. I don't know. I'm, I'm for the most part, like fine with battle passes. Destiny has one. I played that one out, but I don't want to feel like I have to put more money into the game beyond the battle pass or that the game is just like, Hey, you're a substandard player if you're not, you know, but spending more money on stuff. And it's just,
00:24:55
Speaker
empirically true that the value proposition for Overwatch 2 is like falling off of a cliff compared to like low expense or free to play or just pay to own players.
00:25:11
Speaker
Like the only way you can get a skin in the event is if you watch Twitch streamers, not if you play the PVE event because they know. I hate that shit so much. Yeah. I've never been like a huge Twitch person, but when we played Lost Ark for granted, like what a week.
00:25:29
Speaker
with like, Hey, you can get free loot if you, you know, watch this thing for four hours. So you opened it up, you muted it. Uh, you'd kind of jiggle the mouse, just make sure it was calculating the time for like this integration. And then, okay, you got, you got a chicken Mount cool. Yeah. And now again, like I'm never going to play that game again, but that was like a thing I had to commit to, to like bump their viewership. Yeah. It's fucking stupid.
00:25:56
Speaker
They want to use you for advertising, is what they want to do on big streaming platforms. I get it. From a financial, try and get money and value from a person. I get all the tips and tricks, 100%. But I do not like them. I do not like them, Sam.
00:26:17
Speaker
I guess like, I think we're just going to see more revision in this model. So it's going to be helpful for people who are playing these games to have some heuristics or goals, um, in mind ahead of time about what they're willing to spend and what they think would actually be worth spending money on. Right. So when overwatch is like, here's a skin and it's 20 bucks. I think the, I think the junker queen skin is 20 bucks. Um, that's, and that's an indie game.
00:26:47
Speaker
Right. You could just buy a full game. That's the same. For all the games that I've spent a lot of time into where I care about Cosmetics to a degree, Dota 2 being the immediate example we're talking about, I've gotten some things here and there. There's always been, for any given character, I'm like, oh, this set would be really cool. But it's like 1% of the time to actually consider buying it because
00:27:17
Speaker
At the end of the day, I'm not trying to style on people. I don't play the game that often, and I'm not getting that value out of it. I was happy when I got the pudge persona, and I've been abusing the fuck out of that. Now I have the pudge arcana. I can play around with that. But I'm set for so long. But if it was something I was actively doing, I couldn't see pain more than $5 for a skin, let alone maybe multiple skins.
00:27:47
Speaker
Like I used to buy loot boxes for Overwatch, for Dodo, and they're obviously, they're called chests, but they're the same thing with a little bit more transparency. And I don't, do they still exist? Does Dodo still have treasure chests and? Treasure chests? Yeah, okay.
00:28:05
Speaker
Well, I want to think treasures are, hey, here's a pack of however many skins. And then there's like, here are your common ones. Here's your rare, here's your very rare. Right. If you buy, if there's, let's say, 10 common skins, you can buy 10 and you're pretty much guaranteed to get all of those common skins.
00:28:23
Speaker
Not necessarily the rare or the very rare but like once you've gotten all of those 10 common skins You can then keep buying it and get then you can get duplicates Right and you can use the cash in those duplicates for like an extra treasure whatnot the chests that they have for things like dire tide and
00:28:43
Speaker
I try to remember how that works. I know you need to like, you can get the chest for free just by playing. And then you have to pay for the keys. Yeah. Well, I think it works in a similar way, probably. Yeah. I remember that because I started with TF2 for that. Can I do a brief dunk on TF2 again? Sure. Since Eric's not immediately here looking at me while I say it.
00:29:10
Speaker
We've played that game like over various lands and I've never cared about it enough or like manage the inventory But like I have an inventory of things that I've gotten just accrued over time, right? Different weapon skins and whatnot or different weapons that still bugs me on its own, right? But there'll be times like we'd be playing a game and I would get this item. I'm like, oh
00:29:31
Speaker
No, thank you. I don't want the item. And then I'd have to spend like five minutes managing my inventory to like get it to go out of the screen so I can continue playing the game because your inventory is full. How are we going to resolve this situation? Like I don't want it. That's kind of funny.
