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S3 Ep264: The Pterodactyl of Friendship
81 Plays2 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they talk about the podcast in general, about our listeners, why we do podcasting, and then a whole lot about Payday 3 in this week's episode!
Intro:
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Intro:
- Payday 2 Official Soundtrack - Black Yellow Moebius
- Payday 2 Official Soundtrack - And Now We Wait
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
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Transcript
Introduction and Casual Banter
00:00:34
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? It's... it's going. Yeah. Today's been... eh. Nothing feeling so hot, but feeling a lot better currently than I have all day, so... That's good.
00:00:53
Speaker
Thank you for raising my spirits. That's what I'm here for. I'm just like the bard playing the song. You guys can't see this, but Jake constantly has the ukulele that he's strumming. I also can't think of a bard playing songs without going to like the clip of the, I think she was in a marching band or something like that, or maybe she was a cheerleader, but like playing the flute.
00:01:16
Speaker
and like crying. I don't remember what the context was but this was used in like D&D memes when it's like everyone in the party is dying but you're just the party just playing the instrument. That sounds really, I'm just blanking on the specific part of it, yeah. Yeah, I don't think the context, I don't remember the context at all but
00:01:37
Speaker
Very funny, hopefully not a traumatic moment for her actually because it definitely became a meme. But funny as long as I don't know the context and that's what's important. So, submarines too are... Yeah, I was really late on that, on the submarine thing.
00:01:59
Speaker
because it started popping up in like my newsfeed because I've been starting. I've been trying not to use Reddit. I installed it on my phone. I've been trying to just not check it, which is a big deal, you know, because I started using that in college and then never stop.
00:02:15
Speaker
But I just have like a newsfeed now and it's like, what is all this crap about a submarine? I just scroll past it every time. I was like, I'm just going to not engage with this. Days, I guess a day or two pass passes and everyone's talking about it in Discord because it was apparently a big deal. I mean, it was a big deal in the sense that it got media attention, I guess.
00:02:37
Speaker
Yeah. Because I'm sure there are other things that are happening in the world where it is also sad that people died, but it just doesn't get the attention because they're not billionaires. It's not like a shitty fake sub piloted by PS1 controller. Yes. Yeah. So
Media Bias and Societal Reflections
00:02:57
Speaker
I think I think the little facts like that are what make it newsworthy is you get that trickle stick, I think.
00:03:21
Speaker
because I don't think anybody was really looking into it that in depth until it's like
00:03:21
Speaker
Yeah. I think if there's like, there's no news whatsoever, you basically get like a couple cycles out of these people are still missing. Okay. We talked to their relatives. Okay. Is there anything else we can report? Is there an expert we can bring in? Okay. And then it kind of like dies out, but like stuff kept coming up. Apparently like the, this is a hardened PlayStation controller is used to control this, which regardless of how viable that actually is, I don't know. Right. I'm not a controller expert.
00:03:51
Speaker
Maybe more than some people, I guess we play a lot of video games, but that is true. Like I don't know how it ranks up as far as like analog, actual submarine controls. It sounds absurd and that makes excellent news. Right. Um, but yeah, I mean, it didn't end super well for those people or people that were hoping for a good outcome for those people. Um,
00:04:21
Speaker
which is sad i'll say that you know unfortunate condolences go to them i will say that's not the uh... there was a whole lot of people who are almost like
00:04:30
Speaker
celebrating. So I get the so and so is a billionaire, fuck them because in general, at least from what I have picked up, it very much seems like people who are super rich, like the uber rich, like the top percent, they get their money by
00:04:54
Speaker
like utilizing other people and it's not like, oh, all your hard work coming up with like this million dollar idea type thing, it's more like you're fucking somebody over somewhere along the way type thing. Right. Yeah. And then also those people tend to be shitty and like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Can you get that part of it? Be a good person. Yeah. And I don't think the answer is you can.
00:05:20
Speaker
like even the people who we kind of celebrate as celebrities, like I don't think they're perfect people. It's just we see them in a favorable light a lot of the time when they come across media stuff. Jack Black seems like a cool dude, right? Right. I don't know. He has to be he has to be right. I haven't heard anything.
00:05:39
Speaker
I mean, that's what people say, right? Right. They wouldn't be a bad dude. That's all I'm saying. You are a bad guy. That doesn't mean you are a bad guy. As an aside about Jack Black, I know you have an important life lesson to proceed with. The thing I saw, I haven't seen the Mario movie, but I saw a clip where someone was interviewing Jack Black and the camera was on the interviewer.
00:06:06
Speaker
And she was like, are you excited to play Bowser in the new movie? And then the camera just cuts to him and he's wearing a Bowser onesie. And he's like, yeah, it was just the best thing. Freaking loved it. So yeah, I hope he's good. The short form snap cuts of things where it's just that quick subversion or just a good quick joke. Uh huh.
00:06:34
Speaker
Sorry, you were continuing the life lesson of how- It wasn't a life lesson. It's just, I guess, me sharing my views of stuff because I'm very much- I don't want to say sociopathic. That feels wrong. I don't understand how a lot of people operate on finding out more and more the older I get as I become more asocial. But I don't understand when people are like, it's sad that so-and-so died. I'm like, oh, did you know that? No.
00:07:01
Speaker
But it's the same thing of like people are like, Oh, my sports team won. I'm like, Oh, did you play on that team? Well, no, but like, what's your personal connection? Philadelphia and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, okay. So I don't understand people's personal investment towards complete strangers like that. I can get like,
00:07:23
Speaker
if you're involved in a community and there's a prolific member of that community. Like, okay, for example, I was at too many games convention this past weekend and Charles Martinet was there. The voice of Mario for anybody who doesn't know. And he was doing a signing and stuff. And I'm like, I don't care about this person individually. It's cool that they do what they do and that they're in like the video game space. But if they died, I personally would not care. I was like, oh, that's unfortunate.
00:07:53
Speaker
But I'm sure there are a lot of people who would be like, today sucks because Charles died, you know? Yes. Yeah.
