Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
S2 Ep112: Talkcast - July
75 Plays5 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they catch up on news, talk about whats been happening in the industry, and get hyped for LAN party!
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Snack Talk
00:00:26
Speaker
How's it going tonight, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host is always Dave. How's it going, right, Dave? No. Pretty lethargic. Today's not been a fun day, but things are OK-ish now. And I got some coffee. I had some Wawa and I will level out. How about you?
00:00:50
Speaker
Snacks cover a multitude of sins. That's what I literally, I literally commit crimes. I'm like, would you like some onions? That was on me. Here's some sweet and spicy chili Doritos. What were they called? Indulgences, right? Purchasing indulgences. The modern equivalent is you just bring like a box of donuts to a priest. You're just like, this will take care of it. I don't know if that works. If somebody gave me a crispy cream, I'd let them get away with a thing or two.
Burger Adventures and Preferences
00:01:20
Speaker
I'm doing pretty good, though. Playing around with the new technology, eating burgers, drinking Diet Coke, basically the American drink. Diet Coke, you say? That's my one jumping off point. I don't care about tech. Well, we've talked about food before. Yeah. What's the Diet Coke? The Diet Coke. So it's from McDonald's. No. No? OK. Does that mean the burgers are from McDonald's as well?
00:01:50
Speaker
I mean, I had a crispy chicken sandwich.
00:01:53
Speaker
Okay. I, I'm more so on board. I feel like anywhere can make a crispy chicken sandwich. I'd be like, yeah, it's going to hit that spot. But if I'm getting burgers, I don't want McDonald's cause I'm like, give me actual pieces of like sections of meat. Yeah. Yeah. No, I get that. There's some really nice burger places around here. And I love, I love me like a grub burger or something like that, but it is like the day. Yeah. Yeah. It's uh,
00:02:23
Speaker
commit to a coma is what that is. I think the last time we went, or I went, this is back when we were working together. Yeah. We had a team member from Poland come in for the week. We're like, no, like we'll do lunch. Like we'll take you out somewhere. So we go to grub burgers and like, so we can give them, you know, the American burger experience, whatever. Yeah.
00:02:46
Speaker
So everything you get there is fairly large and topped. Mm hmm. Like, oh, it has bacon. That's not even a surprising thing for a lot of these. Yeah. Everything is fried decently. So it tastes good, too. It wasn't just greasy. Like the patties, the patties are probably like the best part. They do have like the top that I have no idea what.
00:03:09
Speaker
different burger buns are called, but like the temple top bun, like brown. That's exactly what it looks like to me. Is it a Kaiser roll? I don't think it's German, dude. It might be. I'm not actually sure. I'd have to look up what a Kaiser roll is.
00:03:28
Speaker
So while Jake's doing that, like I just, I even got a chicken sandwich. It's like, Hey, here's some bacon. Here's some avocado. It's sort of like guacamole, three strips of fried bacon. And how was you gonna like broiled bacon? Anyway, and it was like a full chicken breast. Hmm.
00:03:49
Speaker
It tasted great.
VR Exploration and Decisions
00:03:50
Speaker
I ate the whole thing. Afterwards was a lot of processing the food physically and then the mental shame. Yeah.
00:03:59
Speaker
It's always the walk back. I feel like that's the worst for me is I'm like, I'm walking away from the restaurant in my car. Don't poop before I get in my car. I'm my entry to live by for sure. Um, cause like once you can said you can hold off the shits and I'm going to keep rhyming until it doesn't suit me anymore. Like now, um, it's another, another mantra.
00:04:23
Speaker
Beyond the technology side, bought into VR. I'm not, I think at this point I'm not an early adopter anymore. I mean, that's still cool though. Talking virtual reality. The future is here. It is. Oh, there it is again. Yeah. So how are you liking it? What all did you get for VR and which VR did you get?
00:04:48
Speaker
I got the Oculus Quest. I was looking at the Valve Index, but as we've discussed in the past, it's very pricey buy-in. And then if I wanted to run a cable from my computer into the living room or something, it was like another hundred bucks just for a fiber optic display cable.
00:05:04
Speaker
I would have needed to upgrade my video card because my current one doesn't have a display port output. There's like, there was a bunch of considerations. And then the pre-tax buy-in for the index was $1,000 to get the base stations and controllers. So I went with like $500 instead for the Oculus Quest. It's also mobile. So I can kind of like,
00:05:30
Speaker
slap it down and demo it for somebody if they want to like chop up blocks with fake light sabers. That's pretty cool. So it's not actually run off of the PC.
00:05:41
Speaker
Yeah. This one would be the, it's officially standalone. That was the main feature, but the real selling point for me was, excuse me, via a link cable, which is just USB. Basically you can stream PC VR games like Subnautica or Beat Saber from Steam or something else like that.
00:06:05
Speaker
And if I can use everything, that's more of an incentive for me. I didn't want to buy it all in on Oculus and then switch platforms and lose it all. But I don't have to worry about that with Steam. One of the joys of PC gaming. Yeah. This is Oculus Rift exclusive.
00:06:30
Speaker
That's the thing, like I'm looking at. So I actually I bought exactly Beat Hazard on the Oculus Store. It was on Steam for the same price. Beat Saber? Beat Saber. Yeah. Because Beat Hazard is one of those rhythm games. And by rhythm, I mean in the same way, audio surface where it's like dynamically generated. I love Beat Hazard. Beat Hazard is great. Yeah. We played Beat Hazard back in the day.