00:29:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think for the majority of people who play TF2, probably because they enjoy the game, they would do the inventory management. I don't know if they've optimized for the case of you were forced at gunpoint to play this game at a land party. Another force me to take these items too.
00:30:10
Speaker
But yeah, to wrap up my point, I was just gonna say, make that comparison, take a step away before you make purchases, figure out if it's worth it or not. People spend $15 a month on an MMO, it gets them a lot of content.
00:30:27
Speaker
Like if you are paying $15 a month on Dota cosmetics, you're definitely not in whale territory. If you periodically make a large purchase on Dota, still probably not in whale territory. But with some of the prices these games are coming out with, particularly for Overwatch, you could find yourself spending a lot of money if you're not careful.
00:30:52
Speaker
So don't do it, basically, unless you absolutely are sure that you want to and, uh, recognize that if you do, it kind of is making it setting a bad precedent for everyone else because it shows that they can get away with it. So I'm not asking for a boycott, but be reasonable to yourself.
The Witcher Remake Speculation
00:31:13
Speaker
If you're a reasonable person, if not reasonable to me, I would, I would say try and think of it as.
00:31:22
Speaker
Will you appreciate your purchase in a month? That's good. I got to say it's like fun to like have a skin for a day, but if you're not actually like playing the game with friends and getting to like use it, show it off. Um, and then you just kind of fall off and just, oh, I use it for a week. Probably not worth it. Maybe you have oodles of cash and that just doesn't phase you at all, but always try and be semi-conscientious with your purchases. Mm-hmm.
00:31:50
Speaker
Hashtag subscribing to our Patreon. Here comes the jingle for a plug. We don't have one. We switched over to OnlyFans a while ago, so that's fine. It works pretty much the same thing. And I can upload pictures, you know? It's true. Yeah. Outside of those pictures, what else is going on here?
00:32:15
Speaker
Oh, I had a couple fun ones. I'm going to get to releases later in my notes, but the releases are really fast. This is my favorite one.
00:32:29
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I just got what you said. Anyways, my favorite one is that apparently there's a person who is a guilty gear contender, basically. They're playing in tournaments. They're winning tournaments. Their tag was USA Joe Biden, and particularly they registered under at POTUS.
00:32:52
Speaker
which for those who are not familiar is the actual Twitter tag of the president's Twitter account, which led to some really hilarious outcomes where tournament organizers are congratulating winners of the tournament or like top finalists in all these tournaments and they just tagged the White House. So this is kind of amplified because apparently the community has no idea who this person is. Like they don't have a real name attached to this.
00:33:22
Speaker
Are they saying they don't know who Joe Biden is? Oh, yeah, it's an all non US league. Uh huh. But yeah, they don't know who the the actual player is. So it's kind of becoming a joke in the fandom that maybe it's actually Joe Biden. Maybe maybe, you know, likes to relax at the end of the day, take some time out of the state of the union and, you know, run up, run, run down a tournament for guilty gear.
00:33:48
Speaker
I love, I love the idea that that's his alter ego. Like during the day, he's like dementia, old grandpa, Biden, like, I, yes, I am the figure head of the United States doing my, my drip. I mean, my job. And then he gets home and he just lights figures like, all right, let's fucking go boys. Right. Yeah. Rolls people in a fighting game. The stutter, the stutter goes away instantly. Sits down, puts his, uh, his, his gamer gear on.
00:34:17
Speaker
Or he works like the stutter into like, uh, I don't want to say slurs, but like talking shit on people online. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You ready to go? Bitch. Um, but no, I really, I really enjoyed that, uh, that news bit. Um, you want to take the next one? You want me to take it?
00:34:44
Speaker
I don't even know what you have next. Like I see the list, I'm not sure where you're going. Sure. I've got a little randomizer here. So I trash talk the Witcher one a lot.
00:34:57
Speaker
Um, it's not a good game really. It's not mechanically. And then I know you've, you've talked about the, uh, the notches on your belt as well specifically. So this is my question. So going right to it, they announced they're going to make a remake.