00:08:02
Speaker
I think that's fair to say. I mean some people are more generally empathic and some people are more specifically empathic. It's like you feel more for the people close to you. Most people feel that. Then there's other people who feel generally if something bad happens somewhere. And life can be rough for those people. I'm not saying I am one by the way.
00:08:24
Speaker
I I find myself kind of reluctant to take To make light of people's death, right? I guess I don't want to preach to the audience coming here to listen to this talk to about video games but it's like everybody has hopefully like Somebody that cares about them and that's where my brain goes, right? Like I
00:08:49
Speaker
I don't, I have no connection to anybody in the submarine. Um, I don't have a connection to Mario's previous voice actor or his current. Um, but like, if somebody were to pass, then, you know, their families obviously impacted and things like that. So I also get that, like, you don't have to sanitize what you're doing and saying, and.
00:09:14
Speaker
You can only be
Humorous Anecdotes and Podcasting Insights
00:09:15
Speaker
so attached to what goes on in the world, right? I actually am very much of the opinion that if you want to be sad about things that are going on, you have cause 24 seven, something bad is happening all of the time. It's just also good things happen. So literally how you like interact with that or how that goes through your brain and impacts your emotions is based off of your emotional state, you know, your mental health and then what you focus on.
00:09:51
Speaker
There is a term that got coined, I want to say a couple of years ago, but it could have been around forever and I just don't pay attention to stuff. But toxic positivity, where people are like, everything's amazing all the time and it kind of sweeps, hey, am I actively dealing with depression or like something shitty happened where like my mom died. And it feels like you're kind of sweeping some of those emotions and dealing with that, especially for somebody else if you're not feeling that way, under the rug.
00:10:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think you need a balance of the two.
00:10:19
Speaker
But at the same time, I don't want to constantly be a wet blanket or Debbie Downer with like, hey, this stuff that's happening in the part of the world is really shitty. Yes, exactly. It sucks. Am I going to do anything about it? No, but I'm going to feel bad and make other people feel bad. Right. Not to say like we should not.
00:10:41
Speaker
We shouldn't actively be ignoring things, but if all you do your time is focus on negativity, you cannot really be a positive person. Yeah. Because you're just drowning yourself in that one thing. Exactly. In the same way, if you're constantly drowning yourself in happiness, it's probably hard for you to be empathetic when someone's like, hey, my dog died or something.
00:11:05
Speaker
Right. Yeah. And if someone comes with to you without information, you're not, you're probably not listening for, you don't want to hear a reason to be happy. It's just them explaining the current emotional state and communicating. And that's what they need out of it, right? They don't need an answer.
00:11:22
Speaker
They don't need you to be like, Buck up, buttercup, here's a glass of lemonade. No one needs that. Well, maybe some people need that, but I'm not a therapist, but I imagine most people don't need that and most people don't want that. That's not what I'm advocating for. If you're going to prescribe lemonade, give me another fruit along with that blueberry lemonade, strawberry lemonade, raspberry lemonade. Hell yeah.
00:11:49
Speaker
That's fair. Those are all pretty much better than lemonade. Although lemonade's pretty good on its own. I just like multiple fruits. I grew up in the fruit juice mixtures. Whatever the fuck juicy juice came out with where it's like blend of fruit and you get it in a frozen concentrate thing and you add it to water. That's where my comfort zone is.
00:12:10
Speaker
Those are very economical, too, because fruit juice is not inexpensive, depending on the type you get. Fruit juice can actually get pretty pricey. It's also, it weighs a lot. So if you're the type of person who wants to take every grocery bag in at the same time, and yes, I'm speaking to 100% of people in the entire country. That's how I got my scoliosis, Jay.
00:12:32
Speaker
But you still want to. You know it's a bad idea, but you still want to. Those little concentrated juice weapons are significantly easier to carry than a full bottle of juice pre-made. A juice club, basically. It's like the German grenades. It's like the thing at the end. That's basically the juice can. Oh, the potato mashers. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, potato mashers.
00:12:57
Speaker
The only reason I know about that at all is because I have, you know, the classic World War II dad. Mm hmm. That's fair. What's that doing? Watching some war documentary. He's learning about World War II German weaponry. You know, just just in case. Yeah, right. Yeah, it doesn't hurt to know. But yeah, otherwise,
00:13:26
Speaker
anything good going on, anything fun going on. We had a pretty recent episode. I will explicitly call out the meta mention that this is kind of a bonus episode, so we do whatever we want here. I think technically it's hot cast, but who's to say? Finger guns. Dave was shooting people in his free time.
00:13:45
Speaker
Speaking of tragedy, thinking about harm for others, what would you say the impact of your active murdering spree is having on others around you? A really good KDA. Yeah. Good music, though. I know the one song. Hey, once once you start with a good score, you don't need to dilute the pool, right? You stop while you're ahead.
00:14:16
Speaker
which reminds me of the, uh, there was like a movie on the, the wonders. I don't know when they came out, but like this very old band, I think it's fifties or sixties or something. And there was a movie about them. And I remember there was a line, uh, or someone's talking to them and they have one hit song, but they can't come up with anything else. And they're like, well, we still have that song. And the guy's just like, yeah, one hit wonders. Haven't heard that one before. I'm just like, all right, well that's burned in my memory forever. But that's what you do. You find one song and you quit, you make a new band.
00:14:48
Speaker
So we make a new podcast. Every week. Every week. We have talked about this somehow. I think it's a funny idea on paper. Obviously doesn't really help with either trying to gain traction or an audience, which I argue I'm really actively not trying to. But I will say it is always very sweet. Shout out to Steve if you're listening. We'll be like playing Dota with other people.
00:15:15
Speaker
and steve will bring it up out of the blue or like mother might be some context like oh dave is a podcast you should check it out and he like sells the whole thing and i'm just there like i'm like actively don't listen to it don't listen uh-huh i'm trying to combat his efforts
00:15:33
Speaker
I, um, uh, different kind of vibe, but, uh, you know, my boss, you know, your previous boss at the company I work at, there have been many times when, uh, people are talking about recreational things or something like that. And just the topic of. Something related to podcast comes up and he'll jump in and be like, Hey, Jake has a podcast. Hey, you should link that thing. Go link that thing. I'm like, I'm literally working. Like.