00:06:56
Speaker
Separately. Yeah. Well, we did the co-op mode, didn't we? We must have. Like where it's just you had to have the same copy of the song on both people's local computer. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like a Dropbox shared. Yeah. You shared a Dropbox folder of music that we're going to play through. Yeah. For anybody who's not aware, it's a
00:07:20
Speaker
loosely Galaga-esque, but instead of being side-scrolling, things just kind of come in from all sides. It's a twin-stick shooter. There you go. Yeah. That's the best way to describe it. But as the music changes, so does the pattern of projectiles. And the enemies. It's getting more crazy. It's a little more bullet hell. You also shoot faster. But then when things are really slow, you shoot fucking slow.
00:07:48
Speaker
Your gun turns off more or less. It's really it made some songs really bad where it was just like crescendo and all the enemies spawn and then it's like and drop and your gun stop working. But the enemies are still there like, oh, hope you saved a bomb. But now it's fun. I'm a fan of rhythm games, probably not as much of a fan as a recent guest we've had. But I don't know if anyone is.
00:08:19
Speaker
So it's, it's fun. And I like light sabers. So best of both worlds. I just like, um, I've only done some of the things from, I think it was base Oculus when Shane was showing that to people or Victor Martinez, may he rest in peace wherever the fuck he is. Um, so things like tilt brush painting in 3d space or
00:08:46
Speaker
It's called Space Pirate. Yeah, Space Pirate. Space Pirate Trainer, I think. Yeah. Yeah. You're just kind of attacking incoming drones. But you have different weapon options. And so you can have, let's say, seven different weapons. But each individual hand, you only have two hands, can be a different weapon or two with the same. If you're like, this is my shit, I really like it. Yeah. Dual wielding.
00:09:10
Speaker
Double sniper rifles. You can have two shields if you want to. It's really hard to beat though. The Dark Souls strats. There's another game that's literally just shields. It's a bit similar to like Beat Hazard, but oncoming colors and you have to block it with matching shields. So it's like red and blue. Very similar to Beat Hazard, right?
00:09:29
Speaker
But I think chopping things up with light sabers is cooler. OK. The one thing they innovated with was a green purple projectile. So if a purple one comes up, you have to combine your shield to block it. I feel like I've seen footage of this somewhere on YouTube.
00:09:47
Speaker
Yeah, probably. There's a lot of similar stuff in that space. I think it's fun to play around with, and I'm definitely going to try to get my money's worth out of it, given that it's the price of a new console. But since I can at least continue to play games that come out on Steam on it, that's nice.
00:10:10
Speaker
So from now on, when we're doing playthroughs of games, which are available on Steam, Jake will be doing the VR perspective for every single one, even if it's not VR supported. I was a little bit relieved that I couldn't really get Subnautica working because I was going to poop yourself. I was going to poop myself. That was the problem.
00:10:34
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. You still have to make some concessions. I think for the listeners that are thinking about buying into VR, I would say it's fun so far, but you do have to make concessions unless you're going for like all in-house. Like if you bought an Oculus thing and you just only purchased things on the Oculus store and you didn't care about PC VR, I'm sure it works. But if you want to get everything like I'm trying to get, it's going to require some work.
00:11:05
Speaker
OK, so natively doesn't support all things. Yeah. Subnautica, the issue was it put me kind of like in the sky. I could look around and see the ocean all around me, which was awesome and also already a little terrifying. And I saw like the aurora ship over over here. I have gesture with my hands, as though I'm not recording a podcast. And then the menu, the main menu was like 20 feet below me. And I'm like.
00:11:34
Speaker
can't click that. There's no way to interact with that one. So that was where I ran into my first issue. Can't launch the game. That sounds rough.
00:11:52
Speaker
It is really cool though. I really think this could be it. People have tried pushing for
Gaming Stores and Exclusivity Debate
00:11:58
Speaker
like augmented reality and virtual reality and stuff like that in the past. And I think technology is finally good enough that it's not just going to make everyone vomit and throw away their devices, you know, so baby steps.
00:12:17
Speaker
Well, I mean, sometime in the future when I'm allowed over your place again, I'll definitely have you kick me out of your apartment because I have played it too much. I need to leave. I straight up grabbed all the bean bags are back in like my living room.
00:12:35
Speaker
in the corner. Cause that's where I'll like sit and play Smash or do whatever. And they're very comfortable. I like bean bags. I just like picked them up and I just threw them like against the wall. So they can kind of barely get in the front door right now just due to the bean bags set up there. So I had an adequate place phase. I'll have to reconfigure before Smash night probably, but you know, sacrifices. Oh, you know, if somebody comes by with like a delivery, you're like, leave it, leave it on the window sill. I'll get to it.
00:13:04
Speaker
They shall not break the barricades. But yeah, so I'll continue to provide updates and adventures in VR as I experience them. That's not what people are here for. People are here for games, free game mentions. So is that the next thing?
00:13:31
Speaker
Sure. So the free game mentions this week are from Epic Game Story, which are Killing Floor 2, which I have not played, but I did play the first one. And that was a fun six player co-op game. Lifeless Planet Premier Edition and the Escapist 2. I looked up that second game, Lifeless Planet. It has mixed reviews on Steam, so I don't really care.
00:13:56
Speaker
The escapists, I think is a co-op tactical thing. I don't know. High praise indeed. High praise indeed, yeah. But I think that one actually got a good review. So it's not like three pieces of trash. It's probably two good games and then maybe a game that's mixed reviews. Usually when they've had free things, they're not awful games by any means. Some of them are like, oh, but usually I already have it or
00:14:25
Speaker
It's cool that it's free like GTA 5. I'm never really going to get around to playing it. So GTA 5 I could rant about. I'm not going to because it would take time.
00:14:35
Speaker
But that game has had like so much money poured into the creation of it and so much content and all of this stuff. And there's so much stuff to do and activities and guns and everything. And I don't have fun with the game. It's just like, yeah, you can give me the perfect sandbox, but if I, I already don't have enough direction in my day to day life. So don't give me that in a video game. I'll panic, panic and cry.