00:35:15
Speaker
Um, which is kind of a weird take for CDPR. I, I get that they'll make a lot of money off of it. That's probably the justification. All right. It's not a weird take anymore. I mean, they'll probably start with one and then move back up through three. Yeah. But one is going to need like, when they say remake, they need to mean remake. We've talked about the distinction between a remaster and a remake. Remaster is not going to make one a playable game in current year. Like they're going to have to, they're going to have to really screw with it.
00:35:45
Speaker
To an extent that like I have, I just don't see the reality that it's a better game than three or that it's even like in the same ballpark as three. No, definitely fucking not. So like, I don't know. Like that game had fundamental issues in pacing and in combat.
00:36:07
Speaker
And so they need to change it pretty substantially, I think, to make it even a good passable game. But I mean, they won't. I think they will redo it from the ground up 100%. But I don't think they're going to give it the platinum game treatment. I don't think they're going to.
00:36:25
Speaker
rework how the gameplay in combat is. It'll still be kind of the old jank to a degree. Because I think that if you have people go back, they're like, this isn't my Witcher 1, or they change too much. It doesn't matter. There'll still be a controversy no matter what they do.
00:36:45
Speaker
That's true. And people will still buy into it because it is a popular big game that has a Netflix show. Yes. It's very big now in particular. But I'm hoping that it evolves into like if they do remaster three and I can fucking, you know, play through the full game without getting stuck on a goddamn Trisk quest. The game still holds up.
00:37:09
Speaker
3 still holds up. I think everybody agrees with that. Oh, yeah. I mean, 3 is considered one of the best PC games of all time on a lot of lists.
00:37:18
Speaker
Like, it has to be a list greater than 10. I'll say that. I'm not trying to make that. So it's not a top 10 contender, you're saying? It's a top 1,000 best PC games of all time. It's very exclusive. Ski Freak is probably up there. But yes, the thing Dave was alluding to was in the original game, Geralt, through your own actions,
00:37:45
Speaker
I was going to say inaction. No, it's always that your own actions or mistakes can have various trysts with the women of the realm and or Dryad.
00:37:57
Speaker
If I remember correctly, and, um, if he did this, if he, if he did this, maybe he's like, Hey, don't pay me in money, pay me in sex. Then like you would get a, you'd get a collectible card. Uh, then you'd hope she's not so, so drive and add, you know. Uh, but, uh,
00:38:19
Speaker
Largely I have no idea how they could like it was it was misogynistic when they did it and I don't know how they could possibly play that off right now and not have it be like absolutely terrible, but that's gonna be this game so Who's to say?
00:38:38
Speaker
I mean, to a degree, I feel like there's always a bit of wiggle room to say that's who the character is, you know? From like a marketing standpoint, you're like, well, let's say he's a womanizer type thing.
00:38:55
Speaker
What's funny though is they actually like, they mess with the power dynamic more in the later games without going into spoiler territory because I'm too lazy to do that. Particularly in the Witcher 3, it's like the people who are interfering in Geralt's life and Geralt is interfering inside of are like sorceresses who are these very powerful characters. Like they are screwing with him as much as he's screwing them to remake the innuendo in a better form. Like,
00:39:22
Speaker
It's he loses out on these exchanges many times in the series when he deals with the higher powers. And you also get to fuck the higher powers. So there you go. Thank you. Third iteration of the new window. But yeah, like they put a twist onto it. So it doesn't seem like this like damsel in this stress type scenario, which one played a lot more into.
00:39:49
Speaker
True. And again, to the credit of the game, one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much is the character development. I mean, Geralt doesn't have so much. He's like a very, Stoic's never the correct word, but he's kind of like a blanks, like you get who the character is from like a few interactions. But all of the women in there are like,
00:40:14
Speaker
Well, the sorceresses are never looked upon super favorably by all. So they're always fighting to deal with their own shit. But they're always very mysterious and interesting and not helpless is a key thing. Very explicitly. They get something out of it every time. And so it just makes it a much more interesting exchange. Because if you're doing quests for people in The Witcher, regardless of who they are,
00:40:42
Speaker
You should be asking yourself, how are they playing me? And usually there's something going on, which is one of the things that makes a good game. People have their own motivations. The world doesn't revolve around you. Yes. Witcher 3 decision making a game is like a series of trolley problems. But you have no idea. You can't see any of the tracks. You've seen none of the tracks. You're like, I'm helping. Oh, fuck. I really like that, actually.
