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Baldur's Gate 3 dominates the world & how to heal your illness with rage - Add to Party 08.09.2023
4 Plays1 year ago
This week we discuss Baldur's Gate 3, Twisted Metal the TV show, Diablo 4 blowing its good will, and Remnant 2.
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Transcript
Introduction and Show Kickoff
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to a-
Musical Chat and Caffeine Confessions
00:00:18
Speaker
Welcome to Add to Party, a friendship simulator masquerading his new show. I'm your host, James Hartwell, and I'm joined by the humming master, Charles Jamot. And I've been joined by the original humming master. No, I'm the humming master. This is listen, this is not a hum off. OK, I've been humming the last 10 minutes because I've discovered a new genre of music, you guys acapella snow.
00:00:45
Speaker
Did you know? Actually, I might have known this, but I've been obsessed with the Katamari Damashi soundtrack, naturally. And there's a name for that style of music. It's called Shibuya A.
00:00:59
Speaker
Oh, and I guess it's like something from the 90s, like some type of musical style that was like hyper specific to an area in Japan. And it's just the vibe. It's the exact vibe that I need at this moment in my life. And I'm buzzing so hard on caffeine right now. I can't settle down. I'm trying to drink the caffeine away. It's not going away.
00:01:28
Speaker
How much caffeine have you had? I don't know, like two cups of coffee. Like espresso, drip coffee. What do we talk to? Just drip. Just drip. Well, I mean, if you use the dumb like measurements on a coffee pot, I guess it's been eight cups of coffee. But, you know, those are fake measurements. Those are baby measurements.
00:01:53
Speaker
I think that's how much my brother drank when he had to go to the hospital for heart palpitations, Andy.
Concerts Amidst Illness
00:01:58
Speaker
Okay, I'm not talking about like eight Starbucks cups. I'm talking about like eight times six ounces. How many ounces is that? Eight times six? 58 or 60? 48. 48, yeah. So 48 ounces of coffee. That's not the worst, right? How much is too much coffee? You know, I was using Bard today, so let's ask Bard.
00:02:22
Speaker
It's really using hard because I was trying to figure out if an inner join is the same as an inner merge join. Wait, why do you why would you be using Bard for that? Hard is if you're unaware, Bard is Google's A.I. platform. Yeah. And if you use the platform like itself, listen, I couldn't figure out what makes a merge join different. Well, it said it sorts the results before it joins it. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. How much coffee?
00:02:52
Speaker
is too much coffee. All right, it's thinking, it's sparkling, it's spinning, it's turning. The Food and Drug Administration, don't tell me the amount of caffeine. I don't know. It's about four or five cups of coffee. Well, I had more. Did I? Okay then. A little bit. So too much. Anyways, I'm probably going to crash very soon, but I'm excited to spend my uppers with you guys. How are we doing? How are we feeling?
00:03:23
Speaker
I almost died. James, what? You know, ignoring my body. Stop it. Stop it. Yeah, I last week was a fun week for me because I was like, hey.
00:03:41
Speaker
I'm going to go, I'm going to go with the, uh, the partner there. We're going to go to the Beyonce concert. Okay. After that, after that, we're going to go to Fenway and see, uh, fallout boy. One, two, one, two punch. Yeah. And, uh, let me tell you some Monday night, start feeling real sick. Started feeling real bad. Uh,
00:04:03
Speaker
in a food poisoning sort of way, you know, and I was mad. I was I went to bed mad. I was like, no, no, we're not doing this. We're not doing this. Yeah. And I woke up. I had taken the whole day off the following day because we had to go to Gillette Stadium. So it's like a whole fucking deal to go see Beyonce. So I literally slept all morning.
00:04:29
Speaker
And most of the afternoon I woke up and I'm like, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm feeling pretty good. Uh, go to Beyonce. This is a good time. I was still a little unsteady, but I was good enough. You know, I made it, went home. I was like, Hey, even drove home. I'm like, I'm doing okay. What next day woke up. It's fall out boy. I woke up. I was like, Hey, I'm feeling better. Maybe I angered myself out of this.