00:15:59
Speaker
Sure, I'll link our explicit podcast. Every single episode tagged is explicit.
00:16:09
Speaker
During the work day, why not? I like that you can kind of be like, Oh, I know this thing. Oh, I know someone who does that thing. I can kind of like direct you like anytime somebody's like, Oh, I do art stuff. I'm like, I have a friend who does art stuff. And I would like them, um, a mango stuff all the time. So it's nice to have that for like, Oh, podcasts. Like I know someone who does a thing.
00:16:32
Speaker
but some time I never want to share with like work people some like our relationship ends at like end of the business day and I will not interact past that cause I might complain about you on the podcast that thing you know
00:16:50
Speaker
Maybe there was one time I had someone at work, cause if people ask, you know, send them the link. I think I had like one time someone actually came back to me and was like talking about the actual content in the podcast. And that person was already, I mean, they're, they're in the discord as well. They're very much in the gaming sphere.
00:17:08
Speaker
and I don't expect for anyone else like if I link it to you I don't expect people to like listen to it they're doing a polite thing right that's where my default brain is at but
Social Interactions and Communication
00:17:19
Speaker
it is kind of nice when someone comes back and they're like hey
00:17:22
Speaker
I disagree with you about everything you said recently. I'm like, uh About the podcast. Oh, thank god. Okay, good Yeah, I do appreciate that because it it means that somebody actually did check it out And it is very much like oh, I have a podcast or like are you a white guy in your 30s? Of course you fucking do right? Uh-huh, right like it gets that kind of just that hand wavy generalization but uh-huh It is
00:17:49
Speaker
This is the meta episode. It's still fun to do like I really do enjoy video games as an art form and talking with you and other friends about them because I Don't have the same tier of investment with movies, right?
00:18:08
Speaker
I think we cultivate a pretty like intimate atmosphere here because unless, hopefully I'm not letting anyone down when I say this, if you're listening to the podcast right now, there's not like thousands of you, right? It's not like if you start watching
00:18:26
Speaker
Ninja or who I don't have no idea who streams now, but like somebody on kick that just switched to kick or whatever Like you're not just a person in a massive crowd There's a relatively small group of people that I'm talking to right now now across time statistically the group gets wider for a given episode, but Usually within the first week. It's not that large. Maybe you could fit people into a Small room or a medium sized minivan as long as they could sit on each other's laps. I
00:18:57
Speaker
Like, hey, we're going to the Korean church on the road. Let's go. Uh-huh. Yeah. It's one clown car. I love the idea of a nice two panel meme, where the first is like, we are Legion. And it's, of course, album art from Disturbed. And then the second one's like, I am Hoplite. And it's just like one guy named Jerry. Uh-huh. That's our listener, Jerry.
00:19:19
Speaker
Yeah, I actually don't know any of if your name is Jerry right in because I you're the only one who hasn't at this point. But yeah, I mean, to Gilgamesh, we really appreciate that thoughtful note. Jerry is a great like shorthand for Gilgamesh.
00:19:42
Speaker
It's like, yeah, his name's Gilgamesh. We call him Jerry. I was going like, everybody has written in with like various different names, except for Jerry. We haven't had a Jerry yet. That's true. Yeah. What's going to happen is someone going to, they're going to write in, but they're going to use like a G. I don't know. Like is it, is it, is it Jerry or is it just Gary spelled in the least correct way possible? Um,
00:20:11
Speaker
but yeah.
00:20:27
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's I mean, it's been more years than I think it has been consistently. I still think it's I think it's a fun time. I won't lie. There have been times where it's just like, oh, today kind of sucks. What if I didn't? And then my brain extrapolates it to like, what if you didn't now? What if you didn't ever? Right. Like, I think everybody has a little bit of that.
00:20:50
Speaker
What are you talking about? Backspaces out the DM to Jake. I don't know. It's one of those things in life where there's been plenty of things I've done and given up on.
00:21:05
Speaker
Not that I like I'm not harboraging a bunch of regret. This isn't the beginning of my therapy session. Overall, I'm actually very happy with my life and I'm, you know, fortunate to be in that place. But, you know, it's nice that we have this consistent thing. I tell myself is like, yes, you know, I could put it on my resume or whatever. But even if I didn't, even if I wasn't like I could put like four or five years of podcasting on my resume. I mean, I still do it.
00:21:36
Speaker
It's nice social time. Leads into playing video games. I appreciate talking to you also, Dave. Shut up. This guy's rambling on. But I get what you mean.
00:21:52
Speaker
The neurotic part of my brain, even though we've been friends for over a decade, I have to be like, are we good with that joke that I made about you shutting up? I didn't actually mean it. No, no, no, no. You're 100 percent good. I took it 100 percent humorously. See, I also know that, but like there's that like neurotic part of my brain. She's like, just double check. You're not like, step on somebody. Right. It's like you prank someone and then you like you walk it all back instantly. You're like, yes, you're taking down the prank as they're walking into the room or whatever.
00:22:26
Speaker
But for me, it always is an obligation. But it's the same way like, I'm gonna weave this into conversation regardless. I was at too many games convention this past Saturday, right? And I had a chance to go with friends, friends of the podcast. Dimutra's one of them who's been on as a guest. And I'm somebody who sucks so much being like, oh, here's a fun thing that we could do with people, right? I'm very much just like, I'll stick to my routine, blah, blah, blah, whatever.
00:22:47
Speaker
This was all a bad idea.
00:22:55
Speaker
So I was like, Hey, do you want to break out of that routine? And my knee jerk reaction is no, but because you're inviting me. Yes. Like I'm willing to go and try and I, nine times out of 10, 99% out of a hundred. I will have a good time. Right. Um, it's maybe not always my perfect situation. Cause I have to be like out and about there might be, Oh, you have to travel. Oh, you maybe didn't feel so great. You had to like take a shit and it wasn't convenient bathroom, whatever it may be.