00:41:09
Speaker
The only piece of information you have is that it is a trolley problem. That's it. That's it. You just hear a little kid screaming your actions have consequences. What was that? Clementine will remember that. Clem, no. Yeah. So that's Witcher 1. Do you want to take the next one?
00:41:33
Speaker
Vampire survivors finally has v1. Yeah, I have all the goddamn achievements fucking try me when that shit gets updated I play it and So I think it's finally done done a lot of the endgame stuff that they have added has been more so like game options and
00:41:55
Speaker
So you're like, hey, this game's too easy. And they're like, OK, do you want to play this shit upside down and we'll make the difficulty harder? You're like, OK. But there's some other unlockable characters and whatnot. But end game is very much, hey, you've kind of played all the content, which things you want to go back and do and try and do specific runs for. So they have a bunch of arcanas you can play with, which are also free in this game, but you have to unlock them.
00:42:22
Speaker
Yeah, they're not $35. It's way better deal than this one. Hey, vampires, if I was you want to make some fucking money? Per card, right? Oh my God. Yeah, it's the game has again brought so much enjoyment for me only paying $3. And I played lots of other games like it in that space. I don't say copycats, but like,
00:42:46
Speaker
They're like, hey, this is a good model of a game. The original one was till I made a game with zombies in it. Hold me to that. On the Xbox game store. Or I guess Xbox Live.
00:42:59
Speaker
Yeah, like it's done super well played some other ones like it. I still think vampire survivors is the best one out there that I played far out of like four or five, but I'm glad they're doing well. I'm glad they're done. Um, cause I, again, I gotta stop achievement hunting on that.
00:43:17
Speaker
I'm curious to see what other stuff they do in the future. Yeah. Because this, again, was like a very simplistic type game that evolved and I had a lot of fun with. So if they make more, hey, turn your brain off and just have a good time type game, I would honestly enjoy that.
Halloween's Impact on Gaming Culture
00:43:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:35
Speaker
I think this is up there in the Early Access titles for me. It's a really good example of how to do Early Access for an indie game. I mean, obviously the other example is Hades, but Hades had a massive level of revision and art and music and voice acting and all of this stuff.
00:43:53
Speaker
that necessitated it taking a much longer development cycle. But I think they have things in common and that like they focused on concrete content updates and vampire survivors. You could almost like just watch the wave of like this update is going to expand the vertical progression. This update is going to add more horizontal progression. Like this isn't like an improvement of the systems. Um, but they did it all with like a lot of focus, right? Like,
00:44:20
Speaker
To contrast this to a game that's been in early access for forever, seven days to die. They literally keep remaking the skill system because they don't know what that final picture is supposed to be for them. And like vampire survivors was just like, Hey, every month we're just going to have a major update. Like, I don't think they killed their developers to push it out, but maybe they did. In either case, as the end user, like, Holy crap. It came out real fast. I think over the course of like a year.
00:44:50
Speaker
Maybe even sooner, actually, now I'm thinking about it. Maybe sooner. It felt like for a while there were weekly updates. Yeah, definitely. Because I'd message other people who played the game, and we just showed the screenshot of like, hey, you don't have all the achievements anymore. It's like 137 out of 142. We're like, OK.
00:45:10
Speaker
But it's such a good example of scope constraint. There's not that much in the game that should take a crazy amount in art. The music's good, but it's not like orchestral, orchestral is how most people say that word. And so they knew what they wanted to make, and they made it. So hats off to them. Glad to see their version 1 launch. We've talked about it many times.
00:45:39
Speaker
And yeah, they earned it. They earned their $3. It's one of those games where it's like, should I buy another Steam account just so I can give them another $3? I don't know. Maybe they have like a tip section in Steam. And they're just like, do you want to donate money to something and get anything immediately from it? Here you go.