00:15:04
Speaker
My go-to comparison is like, I don't know if you played Saints Row or not. No, I haven't done anything really in that space. One of these days we should just co-op like the last Saints Row, which I think was four. But it literally is just like nowhere near the production value of GTA, but they give you superpowers and they just let you wreck stuff. So it doesn't matter. The game doesn't take it seriously. So I have more fun with it. I don't know. Personal bias.
00:15:35
Speaker
Doesn't sound as bad as far as like a demolition derby. Yeah. I'll just break some shit here and there. Speaking of Epic store. Yeah.
00:15:48
Speaker
Oh, that was my segue. OK, that was your segue. OK. So I had a point in here because there's actually a couple of things actually came out about the Epic Store recently. I guess you could start with the Stony one. Apparently, Stony invested $250 million in Epic Games specifically. It's not like the store. It's not like they bought $250 million worth of copies of games.
00:16:14
Speaker
But it's kind of interesting that a company is massive as Sony. That is not Tencent. It is also taking interest rate. So is this just like a stock purchase or are they looking to have some ownership or kind of more say like, hey, kind of push Sony games? Yeah, I mean, impetus for this.
00:16:36
Speaker
250 million gets some like buy-in for stock. I don't think that's going to get them decision making money. It's, which is weird to say, but like Epic is gigantic now and has like crazy, crazy value at the moment. Yeah. They kind of use their capital to say like, uh, writes to that, writes to that, writes to that. And they just bought a whole bunch of shit. Yeah. Um,
00:17:06
Speaker
They clearly have like some interest in a partnership. Oh, actually, there is a tweet right here. That was perfect. When Tencent invested $330 million into Epic Games, in 2012, that got them a 40% stake. Sony's 250 million investment today gives them a 1.5% stake. Wow. Yeah. That was at ZHugeEX on Twitter. That's the one that said that. Personally said that.
00:17:36
Speaker
That's crazy. Like, Epic's got crazy market value right now, which is why they can afford to give away games every week, you know, I guess. It's Fortnite, actually. Fortnite is the reason. Is Fortnite exclusive to Epic? Yeah, well, yes. And they developed it. So they just put it on their own platform.
00:18:05
Speaker
Epic the developer put it on the Epic Games Store, which is their distribution, yes.
00:18:12
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's pretty crazy how big they are right now. But related to that, I know that when the Epic Games Store launched, they had tons of exclusives, right? They had the Outer Wilds, they had Borderlands 3 was an exclusive, a bunch of other things were exclusives. And I think we bought a couple games.
00:18:36
Speaker
around that time that were exclusive, Hades, I would say. Yeah, I was really bummed at the time because I literally had to get the Epic Games Store to play it. Yeah. Yeah. The benefit of like one or two other free games that have caught my eye, but it's much easier to stay on the platform I'm on, which is Steam.
00:19:01
Speaker
It's just having one launcher versus two. That's really it. That's one of the reasons why people hate origin. Also, origin just is shit. That's fair. You had more racing experience with it than I have, but I was going to mention.
00:19:18
Speaker
most of those exclusives are running out. Obviously they're going to still have new exclusives in the pipe. Um, I think, uh, control is still an exclusive. I'm kind of looking forward to, but it's not a much must buy for me. So I'm willing to wait for it. My question to you, Dave is now that some of those exclusives are coming out on steam, do you have any incentive to continue to make purchases on the Epic store? And would you,
00:19:47
Speaker
say that you would only make purchases on the Epic Store if they had exclusives? So far, I don't think I've made any purchases outside of Hades. I'm going to keep my copy of Hades there unless I can transfer it to Steam, kind of similar to with Destiny 2.
00:20:12
Speaker
Destiny 2 was because they switched publishers though. That was kind of an exceptional case. True. So I'm not really expecting it to happen. Yeah. But I think it would be nice. Supergiant would have to eat the cost. They would have to literally just pay out the keys. Yeah. And I wouldn't ask for them to do that. I actually liked them. One of the few companies are like, that's my shit right there. But yeah, not necessarily, I don't think.
00:20:42
Speaker
I'm not really one to go for exclusives unless it's convenient for me. So I will justify a new console every once in a while because I want to play certain exclusives, mainly being like The Last of Us, initially Final Fantasy VII Remake, but then I never played it. And then I'll find some other things in that space while I'm already there to be like, okay, while I have a PS4, I'll play these games.
00:21:08
Speaker
Right. But if something's like, hey, I'm going to be locked behind this, that will usually kind of kill it for me if I don't already have access to it. I'm not usually going to go out of my way.
00:21:21
Speaker
It's not buying your loyalty in any way. I guess the question could be boiled down to like, do you think the Epic's approach of just paying money to make these games exclusives, like paying developers extra, paying publishers extra to get them exclusive on the Epic Store is actually benefiting them long term? Or if it's just until they drop exclusivity?
00:21:48
Speaker
I think there's definitely going to be a dip if they lose exclusivity, but I feel like they've done it enough where they've gotten enough exposure.
00:22:05
Speaker
Like everybody knows what it is now. It's not like, let me say like, oh, I only know what Steam is. What is this epic game store? People obviously know Fortnite. Probably one of the most streamed games on Twitch. I think it is. They have enough of a big presence that I'm not expecting it to hurt them drastically.
00:22:24
Speaker
But I guarantee you a lot of people have Epic Games Store just because they can get free shit every once in a while. Yeah. Or because maybe something like Hades is exclusive at the time. Right. And they're like, well, I want to play that and not wait a year and a half for it to
Smash Community Controversies
00:22:40
Speaker
pour it over to wherever, which I get. Yeah, I don't know if they can rely on the the the the super fan games.