00:23:25
Speaker
That will always exist, but I'm always glad to be along for the ride with something fun and that somebody included me to be a part of it, you know?
00:23:36
Speaker
So shout out to anybody who invites me to stuff because I'm always like, yeah. Eventually, I'm like, yeah. I can attest. I think any time I've ever invited Dave to do anything, he's been like, yeah. And I don't know. Actually, the only times that maybe that hasn't been the case is if you literally already had plans. That's probably 100%. That accounts for 100% of time forever.
00:24:00
Speaker
For like for me and mango we usually have like We have to build a ramp to any given social event so if we were impromptu invited for something we would probably like try to smoke bomb and like Dive out of the nearest window just to like avoid Giving an answer But with adequate heads up, I mean Dave you've got an event coming up and you know, we're planning to go to that obviously
00:24:27
Speaker
With adequate heads up, we can build a ramp of ambition to the summit of social interaction. Without that, it's not really tenable.
00:24:38
Speaker
imagining a montage of you and Mango practicing, holding red cups. You're like, hey, so how do you know Dave? It's just a training montage of getting ready for a small social event. Push it to the limit. Exactly. Yeah. But I think that's really what friends can do for each other. Because I know I'm definitely that person for some people, as I really look at you. Because I definitely harass you and other people a lot to be like,
00:25:08
Speaker
Oh, let's do stuff. But there are a lot of times, too, where it's just, oh, what am I playing this weekend? Nothing. I'm going to sit inside, do a couple chores, play video games, and wish I was doing something more. But then someone's like, hey, what if I came into town? We went out to eat. I'm like, yes. And I'll just latch onto that like crazy.
00:25:30
Speaker
Cause I think there's also a lot of people will have the, I'm going to argue it's a misconception that other people are too busy or don't want to hang out. Oh, they have their own life. They're too busy. They have a kid that they'll never come out to anything. But honestly, just ask. Cause every time I've talked to somebody about this exact scenario, they're like, Oh yeah, like I've wanted to do stuff with people, but I always just figured that they're, you know, got stuff going on. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:25:58
Speaker
I mean, that is. But like, you can rain check. You can still hang out with your friends. Yeah. That's why they're your friends. If I can interject that, I mean, that's good life advice. My follow up life advice to generalize that for pretty much everything in life is communication. Unless you're literally engaging with an adversary who is not operating in good faith.
00:26:21
Speaker
And that kind of doesn't exist. I played a lot of video games that doesn't really exist that much in real life. More communication is generally better. Like for the people you care about, for your friends, for your coworkers, sometimes that can be painful, not in my experience, but I know in others. And like,
00:26:41
Speaker
Yeah, the problem is you can get stuck in your own head and sometimes if you're stuck in your own head, whatever you assume, not like in a bad connotation assume, but where you start, as far as your perceptions about what other people want and whatever they want to do, they don't have an opportunity to fight against that if you've never talked to them, right? You never know if someone is interested in video games, if you've never talked to them, if you don't,
00:27:09
Speaker
They don't comment on your video game shirt, you know, things like that. Same for friends. So basically second seen what you said, but just that's life, right? Like sometimes you got to go out on a limb and see if a bird and pterodactyl comes by and rips you off the limb, right? You know.
00:27:26
Speaker
That's that's how I respect that's that's this maybe this is different for Dave. This is my response to social situations It's the bravery to go out on the limb and be torn to pieces by Jared act a friendship
00:27:42
Speaker
Typically for me to talk to strangers, I need the security of friends nearby. Like I think the one time I was at a local bar slash restaurant with a friend and we were just hanging out and there was a song that was playing on the radio. We're like, where is this from? Sounds familiar. And then I asked like the couple who was like two seats down from us, like, hey, do you know what this is? And they're like, oh, yeah, we actually know what it says. And we were chatting with them for like a minute. I was like, OK.
00:28:09
Speaker
But I wouldn't have done that if it was just me there, because I would have seemed like a weird crazy person. But because I had a friend there, I was like, I'm not crazy. I have another social person. Yeah, you got back up.
00:28:22
Speaker
Or alcohol. Alcohol also is a good friend substitute. I can't hang out with anybody. I'm going to drink myself today. Yes. We've advised a lot of things. I'm going to roll back about it. Dave and I see that we have different perspectives on this. A bit
Gaming Discussions: Payday 3 Focus
00:28:41
Speaker
of a meme. I know. Yeah, it can help. Or I've heard it can help.
00:28:48
Speaker
Actually, I know it can help just and seeing how other people interact while drunk. There is a certain lightness to it. Maybe not even fully drunk, but like tipsy, right? It's a joke feel. I need to call Jake out here. Jake specifically hates vodka. He's what he coined himself as a Bacardi bitch. It's rum or nothing. Right. I'm really hoping that parties are rum. I haven't had it in a while. I'm pretty sure it is.
00:29:14
Speaker
And statistically nothing, actually, in between the two. Yeah. But, oh, it's fun.
00:29:25
Speaker
Anyways, that's the, that's the prostateletizing part of the podcast. That's what happens when we have a bonus episode. It's like, how can we take the last 10 minutes? It's because I can't talk about what I played recently, which is Diablo 4, which will get its own standalone episode. It's standalone episode. And Dota 2, never talking about that again. It's all the same stuff, pretty much.
00:29:46
Speaker
We can talk about it when news happens for it. That's our, that's our end, basically. Occasionally Dave is, so if, if Dave was trapped in the coat closet of my house right now, and I'm not saying he is, but if he was periodically, um, I'll be like, Oh, there's Dota 2 news here. Go over to him, like banging on the door and open it up and be like, what are your thoughts on the Dota 2 news? That's usually what we put in the podcast.
00:30:13
Speaker
And then afterwards, like, don't, don't, don't. Hey, that's the, that's the other piece of life advice here. If you want to record a podcast and you don't have a good space for it, or the acoustics are messed up, coat closets are basically unbeatable. Um, like the only thing that's dredge up that picture.
00:30:32
Speaker
The only thing that's comparatively close is literally taking a comforter, putting it over your entire body and just recording with like the microphone in front of you, which also sounds really good. I would start complaining within two minutes of how hot it is.