00:45:58
Speaker
They just have like, what's going to happen? Is this going to be like a week after the game has gone live or something? You get like another update from the developer. Those news posts you sometimes see from people who run events and things. And it's just like, oh, sorry, guys. And they're like, we honestly thought that the game cost $30. We missed a zero.
00:46:21
Speaker
Like, please, just the finance person is looking through budget. They're like, something's something's wrong here. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, it's really good. I don't have as much to say about this one, but talking about some other games that came out. We've got Persona 5 Royal, which I know is big for a lot of people, because that was a PlayStation game. Persona was a freaking PlayStation game. And now it's coming out on PC.
00:46:51
Speaker
and Game Pass. Now I finally have the chance to play this game that I've never been afforded before.
00:47:03
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, uh, Landon's been trying to get me to play Royal. I was like, I spent 110 hours in the base game. Give me a minute, right? Like, um, I don't want to play the game. That's going to like attack on another 50 hours to that, to complete it. Well, I do. I just need. Time dilation chamber to actually do it. We have to uninstall destiny two from Jake's computer for a week, so he's forced to play other games. Getting to the point where I'll probably just do raids, but yeah.
00:47:34
Speaker
Um, so that's a big one. Good game. Um, uh, what was the other thing? Another thing came out with scoring. That was the HR Geiger body horror, terrible monstrosity shooter.
00:47:51
Speaker
If you guys remember that one. Yeah. The trailers look so cool. The trailers look so cool. But I got to say from all the gameplay, it's like aesthetically very pleasing, very cool environment and design. And that's kind of where it stops because everything doesn't seem shooter based. It seems like you can have a weapon at a point. But overall, it seems like more of a explore and puzzle type thing. OK.
00:48:21
Speaker
So for what it's worth, this is coming out as a $30 game. Oh, is it? Yes. So typically, that usually implies more of an experience in a AAA-type title, where it's like, hey, you have this much content or multiplayer stuff going on. More like a big story. So this, I think, is a very atmospheric puzzle. Right. OK. So for me, if it goes on sale, I'll probably check it out.
00:48:48
Speaker
It seems like more of a fun thing. Like this is the perfect type of game. Like, hey, let's buy it for Ian. Make him stream it on Discord, right? Right. Yeah, that would be good. Perfect candidate. That would be a perfect candidate for it. What do you think the Metacritic score is? I'm playing the old make Dave guess the Metacritic score for PC. Metacritic, right. So we know it's over 50 and under 100. Yep. So far, correct.
00:49:19
Speaker
I'm going to venture it's higher than 70 and lower than 90. OK, that is fair. That's correct. I'm honestly looking at 78 to 82 as my window. OK. It's a little lower than that, actually. 71. OK, 71. So I think that's crazy. It's not super good. Like two points down and you're looking at six out of 10. High sixes. Yeah.
00:49:46
Speaker
71 for comparison. This is like the score I expect stalker games to get and those are pretty buggy. So it probably has some issues. It could also just be like the duration of the experience or some other things, but or maybe just everyone was really skewed out. They're just like, I bought the game when I shouldn't have.
00:50:17
Speaker
Yeah, I would love to watch somebody play it. Cause anytime like HR Geiger design comes up and like, Oh, it's so cool. Cause it's literally so foreign and alien to we're accustomed to, which is why like he's the person who like pioneered that idea. And then those types of designs get interwoven into other fantasy things. It's just, it's a cool idea and concept of somebody first thinks of it and you're like, Oh, I like that. I would like to see that in things. But.
00:50:32
Speaker
I've learned to try and not judge things too much on duration of experience.
00:50:46
Speaker
For me to pay and play through that? Nah. Not at this point. Yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at. So I agree. We'll have to chip in, make Ian play through it in Discord. We'll all be uncomfortable by the end, probably. I also wanted to make him play Harvester. Hmm.
00:51:08
Speaker
I heard about this. Are you the one that told me about this? I might have mentioned it briefly because I was watching an older Oni plays of a Halloween type thing.