00:22:50
Speaker
No pun on Supergiant, but like the games where you want to play the game absolutely so much that you would play it wherever it came out immediately. I don't know if that's like a long-term strategy, but I mean they have plenty of money.
00:23:06
Speaker
And we'll continue to have penalty money based off this 1.5% increase in stake from Sony to try to pivot however they want to to get that market share. And there's still a lot of things that they can do versus Steam. They just don't have features, lest I looked. They didn't have like anything but a friends list. So I don't know if they've added since then, but
00:23:31
Speaker
Look at what Steam does. Take some pointers. Look at what Nintendo does. Learn from their mistakes. And I'm sure you can come up with something fairly decent. Simple as that. Friendless good. Friend code bad. Can I just search for people who I know? Cool. Awesome. Oh man. Yeah. Well, we'll see what they do with all of their money. Speaking of Nintendo. Nintendo.
00:24:00
Speaker
and a lighter thing. This is not newsworthy, but I put it on here anyways, because I found it too hilarious. Hopefully you click the link to look at this.
00:24:09
Speaker
I didn't click it because I saw it earlier and I knew what it was. Excellent. Well, the latest smash character came out, right? Did you buy the fighter pack or have you had an opportunity to play? I have not because it's not somebody who I'm going to actually play. Yeah, me either.
00:24:33
Speaker
Yeah, this was the Piranha Plant of the previous expansion, except I think Piranha Plant has more viability in my mind than Min Min as someone I would play. But I skipped Piranha Plant, waited for Joker. Skip Min Min, wait for Master Chief or whatever it is.
00:24:56
Speaker
Bro, I would kind of like that. Except for his final smash would be something really dumb and comedic. It's going to be like a fire emblem sword attack, but it'll just be an energy sword. He just babs the guy once and walks away. Nothing personal, kid. It'll be a scorpion tank is what it is, actually.
00:25:20
Speaker
And just drop it on him and then punches it a bunch. That would be, I wonder if you could get sued for that homage. But yeah, in this video that we keep not talking about, it seems that there's a Min Min T posing bug. Yeah. I'm not exactly sure what triggers it from the video.
00:25:43
Speaker
It's a very precise combo. It's like a forward air, a landing forward air into a couple other moves. And you have to do like three moves. Three exact moves and then an uptot.
00:25:57
Speaker
UT pose and you're stuck in that that it doesn't end until you get hit. Oh, wow. Yeah That seems kind of bad Like it's usually bad. Yeah, I Can't I can't imagine that's gonna be out for very long before they patch that now. Yeah the thing is like
00:26:19
Speaker
It's not even a useful exploit. It's just probably too salty for Nintendo. They'll be like, ah, we don't want people to keep posing on other people. So, so we'll remove it. Or somebody doesn't know about it. Well, to be fair, you'd have to taunt and nobody in pro scene actually taunts. Yeah. And online, I think taunt's straight up disabled, right? Yeah. So.
00:26:45
Speaker
I actually wanted to taunt against somebody the other day because they were another Kirby. Surprise that kicked my ass. But I wanted to do like the little hi. Yeah. Because I was like, Oh, it's a, it's a Kirby to Kirby thing. Don't get it. And then I just stood there and they came up and kicked me. I was like, nevermind.
00:27:03
Speaker
Online, it's all just the intricacies of frequency of teabags. It's just like, oh, quick teabag. All right. It's acknowledgement. Rapid fire teabag. Oh, you're disrespecting them. You know, something like that. Yeah. I like, I like the teabag and Kirby though. Just squish. There's a Kirby cookie. Do we want to talk about some of the other smash stuff?
00:27:32
Speaker
Yeah, I guess. It can't all be super lighthearted, right? All right, so you know how Ness and Lucas are cool characters? No, but go on. This is going to be a really dumb and roundabout joke for don't get involved with minors in any, any way. Yeah, don't have kids. Don't get involved with kids. Stay away from kids. Yeah.
00:28:01
Speaker
They're germ-ridden and usually lawsuits will be involved. Also it's just shady as shit.
00:28:12
Speaker
So if we all remember Me Too was a thing a couple of years back, it's still a thing. People always, in this day and age, and not incorrectly so, but people have been called out again in kind of like another wave in the Smash scene and other gaming scenes as well. I don't remember if we talked about some Dota 2 things going on last time or in previous episodes.
00:28:37
Speaker
I don't know if we mentioned it on the episode, but we were talking around it around that time. OK. It's been going on for a bit. Yeah, well, it's it's a thing. There's currently a mega thread on Reddit for all of the allegations on the smash scene. And there's a lot of big names in there, too, and a lot of things I would have never known about at all. Yeah.
00:29:04
Speaker
But it is it is insane how a lot of these people are involved with some shady shit. I'm not going into details because I don't really know all the details. Yeah, I think it's also like. Not not from the stance of excusing anything, but like we legitimately don't know. And like I don't think that we're a drama YouTube channel, so it's like spreading allegations doesn't really help anything. I mean, go read the thing yourself is my thought.
00:29:33
Speaker
We're not hiding anything. We're not like, hey, we got to suppress this, you know, get this down, support these Smash players. It's all out there. But I mean, I don't know. There was a the most recent one I heard of was MewtwoKing came out with a statement basically saying like, hey, people were saying I
00:29:57
Speaker
committed this act on Twitter and I'm like physically incapable of that and then gave full justification for why because there's some stuff that's that's gone on with them without getting into specifics and the community can actually like rally around him and you got like tons of subscribers and like a really positive outcome and I was literally telling Dave about this it's like there's always so much momentum and like
00:30:21
Speaker
Um, for fact-finding and discovering the truth and getting people held accountable until like one person abuses it and just like slap that guy right there did this. He comes out with evidence. It was never the case. And then the community just shifts all the way back over. And honestly case with me to King or lying that you bring it up or.