00:04:51
Speaker
I said to myself, no, told my body what for? Yes. Yeah. Then, uh, about had, you know, my morning meetings
Gen Con and Medical Avoidance Stories
00:04:59
Speaker
at work and about, you know, 11 30, I finished the meeting. Like, Hey, I'm going to sit down, maybe grab a little nap quick because, you know, we got in late last night and as I laid down, uh, I got probably the second worst chills I've ever had my entire life. Oh no.
00:05:16
Speaker
Like to the, to the point where I'm shivering and I'm chattering my teeth so hard and my neck hurts. Yeah. And I was just, and I'm like, I have to, I have to get in the shower to warm myself up.
00:05:34
Speaker
And, but it's so cold. Yeah. Uh, and I finally managed to take shower. You know, I take a shower at like a human temperature, you know, hot, but not too hot. I turned that thing all the way up. Still was cold. It's in there for 45 minutes. Oh no. Got out of the shower, got back into bed, felt the fever catching up. All right, let's go to sleep.
00:05:59
Speaker
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Went to sleep, had hallucinations. Oh, my goodness. Then about, I don't know, I want to say like four o'clock woke up. I'm like, hey, my fever has subsisted a little bit. Sure. Took a took a covid test just to make sure, you know, not covid, not covid. And I said to myself, well, you know, I don't feel great, but I do feel good enough to drag myself to a follow up.
00:06:28
Speaker
I'm going to be mad if I don't go to this concert. So I drag myself up there. We had a reservations at a barbecue place and I was like, well, I can't eat, but you know what? I'll maybe let's just try a little potato, little potato. And I got like a biscuit, little biscuit. I ate one little tiny slice of potato. I was like, that's no good. And I literally like a crumb of the biscuit. My body went, no, no.
00:06:58
Speaker
The heck happened to you? You can't even eat a crumb. I think I had listeria. What is listeria? It's a type of food poison. Oh, I think we talked about this. Is that what you get on Oregon Trail, though? Is that where you... That's dysentery. Oh. That's the thing. I'll say about this. Didn't vomit. My streak of not vomiting continues. I think the last time I've vomited was
00:07:23
Speaker
2011. And not really any stomach problems. It's very weird. Huh? Yeah, probably not. No, but I had but I had I had nausea and like, oh, but that's that's a symptom in almost every sickness in the world.
00:07:41
Speaker
No, I understand, but it, it felt like food poisoning. Sure. It just didn't manifest that one particular, uh, like I could have vomited if I forced myself to eat and or drink. Um, but.
00:07:57
Speaker
Yeah. And, uh, yeah, the next two days were hell. I was just like just feverish and dying. And it was great. That's terrible. I'm glad you're feeling better now. Where are we on the shiver level? Where are we on the I haven't had chills for many a day at this point. OK. All right. Because of anger, you angered it away. Yeah. Well, let it be said that concert
Barbie Movie and Content Consumption
00:08:21
Speaker
concert had James Hartwell fucking man up to code.
00:08:28
Speaker
They're good shows. It's a good thing. You said you checked for COVID, right? Yeah, I checked for COVID. Right. Well, you're doing much better than certain fans in the Final Fantasy 14 fan fest that happened. Oh, no. What happened? They just go and went fuck it. There was a COVID outbreak and a fan was getting sick the day before. Mm hmm.
00:08:50
Speaker
and went to the opening keynote. And they were sick. They were actually like legitimately sick. And they just forced themselves to go to the keynote at the opening day. It was starting to get real sick and tired. And there was like, I can't stand anymore. Goes back to the hotel and goes, maybe I should check for COVID. Test positive for COVID. Oh, no. And then books a flight, even though they know they have COVID and flies home.
00:09:21
Speaker
And guess what happened? There was a big outbreak of covid for a fan fest. Yep. Oh, not the one where they announced the final fantasy 14 coming to Xbox. Yeah. Yeah. They announced. Well, they announced even something better, which was the new expansion. Oh, that's true. Yes. They also announced that it was finally coming to Xbox, which has been honestly been worked on for a while. Yeah. They finally got there.
00:09:49
Speaker
What's the space called? Don Trail or something like that? On Trail. Yep. It looks like a beach episode. Yeah, that's it. Which, you know, probably it won't stay that way as stories go. Things don't generally just stay happy, but which is good because as people people are not aware, possibly the major
Deep Dive into House
00:10:11
Speaker
story arc that comprise multiple expansions is already concluded. So this is the first expansion after that.