00:51:17
Speaker
Mm hmm. And it's like an old point click adventure type game, but it's all so fucking weird and inappropriate and creepy. This this game has gore, violent and nudity tags that force you to to specify your age. I need to check it on Steam. I did not know about you nudity because I was watching it on YouTube.
00:51:50
Speaker
The their tagline is the most violent adventure game of all time comes to steam. But it seems very much in the realm of a. What's the term? I want to say cult classic, but it definitely seems like it has its own following. Do you guys play artistry? Yeah, I remember that game. Got a vibe to it that apparently originally came out in 1996.
00:52:16
Speaker
Uh-huh. So, that is... I was very small. It's a long time ago.
00:52:27
Speaker
That could be fun though. I think forcing people to play point-and-click, weird point-and-click adventure games. That should be the thing. We should have a video game theater night or some sort of event like that, or it's just like, you got to make people play this game. It can't just be whatever they want to play. It's got to be something else. You have to have a victim and an audience, and the victim is forced to play the game for the audience.
00:52:50
Speaker
Uh-huh. That should actually be their role too. Like that should be capital V victim. It's like if you volunteer to be a victim, then like just brand it as such. There's no misinterpretation. Um, that could be good.
00:53:05
Speaker
I'm sad that October is almost over. Cause I feel like we've missed the pure, the pure goodness window. November is a shoe in month and nothing goes on in November. The Hey, we don't give a fuck about Thanksgiving. It's still Halloween bitch month. If everyone else is like having Christmas bleed in like starting October 2nd, then I
Closing Remarks: Halloween and Gaming
00:53:28
Speaker
feel like we can, we can celebrate October and November still.
00:53:34
Speaker
I like this idea. Let's see. Now I can cite back to this when you're like, I never said that. Right. That's bold of you to assume that this will ever be posted to the internet. Let's see. There's two other ones I wanted to mention quickly. Mountain blade two banner Lord was leaving early access. I think it was there for two years. He was in early access for two years. I picked it up when it came out. Really good game.
00:54:02
Speaker
You have to like mountain blade type games, but if you do really good gaming you already own it Mount and blade for anybody listening Yes, it does. I guess it sounds like I'm saying mountain blade. I feel like that's its own meme because of how many people say
00:54:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's not a great name. But yeah, that one's cool and I will have to see what they've actually changed. I know it's a lot and it's a very moddable game, but I'm concerned it's one of the ones that could eat time, so I'm just pretending it doesn't exist for now. For fans of Call of Duty,
00:54:40
Speaker
Yo, bro, stop. Ever since it made that jump to modern times, I'm sure everyone remembers the recent release, Call of Duty Modern Warfare. They're apparently releasing Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 tomorrow as of this recording. So in the past when you guys listened to this.
00:55:03
Speaker
for how much? I don't know. It's probably full price. Um, I'm pretty sure this is their remake. Like they're changing mechanics and they're doing a bunch of stuff with it. Cause if you guys recall, there was a bunch of issues with modern warfare too. Fuck out. Yes. Guess. Wait, guess how much money it is. Yeah. I mean, I'm hoping not 70 and I'm hoping not 60. Is it one of those? It's 70 babe. Oh my gosh.
00:55:34
Speaker
And it's not even like, Hey, here's the collector's edition type thing. It just like, Hey, do you want to purchase this pre-purchase? It's 70 bucks. Yeah. Yeah. If you didn't have enough incentive to like buy triple or buy, uh, Bay Indy, um, I think that's the way it's starting to go. Some of these companies are trying to push 70 more.
00:55:59
Speaker
as the new norm. Cause I remember, get the fuck out of here. It was olden days. Um, as someone 50 was the top top. Yeah. 50 was, was, was the top for PC consoles paid, I think 10 more. And they said it was because of like Royal TPs. Um, and then they're like, Oh, let's just standardize on 60. Everybody probably six pay 60 now.