00:30:45
Speaker
No, so he didn't release a statement at all initially. The allegation was that he masturbated on somebody while she was sleeping or something like that. And he was like, hey, I can't do that because to do so would cause me excruciating pain and I just can't function that way because of botched circumcision or whatever. He said all of this in a video. And the community was like, oh, crap.
00:31:15
Speaker
Maybe we shouldn't have just jumped on that guy and like tore him to pieces over all of this and forced him to come out and reveal this very private thing. And then he got like thousands of Twitch hubs and he's going to make a lot of money as he, you know, deserves the support. I wish my dick was broke. No, not like that. He talked about like, um,
00:31:39
Speaker
some of the issues. I mean, I encourage people to like watch his video if you can, where he talks about all of it. It's hard to get through because it's really emotional. Um, but I don't know, remember the human in both cases and try not to be just completely outraged or completely defensive. Um,
00:32:03
Speaker
and figure out what's going on. Because the internet's a really crappy place. It is. For as many allegations that come out, you see a lot of supportive people kind of rally around the person who's willing to share their story. And then you see just as many, if not more, people who are like,
00:32:25
Speaker
Nah, fuck you. Yeah. They either think that they're doing it for attention or that they kind of got themselves in that situation and victim blame, et cetera, et cetera. It could be any myriad of things. Or just to distance, honestly, if you're if you're in like a scene, because like that stuff's nuclear. If you become if the community thinks you're in some way associated with this. Like they don't let it go. Yeah.
00:32:55
Speaker
And it's good that people are being held to account, assuming it's correctly, not just a blind allegation. I still remember the thing from a couple of years back where probably some people in professional sports
00:33:13
Speaker
wrongful accusations do occur, right? But it is such a small percentage in comparison, but people always treat it like if they're coming from the I'm defending, usually the guy in the situation. Oh, they wouldn't do that. Or that wasn't that bad stuff. Or, oh, they're probably just, you know, trying to give them a bad name and get them canceled. That's right. Cancel culture.
00:33:39
Speaker
So no, I don't think it's that necessarily. I think you should look at each thing case by case, look at people's statements. Even if other people do the research for you, maybe look at something that they've linked or posted. Yeah. But don't just take a snap judgment of, Oh, they didn't, or, Oh, this person didn't do it. And they're just trying to get a rise out of people for no reason. Yeah. I think if more people were
00:34:07
Speaker
like conservative in their approach to allegations like not take a side immediately and run with it, but treat it as serious because it is serious and give it all of the respect it deserves and follow it through to the conclusion of the allegation or investigation or what have you. Then that's the most reasonable stance I think you can have there.
00:34:38
Speaker
Cause yeah, people, uh, not to diminish people hurt by any of this, obviously, but like an allegation destroys lives, like just right
Anticipation for Cyberpunk 2077 and COVID-19 Impact
00:34:50
Speaker
out. And sometimes it's completely valid and sometimes it's not. And we don't find out until further evidence comes out. So why make a judgment early drug?
00:35:04
Speaker
I kind of went on a jab in there like, unless you're the president and just leave it at that, but got it. It's a fanfare for comedic value. Which segues into our political segment. There is no political segment. Squint said no, it's a hold up. So yeah. Be nice. That's the takeaway. There's a new Cyberpunk trailer.
00:35:31
Speaker
I'm excited for this because regardless of when it comes out, I'm taking PTO for it. I will shift my entire schedule wherever I need to for you can play this game that I probably overhyped far too much. But see, that's the thing I'm worried about. It looks good. I've heard good things about it. I want it to be good.
00:35:55
Speaker
But in the same way with anything, a lot of things do get overhyped to a degree and then certain things get lost in a crunch. Like, oh, we really promise on these dates. You have to get in these things and maybe forego certain features or aesthetics. And it just loses a bit of that.
00:36:14
Speaker
cleanness. Maybe it's a little bit buggy. It could be a number of things. I hope it's not that because again, the the environment and everything about it looks really cool. I love those types of RPGs.
00:36:28
Speaker
I mean, look at Bioshock, Deus Ex, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. This is full on immersive sim. I like it. Yeah. And also I'm going to do a little shout out here. Transhumanism. Yeah. Sure. I know you're listening.
00:36:45
Speaker
Do you like transhumanist genres? Also, probably just trans in this game as well. Right, and there was that controversy. Yeah, I don't know. I'm hoping that the delays were just, we talked about our disappointing games last episode, I believe.
00:37:05
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. And mentioned No Man's Sky and how it was hyped through the roof and then pushed to a release because of necessity and the fact Sony was pushing it so much and all of this. And they just didn't want to disappoint people. So we got to get it out the door. Like, at least CD Projekt Red has the clout to be like, nah, nah, we're just not going to release it. We're just going to take a little bit more time. Because honestly, I think back in April, they were like, the game is already done.
00:37:34
Speaker
But we got some bugs and we don't want there to be bugs. So that's like such a good thing to do. I wish companies that I've worked for or do work for had that same mentality. How many companies do you work for?
00:37:53
Speaker
Is it soap? It better not be soapstone. Is that a lot of issues? We've had a lot of issues in our recording, so they didn't want to say anything. A lot of times when you have something like that, you just have the one first impression to the person who's going to experience your product. So any issues become a little bit more glaring. Yeah. So if you don't have them at all, hooray.