00:30:48
Speaker
I know myself, I'm really comfortable. But I listen to another podcast probably. It's not very big. It's actually number two on Spotify, but New York Times podcast. And I kind of mentally put a bookmark whenever they have a correspondent that's on site or in a remote location or something like that. And they're recording in an inconvenient situation.
00:31:15
Speaker
So some of the standouts were literally like in another country with a blanket over her basically just for for audio purpose reasons and they called it out and I thought that was great. Or like you know jump into a phone booth at like a state building and recently there was some convention I think or it was an arraignment of a certain well-known politician.
00:31:37
Speaker
And the person got underneath a table to get some space and be outside of the throng for recording the episode. And it was great. I just love that. Recording in weird places. I love when people improvise. Speaking of...
00:32:01
Speaker
Um, one of the topics that we had slated for today was an expounding and expanding upon a previous one from the previous episode where we talked a little bit about payday. Um, and not my favorite chocolate bar by any means. No, I mean, yeah, it's, it's like a hundred percent nuts. I thought you'd be in, I don't know. Okay. Um, but the, uh, payday three in particular, um,
00:32:29
Speaker
I had this impression that it was really far off. Did you did you share that impression or did you secretly know more about this than I did? I should have that impression because I think when we talked about it, it was for a summer of games type event. And they're like, hey, here's like a little trailer for payday. I was like, oh, there's a little bit of gameplay.
00:32:49
Speaker
Okay, like we'll see what other news they have in the future. But they didn't really, I didn't pick up on a release date if they talked about one at all. So I'm like, okay, back burner, I'll see more news about it eventually. But apparently now they'd be like, oh, we played the game for an hour. I was like, what? I didn't realize it was there.
00:33:10
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. So a bunch of like news media organizations. PC Gamer was one. I believe IGN was another. And I'm sure some others got some time together. Here's how far out of the loop I was. I know in the last episode, I was like, yeah, overkill developing this. And they're literally starberries now.
00:33:28
Speaker
So it's not even the right developer anymore. So hopefully you guys use us for your second source of news. Or you just don't care if we're wrong because sometimes we are. But yeah, hour of gameplay. And we talked about how they were going to have like a hostage negotiation phase. And there's apparently a lot of other things that they've added to the game.
00:33:55
Speaker
And the reason this was of note, again, is because we started with Payday for the podcast. And also, out of all of the games that are upcoming, I'm kind of excited for Payday 3 now that I know what actually exists.
00:34:08
Speaker
Um, how would you feel about, let me, let me ask you before we even go into some of the details here. If payday three came out on September 21st, what would your interest in it be? If we had a group, say we got a group of people that we don't hate and maybe even sometimes appreciate.
00:34:28
Speaker
the the the the the the
00:34:44
Speaker
I would say tentatively interested for something that is a group game like that. It requires a lot of cooperation, coordination. If you have a stack together for it, and people are like, I'm on board for it. Just like with Destiny 2. If it was just me, I would never fucking play that game. It is only when people are like, hey, let's do this group content. I'm like, OK, I'll do the thing.
00:35:10
Speaker
But I mean if we had a group and it wasn't like outrageously priced and we could at least guarantee to play it for a certain amount of time. Yeah, I would check it out. It definitely seems like it has a lot more mechanical layers into it or just complexity in general.
00:35:28
Speaker
But I think the bigger thing I'm looking for is more so just the reliability of it. I know we talked about the host syncing being a major issue that really took us out of it to where we needed a separate application called Hoxhud to make that not shit. Yeah.
00:35:45
Speaker
Which was always also weird, just as a throwback to Payday 2. The game did not natively have the ability to restart a multi-day heist. If you failed on Day 2, that's it. That's the end of the heist. Unless it had specifically, here's your getaway mission or your escape or whatever. Some of them had a follow-up scenario.
00:36:08
Speaker
The game didn't let you do that. And Hawk said literally had an escape menu thing where it's just like restart heist. So if like things were going to crap and you wanted to start again from the beginning of the level, there you go. Hit the button. Didn't matter. Literally changed the failure condition for like a multi-sequence heist as a mod. I don't think mods are supposed to be able to do it, but it made the game better. So yeah.
00:36:34
Speaker
I will add to that. A lot of carry. Anytime you have a modder that's making your game better, they are not competition. Hire them. Holy shit. Yeah. Like the Binding of Isaac thing, they made like this whole other separate game. And I think that was actually an example where Ed McMillan, or I think the other version. Musician.
00:36:57
Speaker
Shit. Whoever made Binding of Isaac, I think they actually brought that person in who was doing the modding to help them make something. Cause I'm not, sometimes people just have good ideas and maybe you do have developer crunch or something else, but if they're like just adding usability and features to your game, work with them. Don't be like, stop doing that. If they have good ideas, maybe you can incorporate that. Oh yeah.
00:37:27
Speaker
And some of the better, I think we've actually talked about mods in general. Also, you're correct. Edmund McMillan was the creator of Super Meat Boy and Binding of Isaac. Yes! But yeah, we've talked about mods and how you should
00:37:44
Speaker
encourage that kind of community because these are the people that are most interested in your community and they're also normally generating free content for you for the community right you go a little valve is the perfect example you're a little slow on patches maybe you don't know how to add an extra gun to your game that makes you tons of money just let the community do it
00:38:05
Speaker
like oh man we're gonna have a jungle theme update because the community happened to submit over the course of several months a bunch of jungle maps and so we're gonna just bundle it and hand it to you guys it's free keep playing our game you know by keys so yeah embrace that but hopefully payday 3 doesn't need it and one of the things that
00:38:28
Speaker
is hopeful specific for this is they're using a different engine. I wasn't sure about that until the most recent article I read, but they are no longer using whatever engine they were using in 2, and they're switching over to Unreal, which is a good engine to see compared to whatever they had before.
00:38:49
Speaker
Because the only problem I really have with Unreal is popping. Unreal has so much support for it. If you're trying to do something in Unreal, as a developer, there are 50 tutorials, basically, on how to do it. And it's also, from what I know, pretty well supported and pretty easy to add things to.