00:56:21
Speaker
It's like, what about 70? It's like, yeah, yeah, I'll just make every play. It's digital. It's like a digital distribution. Why am I paying like $70 for this? In the distance, you're going to hear some Australian screaming. Yeah. This is a $3,000 video game for them there for some reason. And it's censored. There's no violence in their modern warfare. But I don't know. I know very little about it. I had fond memories with it back in the day.
00:56:50
Speaker
Cause a lot of the games I played back in college era would have been running gun type shooters, multiplayer. It's a good time. Um, but I definitely not paying 70 bucks for this again. No. Cause also, even though it is a triple A game, I'm going to bet you money. It has some fucking issues. Oh yeah. I'm going to wait for the donkey video of all the bugs.
00:57:15
Speaker
Oh, yeah, it's guaranteed. It's guaranteed a game as big as modern warfare. Yeah. This is also the one, too. I mean, like, yeah, modern warfare. So Call of Duty for modern warfare was the original title of the previous game. Right. But like.
00:57:32
Speaker
That one was big, but two, two is really when they absolutely locked in the formula. Like I played so much Modern Warfare 2. That was a big one. Yeah, $70, too much money. But you know, that's an Activision company. That seems to be the recurring underlying current in this episode. So that one's fun. That was the last game.
00:58:03
Speaker
If you wanted free games, uh, the two that are going to be free on Epic game store until I think Thursday after this episode comes out are something called Saturnalia, which is like a horror game. It looks like kind of pixel based. It was kind of interesting. I picked it up because it was free and freaking Warhammer 40 K mechanicus, the full game also there, which I really recommend if you're a fan of like X com.
00:58:35
Speaker
I picked it up. Warhammer universe is interesting. Again, it is free, which is a great incentive, but also the fucking soundtrack slaps. It's so good. I consistently put.
00:58:51
Speaker
I forget the name of the track. It's like Children of the Omnissiah. See, this guy fucking knows. I will consistently put that on Halloween playlists consistently. So freaking good. But yeah, check it out. It's literally free. You just have to have an epic account to access your client. And again, I'm not like a huge epic stand by any means. But if you can get free games at literally no anti benefit to you, check it out.
00:59:21
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I think I've I don't know if I've ever actually bought a game on Epic. Maybe once. No, I did. Satisfactory. I think it was one game I purchased and I have like 20 games and I don't even pick up games most of the free wings. So I think Haiti. I don't know. Yes, I also buy Hades. You're correct. Hades was exclusive for the first year. Yeah, I bought it on both. No regrets. Definitely worth it.
00:59:50
Speaker
But yeah, that's the gaming in October. Hopefully you guys are not too frightened by the prices. That's why we talked about the free games at the end. Something to latch onto.
01:00:04
Speaker
I like the Halloween time. You're like, not too, too spooked. Yeah. Um, but hopefully you guys are staying safe this Halloween. Don't get hit by cars. Apparently there's a high probability of that literally on Halloween. So, you know, don't do that. Um, and otherwise, I mean, it makes sense. There's kids walking all over on the street. It's like, why are kids still getting hit by cars? It's like, well,
01:00:30
Speaker
I mean, we do have them go out on the street at nighttime in dark costumes. But I don't know. Anyways. That's it. That's the episode. Any words of wisdom?
01:00:45
Speaker
Um, it will be Halloween shortly. Enjoy the season. Again, this is the best holiday because it's just a time to like hang out with friends and appreciate autumnal things. Not have to deal with any family or anything. Uh, also just eat candy if that's your bag. Yeah. So just ate a bunch of candy. I've been watching Jakey candy the whole life. Mute button's very useful.
01:01:14
Speaker
Yeah, just have a good time with it. Enjoy the season while it's here. Don't go too crazy. But maybe make a nice memory for yourself for a fun story to tell later.
01:01:26
Speaker
I like that. That's good advice. Well, if you guys have any good advice or your crazy, kooky Halloween stories, feel free to send those into Soapstone Podcast at gmail.com or you can recommend a Halloween spooky game for us on Facebook at facebook.com slash soapstone podcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good nightmare.
01:02:02
Speaker
We are it, we are it, we are it
01:02:42
Speaker
you