00:38:20
Speaker
Yeah, let people get invested, have fun with it. I'll always remember when I went to launch Stalker Clear Sky, which is the second one in the series after Shadow of Chernobyl, the game crashed whenever I went to start a new game. And that's a bad first impression.
00:38:38
Speaker
Because I couldn't play the game. You know those little micro machines where you press a button, a little box opens up, hand comes out, turns it turns itself off, it goes back. Yeah, it's it was literally that. Oh, man. Call of Privy. It's the better game anyways. I said it. Yeah. Well, what were we just talking about? We talked about a thing. Oh, yeah, it was a cyberpunk.
00:39:06
Speaker
It's cool. Looking forward to it. This Thanksgiving week. Sorry, friends and family. Well, I mean, likely COVID stuff will still be going on by then. And also you don't live close to any family. So that's convenient. Yeah.
Gaming Community Harassment Issues
00:39:25
Speaker
Well, why do they have your wife's family? Yeah.
00:39:28
Speaker
It may be a little bit awkward. We've definitely reached a point in the virus response where it seems the commonly accepted course of action is to just get on with life.
00:39:44
Speaker
and not wear masks for the most part. And that's the part. Bro, I literally went after I got done working, I was like, fuck this, I'm going outside. So I drove over to the park down the road, walked for like 40 minutes and I was wearing a mask. I don't remember anybody else having masks on. I'm sure there was one or two. It wasn't a lot though.
00:40:10
Speaker
Yeah. I'm at like 50% on delivery drivers wearing masks now. Oh, I never know. Cause I just get a text or the last time for the first time they rang my doorbell. Usually I just get a text. You're like, yeah, your food's here. Like the doorbell works. Amazon.
00:40:31
Speaker
There's really no excuses for yours. Cause yours is straight to literally like your apartment. Yeah. It's not like the specific unit. It's just, here's the door. Here's the door bell done. Yeah. Yeah.
00:40:46
Speaker
So yeah, I don't know. I feel like they may be sort of of the opinion that it's become kind of politicized where it's like, oh, you're wearing a mask, really? Are you actually though? This is a little bit weird. And I'm hoping they're not caught up in that, but there's a chance there could be minor familial pushback if you choose to not attend due to the virus or to attend and wear masks.
00:41:12
Speaker
But there's kids all over the place there, so I probably should always wear a mask anyway, honestly. That's true. Again, to my earlier point, kids are contagion bums. Not to be trusted. Can't trust kids. Let's take away this episode.
Adapting LAN Parties in the Pandemic Era
00:41:30
Speaker
Don't trust kids. Speaking of trusting kids, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't actually know the context for this point. I've got the Last of Us 2 harassment as a bullet point.
00:41:42
Speaker
Yeah. Is this related to trusting kids? No. Um, okay. This is more so, I think I saw from a Jim Sterling video cause I don't actively go on. I don't, I don't use Twitter at all. I'm not a social guy. I'll check Facebook. I'll check Instagram. Occasionally post a picture of a Wawa dinner or something and move about my life. But apparently a lot of people are giving the voice actor for Abby.
00:42:09
Speaker
Shit. Okay. Or other things. I'm gonna clap and remind myself. There's a spoiler. Ah, come on. Everybody fucking knows that by now. That one I think we have to. But yeah, people are giving the voice actor crap.
00:42:32
Speaker
Yeah. And it's not a standalone thing. Um, apparently people just judge people who are in media acting as a different character and then thinking like, Oh, this person's a real piece of shit. If you look at some of the game of Thrones cast, et cetera. Um, and I don't, I don't get it. No, that's real dumb.
00:42:56
Speaker
If anything, I'm like, you did a fucking great job. I fucking hated you on that show. That's impressive, right?
00:43:04
Speaker
So yeah, don't get people shit ever. One, that should be the first thing, a rule of life. Don't be a shit to people. Be nice. You don't fucking know them. You don't know them at all. Also, they're working for their job and they're not affecting you in any way. And three, it's fictional, you dumb piece of shit. And also like if they made you
00:43:28
Speaker
hate the character due to whatever. Like, they're successful, right? A hundred percent. This takes me to actually like Game of Thrones, where when Season 8 wrapped out, people were so upset with the producers. But there was an exception, like, but they're like, but with all of this vitriol,
00:43:50
Speaker
voice actors, if you're reading this stuff, but voice actors, actors, if you're reading this stuff, they do more than just use their voice. They use the rest of their body too. And then they record that. Um, if you're reading this feedback, you guys did great. You're awesome. Yeah. Nobody should talk to the actors for season eight. Everyone's like, the writing was shit. Yeah, exactly. If anything, they were more so like rallying for the actors. Like, can you believe that it put up with that shit writing? Mm-hmm.
00:44:20
Speaker
Yeah. So I don't know. Common theme of the episode. Be nice. Geez, guys, get it. How many attempts does it circle back to this? Fucking crazy. It's pretty ridiculous. Speaking of nice things, got a little bit of a shindig going on this coming weekend. That's true. That is the semi-annual land party.
00:44:46
Speaker
Most of the for most of our listeners, I think I don't know exactly where all of our listeners are, but I think like a good half of them. How did you guys like land party? Let us know in the comments because it will have been after this one. That's true. Or maybe ongoing, depending on how early we upload it.
00:45:06
Speaker
It'll be. Bro, it's going to be a Saturday affair. So historically, we've gone over to a friend's place. We get a whole gaggle people together. We daisy chain the shit out of computers and we play games.
00:45:23
Speaker
but there's also a lot of drinking and hanging out and eating and playing pool and getting in the pool. It's a nice fucking shindig on a weekend. This year will be a little bit different. Not for me though. I could not attend the last one because I had a sinus infection. I thought I was dying. That's pretty rough. So I was home very tired. I think I hopped on to like play a game and then went back to sleep and hydrated.