00:39:13
Speaker
If I were to see two potential news articles, one of them was company uses their own engine for this crap, and the other one is they switched to unreal. I'm almost always more excited for the second one, even with the limitations it has. For shooters, I don't think it really gets better.
00:39:32
Speaker
Anyways, that's my take. Uh, let me, let me like, here's your turn to jump on Dave. And it's just like, uh, the segways covered in spikes and you're like, where do I, where do I position myself? Presses the big, I, I agree button. Uh-huh. Yeah. So that's good news. Um, anything stand out from the trailer that, uh, I sent over and not the trailer, the IGN little walkthrough.
00:40:00
Speaker
So I mean honestly it was I mean what they showed I think was the exact same footage they had for the trailer just as somebody talking over it. Yeah. So I think like it looks the same as pretty much as far as payday to.
00:40:16
Speaker
I mean, I probably would have to do a side by side to say, oh, these graphics are definitely improved, which I'm sure they are. They looked OK. To that granularity. But a lot of the gameplay looks very similar, just like I said with the added mechanics. And you mentioned the hostage negotiation phase. The person playing the game from their time, the journalist for IGN, was saying that stealth was very, very punishing.
00:40:42
Speaker
So you actually had to coordinate a lot more as far as, I'm going to be sneaky beaky. So I'm not sure if they're going to kind of weigh that with, hey, if you stay stealth the whole time, here are the rewards you get. Or maybe certain missions will just get you out. Because I think she kind of called out in her play time, she's expecting a lot of players to not fully experience stealth because a lot of it's root and toot and shooting.
00:41:10
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. So I think this is where I'd probably jump in with some of the takeaways from the article I read. So PC Gamer had an article. I'm going to actually never source anyone, but Tyler Wild wrote this. The reason is because I'm basically going to take all of the content that I thought interesting that was in that article and talk about it. Because again, I think that the IGN preview was was fine. It was a good overview. But for people who put a lot of time in the game, some of these specifics are kind of nice.
00:41:39
Speaker
Um, so some of the things we saw an example of in that article was, um, if you are unmasked, right? Like even in payday two, everyone starts the mission unmasked unless it was explicitly loud from the get go. There were a couple of those. Um, and you're just walking around, maybe you're wearing, you know, sunglasses or something, but for the most part, not anonymous at all in payday.
00:42:05
Speaker
That was pretty much just to scope out the joint just to like see maybe inside some windows But you really want to put a mask on so you can run right so you can move quickly And it didn't matter if guard saw you they would shoot you if you were unmasked Or if you were yeah regardless of whether you're a master or master
00:42:29
Speaker
So in Payday 3, they're adding a whole bunch of stuff to the mask list state. And if a guard finds you, rather than just being like, requiescent pache, and then they just like, assassin blade you in the rib, they might put you in cuffs, or they'll escort you out of the secure location.
00:42:52
Speaker
And then set you free actually and some of the things that were called out is like During if the guard has a key card, you can maybe nab the key card off them while they're escorting you out do some sleight of hand Which is really cool And then if the guard detects multiple people while he's escorting someone out then it starts to like escalate a bit a little bit He'll put like handcuffs on the second person. So now they're bound. They can't move, right?
00:43:19
Speaker
And this like, it just opens up so much crazy stuff you can do in these levels where you might have some people with a mask on, like moving fast, like not engaging with the guards at all, doing whatever. But if you want someone to pick a lock, which you can do now while your mask is off, pick a lock, go to like a security place, grab like a key card, start looking at monitors, things like that. You can do that.
00:43:44
Speaker
So you can justify a 50-50 split I think on a lot of levels.
00:43:51
Speaker
I'm sure they're going to encourage it for certain levels where it needs to be asymmetric. But even just the option of that is nice, because if I remember correctly, Payday 2, it was a binary state of Master Off. One person is starting some shit, the mass would go on for everybody automatically. I forgot about that. And you're like, hey, who fucking was peeing in front of the guard? He's like, oh, it was Dave over there. And then it's like, hey, now it's just, you know,
00:44:18
Speaker
Maybe not necessarily loud, but it's a hey, stuff's going down. Yeah. And a lot of times it was like loud and it's over. And I think that there is there might still be a mask on like state. But normally that mask on state is now going to be like the whole area was alerted or something like that.
00:44:43
Speaker
But they had an example of like, also as an aside, while they were doing their playthroughs for this level, they kept trying to do a stealth job and it was a very basic bank for those that played Payday 2. It was like bank job number two or something like that. It was very much base game.
00:44:58
Speaker
And it's the same map by the way, it's it which is a good sign because I did account beforehand and there was like 80 payday three maps by the current date counting DLC Sorry payday two maps, which is too many So they're starting with the basics baseball, but is this um, is that bank map the one where there is a
00:45:23
Speaker
There's a walkable street. There's an alley and then there's some stairs up the back Yeah, I think that's why then there's like the overlook room and then okay. I know I know which bank job this is Exactly, right? There was only too many like well, there was a lot of bank jobs But the small ones there wasn't that many the DLC started to add the larger and larger and less completable maps Golden grin and the big bank and all that stuff
00:45:48
Speaker
The one that they had some famous techno DJ make the music for. Payday was a heck of a time. It was weird. But anyways, most of the squad was basically incapacitated by this guard.
00:46:06
Speaker
who was finding them, because someone tried to hide behind a locker door. And no one had their guns out. And finally, the Starbreeze employee was just like, OK, puts on the mask, shoots the guard, answers the pager, because that system's coming back. And then you could free the person who was handcuffed. And everybody else could keep doing operations. They could walk around the bank. They could scope things out, grab key cards. They just can't take violent actions while unmasked.
00:46:55
Speaker
shoot through the glass. Hope the glass doesn't set off anything. Nobody here is shattering the glass. Speaking of that, though, I did read that two times they had someone throw a grenade by hitting the grenade button and then had to restart because of grenades. Grenades are canonically not the quietest of weapons.