00:10:18
Speaker
And so now it's like you have to start all over again and create a story. And the attitude when by the end of the expansion was, you know what, you get to go on a break, go off there, do your thing. So it's real myths of Pandaria.
00:10:34
Speaker
Yeah, it has to be, right? There's no way. But yeah, that'll be interesting when it comes to it. Well, Charles, you're our 14 expert. How do you feel about all the big news? I mean, I was happy, excited about it. I mean, the cycle seems to be every two years or so for an expansion. They announced some stuff that people have wanted for a long time, which is great.
00:11:01
Speaker
Really, it's all good. Let's say two new jobs. Let's say we'll see what what jobs are going to be. But yeah, it's all good. Pretty happy. I mean, we're going to run out of jobs at some point. I mean, let's say there's no there's no running out of jobs from this game. Like they already left the traditional jobs a while ago. So but they technically still have a lot more they can do. So how many are there now like 20?
00:11:30
Speaker
Well, there's quite a bit. I don't know. Well, you know what? Don't worry about it. I have the new giant mouse pad with all the jobs listed. So let me count. Oh. We have Blue Mages, Dark Knights, Ninjas, Paladins, Astralogians, Samurais, Khabards, what's it, Scholars, Black Mages, Dancers.
00:12:03
Speaker
white mages, red mages, monks. What are they using for that? Ah well, dragoons, sages.
00:12:14
Speaker
Oh, man, I don't know what that art is. That one's weird. But one's even more than Charles knows. So there's 20, exactly 20. And then we're going to change and we're getting two more. So we were. That's it. A lot of hope was for the Corsair to be a class. And then. But we'll see what it's like. It's going to be a sky pirate. It's two two DPS is right now.
00:12:40
Speaker
So one's going to be a range, a magical range class, and then the other is going to be a melee physical. So I'm going to say one, it could be Corsair. I can't even think of what a new class could be.
00:12:56
Speaker
20 jobs. Well, Andy, we also haven't gone through any of the other famous ones from tactics. You could always add those. Oh, wasn't there a mathematician? There is. Well, there we go. I'm just going to. There's also a way through math magical. Yeah, then there's. Oh, I like that. We also do things like Beastmaster. What's it? Berserker is kind of already taken by Marauders, to be honest.
00:13:26
Speaker
Sky Pirate. You could do. There's also Orator. Fuck Sky Pirates. Well, so here's the thing with Sky Pirates. It's too close to Machinist,
Baldur's Gate 3: A Roleplaying Revelation
00:13:35
Speaker
which is already the gun class. And Sky Pirates are Machinist in the game already. Mm hmm. Don't box out my creativity, Charles. Well, it's just not that good. I support you, James. Also, James, just to jump back quick, you cannot anger sickness away.
00:13:53
Speaker
Oh, you 100 percent can. No. Well, Andy, would you like to talk about your sickness? Listen, I bard is telling me it can weaken your immune system, making you even more susceptible to illness, James. I mean, probably. I don't know. Huh. That's it. This ad Google says that white males tend to die younger.
00:14:14
Speaker
I wonder why that is. Is it all the times people should go to the doctor or overpower their own sickness in their own words? Listen, I also may have a supply of antibiotics in my household that I've been taking care of. Oh, I support it. I've been struggling with my own avoidance of a doctor.
00:14:42
Speaker
My poor ankle has been messed up for so long, and then I got to spend a whole week walking on it at Gen Con, and now it's just, oh, oh no.
00:14:57
Speaker
Oh, no. Let me tell you, ankle, well, not ankle. What did I buy? A compression sleeve. Those things are magic. I don't know what it is, but it like holds my ankle together. Yeah. Well, it's squeezing your muscles. Yeah. I talked with my landlord about it. And then he told me that he just wears them now for the rest of his life. And I told him I don't want to do that. And then he told me to lose weight. So.
00:15:27
Speaker
I guess that's my journey now. I got to stop being a fat, fat, fatty. Give us your Gen Con report. A ton of fun. A lot of fun. Already planning for next year.
00:15:40
Speaker
I got to play some board games. I got to play just like some role play games. I got to larp. I didn't know murder mysteries are considered larping. Yeah, I thought larping is like with foam swords. Well, that's what SCA. Oh, what is that? What does SCA stand for?