00:45:49
Speaker
Because we bought you the game. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Brief tangent. I forget if I mentioned it on the show at all because I couldn't be there and my friends are really cool people. They called me on Discord and we set up like a video chat and I could barely hear them because there's just so many people in the other room. Pecophony, really. Yeah, that's a great word. I like using it. Yeah.
00:46:19
Speaker
but they got me a very explicit hentai game but they wanted to see my reaction as I opened like the steam gift and I gotta say it was it was worth a fucking laugh and it I felt really loved and appreciated in that moment also fuck all you but it was it was a cool time
00:46:41
Speaker
But this year, since we have the COVID situation going on, we're all going to be doing it remotely. Well, we'll try and like call in, get some tournaments going. I'll just kind of be drinking at home. I picked up some bourbon.
00:46:59
Speaker
And I keep forgetting we got a pool noodle from giant so I can take that in my bathtub for one dumb picture. The pool dip. That's great. Are you looking forward to anything from LAN or you think it's going to be super weird?
00:47:12
Speaker
I think it'd be like a little bit different. I've been coordinating with, um, got running all of it, um, to make sure that like discord set up and stuff. Um, but he's put so much effort into like, it's the, it is the most organized land we've ever had. Like there's literally time slots for like left for dead tournament, overwatch, all of that stuff. Um, and so.
00:47:38
Speaker
Since it's so coordinated, I think as long as people are engaging, we'll be all right. We'll probably have to make some like side chats, things like a bunch of chats so people can split off and talk about whatever rather than just having like a lobby with 20 people that would never work, right?
00:47:54
Speaker
I refuse to do that. Here's the thing. Here's my argument to bring back Dolby Axon, right? It had positional audio. So if we had a big enough room, we could move people around.
00:48:11
Speaker
Yeah, to be like oh, I'm just hanging around so-and-so what would be weird though is like let's say you and me are having a discussion Let's say Jenny's are too, right? It's us three talking over here and something just like slides their their Person over there like eavesdropping like hey Tim. What's up?
00:48:30
Speaker
Oh, man. I think it's intended to be like, oh, these people are like behind you to your left, to your right, like wingman style. I wonder if they do have the spatial map necessary to just be like, all right, these people are far enough apart that they can't hear each other anymore, but they're on the same sound playing.
00:48:50
Speaker
I think that would be hard. So anyways, Discord channels and stuff. I have a bunch of private ones to be looking split up and talk. Yeah. Also, I'm going to have my video consistently up because this is meant to be a social thing and I want to see people. So I will let people see me. Yeah. He said it ever so graciously. Yeah.
00:49:15
Speaker
for free this time. Feast your eyes. Yeah, I'm still looking forward to it because I love a lot of these people. I say a lot because there's some ones I just don't like. Right now. I'll name them now. I was literally about to say we won't name names.
Game Impressions and Regrets
00:49:35
Speaker
But no, I'm expecting it to still be a good time and I can't wait for us to. It's always been an iterative thing, but it's going to look forward to every year.
00:49:44
Speaker
or every half year. So I miss friends and hanging out. Every half year is actually a better way to say that.
00:49:53
Speaker
I get that entirely. I already mentioned it, I think, but I still have the new Aeon's End board game I picked up, Shrinkwrapped, because I wasn't going to craft. Is that the casting spells one? Yeah, no cooperative ones. So this one was like a revised expanded version sort of thing. Different content. Look forward to playing it, but it is still Shrinkwrapped.
00:50:21
Speaker
And once I get confirmation that we'll actually have some people over, then I'll crack it open in advance and sleeve all of the cards. But that's not necessary yet.
00:50:34
Speaker
So, yeah, I miss that. I think as long as people engage, definitely in LAN party, we get drifted a little bit from playing games to just talking. And I don't know if we have everything on the list yet. Like, I'd still love to play Smash at some point. Other like... How is that not on the list?
00:50:53
Speaker
two to three player co-op games. So the way the list is set up right now, it's only PC games. And initially I was like, but there's these other games we play. People are probably gonna play like Magic, Arena, I assume, and like Smash and things, but the three categories are all Steam, Origin, and like EGS, Epic Games Story. So...
00:51:17
Speaker
I don't know. We'll see if we get that table revised before people listen to this episode and they're like, but it's not that way. It was never that way. We'll see. It'll be fun though. Yeah, should be good. It's always fun. The people, the people make the party. All closed snacks and alcohol.
00:51:41
Speaker
Although I'll be I'll be severely deprived of like sugary carbohydrates is the problem because we won't have like a thousand cookies and pastries and things made by Justin. So here's the thing in the absence of that, are you going to get anything for yourselves?
00:51:59
Speaker
Yeah, probably. That's a good excuse, right? I might just go to Wawa once in the morning and be like, here's my bulk order and then walk away. You're right. Have this fulfilled for me by tonight. Because historically, we'd always do Wawa for lunch because there was one nearby.
00:52:18
Speaker
And then we kind of do a group order for this nearby Italian place and we kind of walk over together in this drunken caravan, pick up the order and then come back, eat most of our food, leave the rest by the computer or put it in the fridge. And then around like 11, you're like,
00:52:38
Speaker
Where's that cheesesteak, Tim? Or it becomes your breakfast the next day, depending if it actually got refrigerated. Yeah. The necessity of heartburn medication proven over and over again. I got to say, Jake, I know you're not a drinker. By that I mean you don't drink at all, but there's a certain joy of when you are drunk and you're just kind of going around and you find somebody just left some fries there and you're like, yeah, some sober up food. Nice.