00:47:01
Speaker
that's just crazy that's really cool I really like that
00:47:16
Speaker
I'll just say, obviously, that's not a problem we had with our team. We were very professional. In my defense, I was one of the quietest people because for my melee weapon, I had a wad of money. The money, yeah, just beat people with it.
00:47:33
Speaker
It was the best because like you have like a charge up animation So you take the like a lot of money from right hand and slowly draw it across your shoulder But then when you let it go there was like that But like hitting people with a wad of paper, it's just oh so satisfying. It made absolutely no sense. It was excellent I hope it keeps its kookiness. I hope that like the rewards you get from completing missions actually feed into
00:47:58
Speaker
Skills and unlocking other things. Yeah, but it's not I mean, it could just be for like the love of the heist as well Um, they're gonna have soldiers enjoyable, but I really enjoy skill trees in general as a form of progression Uh, it's like oh I can work towards this I can round out my issue by being able to like shout at things God damn it thermal drill work And then it does I will they I will say I saw no mention of a drill at all in the article There's a fucking drill
00:48:27
Speaker
There has to be a drill. But they did introduce some other mechanics like around it. So if you were running stealth rather than just using like a stealth drill, you might get like the manager as a hostage, have someone with a gun who can take aggressive actions or whatever, have other people maybe clear the path, whatever, check the path, walk him to a retinal scanner.
00:48:49
Speaker
and get through security that way. The loud option actually for this bank mission we're talking about was go to the second floor above the bank, because you can walk around up there, and use thermite to burn a hole in the top of the vault, and then go down and retrieve the bags and throw them up, the money bags. So it actually bypassed the drill entirely for that specific mission, which I know was only drilled beforehand.
00:49:18
Speaker
I'm always excited for the addition of thermite. Yes. How hot does it get? It will burn through anything. I know Shadow Raid had it as well because you would thermite the sewer grate bars.
00:49:34
Speaker
But there's some other facts here. I don't want to spend forever talking about it, but some of these stood out. The the portrait heist, the art gallery had people. There's like a mini game, basically, you need to complete framing frame. Thank you. To cut out the art exhibit pieces. And then there was like a computer someone needed to find to determine which art exhibits, like where the valuable ones were so you could guide people.
00:50:01
Speaker
There was another mini game for a security system where one person would see a monitor with like some symbols and they would need to convey that to another person who's punching in the code. Yeah, this is good game design. Do you remember the one time we played we were here? I believe so. That was the two-player co-op puzzle solving.
00:50:23
Speaker
But for anybody who hasn't played it, the whole experience is asymmetric. Like you don't ever have the same people doing the exact same thing. It's usually one person in a room, another person on the other side of the room. So I might have to describe to Jake what's going on in this room. Meanwhile, he's saying like, and maybe he needs to kind of control stuff. I'm like, no, you're doing it wrong. He needs to be this. And it's that in court, it, ooh, words.
00:50:49
Speaker
It incorporates or encourages that communication to be a necessary part of it where you have to be good at it, not just mechanically. I can shoot heads. Yes. That's the vibe I'm really getting from this impression on this mission.
00:51:08
Speaker
Even if you go in loud, even in payday two, you probably were taking different people with different roles. Somebody was like the leader, the medic, someone was the engineer, someone had the big, the Thanatos you were talking about last time.
00:51:22
Speaker
And it sounds like there's a little bit more responsibility to disperse even on stealth attempts now, which is really good. I think that's excellent to see. And the fact that guards will just kind of escort you out of a secure area if you're not masked up means that there's recovery states that just didn't exist in Payday 2.
00:51:46
Speaker
Which was the big disincentive to even try stealth, right? Anyone messes up one time and it's freaking done? That sounds miserable. It was miserable. Like, the number of times we had retries just because one person got seen once wasn't fun. Good looking back on it, right?
00:52:03
Speaker
Yeah. That's where you could theoretically, if you're only spotted by one person, you could kill that one person or let me rephrase, disable them in some way, incapacitate them. Hit them with a lot of money. But you would have to then answer the pager to say like, hey, I noticed that you kind of just dropped randomly and your heartbeat stops. Is everything okay? And you're like, oh no, it's fine.
00:52:31
Speaker
Uh-huh. I had a spicy burrito. Um, but yeah, you had a limited number of those, but again, to talk about some of the decent issues, there would be times where you try and go and answer a pager. Um, and it just would not, like you had to hold it the entire time. And sometimes it just wouldn't register or you think you're like, Oh, you're only 30% detected. You were actually a hundred percent detected. It just didn't jump fast enough. Um, yeah.
00:53:03
Speaker
I really like the idea of some more asymmetrical gameplay. And again, as I said, anytime we talk about Minecraft or shit like that, I love when people have roles. Some people can opt in like, hey, I really want to kind of do this one thing.
00:53:20
Speaker
Oh yeah, you can do that one thing. You can maybe even have some people double up on it, but it also avoids the confusion of in the moment if shit hits the fan. What do we do? Well, you're the mechanic guy, so you're kind of in charge of the drill, right? Yeah. That question's not actively there. You have one person who has a big gun, they're like, any cops, please come towards me. They know what they're doing.
00:53:43
Speaker
So yeah, I like role-based stuff. I mean, even the same with like Overwatch, right? You have like, this is my character, this is my role, this is kind of what I'm doing. Right. You have your place you belong, you have your role to fulfill. If you succeed in that, then your part's complete.
00:53:59
Speaker
Yeah, and I can just blame my team for fucking it. Yeah, you're just like, hey, mechanic diff, right? Or something like that, right? You didn't fix the drill. The other thing was, if your team fucks up, you have to let them know. It's true. How else will they learn, right? This is for their own good. And other ways to be toxic.
00:54:22
Speaker
That's negative toxicity and the counterpoint to positive toxicity. But yeah, it looks like a lot of these things are going to come together to have scrappy heists because you might be able to recover something. My head just immediately goes to that classic bank job movie scene a little bit more where some of the people who maybe
00:54:46
Speaker
were wearing light armor and were unmasked for most of the mission. They have the skills necessary to move bags real quick while other people are the front line with the LMG and the heavy armor. And they're like, I'll wait in the car until it's my time. Right. You know, I think like what I've seen and what I've read from these previews makes me think that that's going to be more possible in this.