00:53:07
Speaker
And you just start snacking on some fries. That's it. It's just, it's like the caveman brain thing where it's like, I found a berry bush. I can feed myself for another day, but it's just because you're drunk. You don't actually eat the berries, it's just the leaves. Not as good as I remembered. Delicious berry bush.
00:53:31
Speaker
Speaking of delicious berry bush, I was playing We Happy Few recently, and that game is not a delicious berry bush. It has berry bushes in it. Do you remember what you said to me? I think it was like a week ago we were talking about this. Jake was telling me, I want to get this game, but I know that once I get this game, I'm going to regret getting this game. Yeah. Is that exactly what happened to you?
00:54:00
Speaker
I don't know if I full regret it. I just don't know if I can recommend it. I would probably never make an episode about this, but if I would have played it prior to the Disappointing Games episode, I would have put it on there. That's where it's at. It's too janky.
00:54:19
Speaker
people talking to you are weird. They do. They commit the unforgivable sin of having your character make stupid decisions in cut scenes that you would never make. Um, there's very few things more frustrating than to me than those like, right. It's, um, it's unfortunate, but you know, it's
Minecraft Nether Update Highlights
00:54:40
Speaker
just a game. People are looking forward to it. Yeah. That's a nice icon. It's cool aesthetic.
00:54:46
Speaker
The trailer looked really dope early on. Yeah, it took forever to come out. I think they wanted it to be like roguelike. But then they're like, it's not fun as a roguelike. We need to put some linear story in here. Yeah, I don't know. It just doesn't. It doesn't hold up anymore as interesting.
00:55:09
Speaker
It really doesn't. There's just better games out there to play, unfortunately. Well, fortunately, actually for us, we didn't make it. I hate that there are good options for me. So anyways, that's my Barry Bush segue. Is there anything else you want to talk about on the list? There's a couple of things in here.
00:55:28
Speaker
Yes, sir. The other thing we had in here is the Minecraft Nether update. I have not really had a chance to delve into that too much. I did look like Minecraft in forever. The notable features. So I'm actually.
00:55:44
Speaker
As someone who periodically checks minecraft updates, but then passively in the back of my head There's just like a timer where it's just ticking down until I play minecraft again constantly a lot of stuff in the update looked really cool because the nether's always been kind of just like yeah, right like you get there you go there you get your blaze rods you go there because nether wart can grow there and
00:56:11
Speaker
You go there for the infinite supply of lava. And you're pretty well good. Soul sand, I guess, right? But maybe gas tears. Anyways, there's some things you get there, but not that much. This is pretty much a full rework. They're adding like distinct biomes. They're adding new types of ore you can get there. Netherite. They added four different kinds of mobs. Piglins, Striders, Zoglins and Hoglins.
00:56:42
Speaker
That just sounds adorable. I'm gonna look this up. Yeah, they legitimately, they have like child variants of some of them too. Which is just, it's just great. Some of them are kind of creepy looking, but the pig lens have a little child variant. I think they're the zombie pig replacement. And you can give them gold to get items and things.
00:57:09
Speaker
I'm just entirely a fan of making the Nether a more interesting, explorable place. The fully rendered no in-game footage trailer that they used for this update basically showed two adventurers going out and establishing a base and dying repeatedly to all the new content, which is fun. I'm just glad that they're still pumping out free updates.
00:57:38
Speaker
Yeah, that $20 is really don't wonders. Yeah, it was probably more than 20 if you bought in and the beta because you paid in euros. It was 20 euros at the time. Yeah, the nether has always been like a kind of vacant hell. Yeah, that's actually really descriptive. The longest time it was just random open netherrack and lava. And then they added the nether fortresses. You're like,
00:58:06
Speaker
Okay, that's cool. So like there was actually a landmark to go to. Yeah. But now it seems like it's a more hospitable place where you can actually be more incentivized to build and explore. Yeah. Good. Explore is the big one. It's still going to be just as dangerous, I think. Oh, yeah. There's more of a reason to, to check it out.
00:58:29
Speaker
and commit to making your railways above the lava, like up in the ceiling because of the compacted nether to surface coordinate translation.
00:58:46
Speaker
Any game that you don't have teleport abilities because of a mod or something, if we can use the Nether as fast travel, it's sweet. I don't know. I do like the Nether, so I'm glad that they're giving it some love.
Episode Conclusion
00:59:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's Minecraft, so look forward to our next Minecraft server.
00:59:09
Speaker
I mean, I wouldn't mind having it again for three days. Yeah. Our running joke is that it's, uh, people lose intercept for three days. Yeah. I think for every like three months I go without playing the game, I get like another day of gameplay that I will really enjoy out of it. So if I go a couple of years, it's just like, man, I might be able to play Minecraft for a week. Uh,
00:59:39
Speaker
That's it. That's it. You guys, you guys caught up on everything that is completed. The episode is done. Yeah. We have given you all possible news and updates and talked about things. We filled an hour of your boring life with our boring lives. All right. Yeah. What more can you ask of us really? I mean, they listened to it. So this is,
01:00:01
Speaker
It's kind of on them. This is, we, we provided the content, but they, I feel like we're victim blaming now. I said that. And then I was like, maybe contextually, I shouldn't have, shouldn't have used this. It's on this particular episode, but no, thanks for listening to us talk about random crap for an hour. Um, that's, that's great. That's why we do this. So you guys will listen to us talk. It's a power thing.
01:00:31
Speaker
I'm just going to move on. Anyways, I just have the Raya smile while Jake's talking. If you want to critique our choice of words, you can feel free to do so at soapstone podcast at gmail.com or you can publicly shame us as we so deserve at facebook.com slash soapstone podcast. And until next time, we'll see you in the next one. Thank you for everyone who sent their feet pics last week. Also no more feet pics. Feet pics are done. Thank you. Goodbye.