00:55:10
Speaker
Which is really cool. I'm going to skip over most of everything else we said because we said a lot about this. A couple other standouts were hostages were used mid assault in order to get a resupply drop. You could be like, hey, well, also, this is this is why it's a video game and not real life. I don't think police officers will give you more explosives and bullets if you give them a person. Yeah, I don't think that's how that works.
00:55:39
Speaker
but it's a video game so you can. And the other thing was like more time between assault waves. So if you were like pressed on resources or things were getting like, you just need more time, right? Like to unload, like to get supplies out of the bank or whatever, pay out, pay in a couple hostages, do the exchange and it'll take longer for the next wave to hit you, right? So you have some choices really on how you spend it. And then the articles didn't mention this, but it worked that way in payday too.
00:56:08
Speaker
If one of your players was dead, you could generally get them exchanged for a hostage in Payday 2. So I assume that's still there, unless they go into hardcore with it.
00:56:30
Speaker
and then I think the last thing I wanted to know was there was a mention of choking a guard out
00:56:41
Speaker
after putting your mask on. So again, you have to have your mask on to do aggressive actions, but there was no melee. You snuck out, snuck up behind someone and choke them out and pay day one. You did what we did and what our forefathers did, which was take a stack of money and beat them over the head with it. So maybe, uh, maybe, maybe at some point they'll add a DLC money.
00:57:03
Speaker
or something like that you can use to choke people out. But it also seems like there's going to be some melee interactions or something like that. So there was no sort of model to model animation for that at all into. There is like that the melee options are probably still there. Oh, yeah. It's just now you have the addition of I can grab somebody and use their body for a shield or bringing them to a scanner or something else. Yeah, I think it's going to be the case.
00:57:33
Speaker
And I think it does, it does set off the pager. So you're not going to be like, all right, five people stuff, like five etsyos or four etsyos deployed to mission hit man, where you can have a pile of bodies in a room. Although we have that. Did you do this? We have had that though, in payday where it's like, where is the, where's the same spot that's least likely someone's going to path to and we're just like piling body bags into this closet. Yeah.
00:58:00
Speaker
What was funny is in Payday 2, they had these dumpsters, which were essentially drop-off points for, hey, you don't need to bring all your merch or loot to the van. You're going to have these little drop-off points. It's like, hey, maybe this is more convenient for you and your squad as a secondary outlet. But you could also just throw body bags in there of like, they're not going in here.
00:58:23
Speaker
The boats pulled up for you to unload things and you're like, a bag of money, bag of gold, bag of artifacts, bag of human. The only one place we can- I don't know. Don't put it once you get two miles out. There's only one place we can sell these organs. Marriages. Marriages.
00:58:46
Speaker
All right, now that some of the nostalgia is coming back, I'm definitely a little more, a little more heights. It's going to be contingent upon like what they have in the game at launch. And I'm sure we'll get more information as that approaches, but you know, September is not that far away. So we shall see. What they should really do is also have a playable demo.
00:59:06
Speaker
Even if it's just like, hey, here's like a little tutorial thing. It was just with the current engine. I think that would also be good to kind of give people's hands on and get them into the space. They really should. They should give people like one map.
00:59:20
Speaker
give them like a cap on skill points and let them go ham. Like, there you go. If people enjoy the game, they'll put more time into it. And, um, yeah, I mean, they almost don't need it. Payday two is actually, believe it or not for how old it is. It's still one of the most played games on scene. Like, and it shouldn't be. It's my state. I love it, but it shouldn't be for all the problems we mentioned. Um,
00:59:50
Speaker
But yeah, I hope it's good. The early impressions look really good and bonus points for letting video game news outlets actually play the game so far ahead of the release.
01:00:05
Speaker
Um, that says a lot about the confidence and how things are going because I'm tired of games not getting any reviews whatsoever until the day they hit shelves or the store. Um, and there were reasons for it. Right. So way more positive than when I was talking about their previous experiences with the walking dead game and stuff like that. Mm-hmm.
01:00:30
Speaker
Anyways, that's the Payday 2, that's the Payday 3 episode in the latter half. The first one was mental well health, like health, talking about submarines, talking about why we do what we do, friendship, violence against security guards. It's the second half.
01:00:50
Speaker
Yeah. Also last
Upcoming Game Releases and Podcast Conclusion
01:00:52
Speaker
piece of news. This was since the news episode, but Baldur's gate three got pushed up almost an entire month and it's really state. Um, so it was going to be the end of August, close to the end of August. And he got pushed up to near the beginning of August, probably because starfield is coming out like the following week, something like that. I mean, I would play it if we have a, if we have a stack. Mm-hmm.
01:01:18
Speaker
because it looks good and I need my divinity too, itch. I haven't had it scratched in so long. Uh-huh. It was really funny. I saw like, uh, I didn't click through to see what the content was, but they're like new patch dropped. All right. We're going to add like these playable races and the level cap raised like 14 levels. And it looked like a, like a microtransaction DLC thing or something like that. It's like, Oh yeah, spend this money. And your level cap will raise 14 levels. And I had to remind myself.
01:01:45
Speaker
Oh, no, this is early access. They're literally just unlocking more of the game, which is funny, but they must be pretty confident in what they're doing to move up a release date. Right. It would be never happens. Things could be postponed or released early or at the mean at their expected time that they are marketed for. But it was too early in general for the finished product.
01:02:13
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. It's crazy to see it move up, but I don't know. Yeah. The, the year is shaping up. So, uh, we will continue to cover those games as we play them or other people play them. And then we talk about them, um, with such conviction and certainty that you would expect that we are video game reviewers.
01:02:35
Speaker
But if you have a video game that you would like to pretend that we can pretend to review, you can send that request in to Soapstone Podcast at gmail.com, or you can join the discussion on Facebook, another imaginary platform, at Facebook.com slash Soapstone Podcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good night.
01:03:04
Speaker
So,
01:03:30
Speaker
So,