00:16:04
Speaker
I don't know. That looks too dangerous for me. S.E.A. LARP. C.A. Google autocompletes that is is LARPing still a thing? The Society for Creative and. And in our. Yeah, thank you. Oh.
00:16:23
Speaker
But yeah, it was great outside of me testing the limits of my body. I am old and ailing and I was absolutely reminded of it. And now I'm trying to recover from it so that I can be a good, good journalist at PAX. Listeners, I had an ankle problem too. And then what I did was I iced it and rested for a week and now I'm fine again. OK, Charles, it's not that simple.
00:16:53
Speaker
I rested it for like two weeks and it didn't get better. Did you go to a doctor's then? No. Oh, okay. My doctor cost like $200 a visit. Jesus Christ, why? Don't you have insurance? Yes, that's with a discount.
00:17:09
Speaker
That's shitty insurance, Andy. I don't know what to say. I work for a small company. I don't have the bargaining power of a large one. But tell you what, it's against me. The system's against me and my ankle. It's not my fault. I feel like you can maybe find a better doctor for testing. You know, you're right, Andy. The system is against white males.
00:17:34
Speaker
Listen, let's not dig further into that. Hey, listen, as the Barbie movie taught us patriarchy hurts everyone, that includes men. Hey, that's that's a talking point in the leftist community right now. I still need to see the Barbie movie. I've been wanting to see it and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie. Yeah, it's supposed to be very good. Yeah, I'm planning to see that. I don't need to see Oppenheimer, though. That looks like a bummer.
00:18:01
Speaker
It is a bummer. I don't need bummers right now. I'm not about bummers. Oh, they did. By the way, they did extend Oppenheimer's IMAX run to the end of the month because every sewing was basically sold out across the country. Are you able to see it, James? Did you say there's one near you? Yeah, there's one near me. I don't know if I'm going to make it down there. I have a I have a very busy schedule the next couple of weeks. Oh, a busy boy.
00:18:27
Speaker
I got to I got to we're going to head down to the shore. Then I got to get back up here. We got to fly to Seattle. It's going to be a whole time. That is a whole thing. Yeah. I guess Oppenheimer can wait. Well, you can't wait. Well, I saw I saw Oppenheimer on TikTok. Oh, no, that's right. You watch everything on TikTok. You can consume anything on. Oh, my God. Let me tell you, we're getting into the news after this, I promise. Want to hear my new favorite thing on TikTok.
00:18:55
Speaker
There's this guy who puts up episodes of House, and I'm just rewatching House on TikTok. It's such a good time. How do you re-upload it? Is it like a condensed version? Yeah, they kind of ship out like a little bits of it and just keep the most interesting parts of the episode. OK. Oh, I hate that.
00:19:16
Speaker
Oh, no, it's great because it's like that's why I watch like like edits on YouTube of like of like anime fights or anything like they cut things and it's just like, oh, gross. Like it's not clean cuts.
00:19:29
Speaker
Oh, no, these are clean. These are like professional. It's because it's funny. I went back and like watched an episode like what I miss because an episode certainly isn't 20 minutes when you watch all the parts. Sure. I was like, and I was like, yeah, all these pieces they cut out, I don't give a shit. They really just kept in the A material. Yeah. Are they cutting? Yeah. Are they basically like cutting out the B side story? If it's a boring B side story. Yes.
00:19:54
Speaker
They'll keep, like, sometimes the B-side story is very interesting. Like House and Wilson buying Cudi's condo. Oh, I don't know anything about House. Oh, that's a great show. That sounds wildly illegal. Everything he does, wildly illegal.
00:20:10
Speaker
Then how does he get away with it? Because he's smart. Smart. He's right. You know, that whole problem where you're where it's like, you know what, maybe house is glorifying being a jerk. Is he ever wrong? Yes. Yeah, a lot. But he gets the right answer at the end. Oh.
00:20:29
Speaker
That's the point of the show. House comes up with the initial diagnosis. Is it right? No, it's not. He tries again, sometimes does something very legal to do it. Close, but also not right. And then just as he's about to get fired, he solves it.
00:20:47
Speaker
Right. That is the structure. And then they're like, well, you saved a life. So everything else. Clean slate. Yeah. And then you repeated every episode. Yeah. You're telling me he's never right on the first try. Sometimes he is a lot of small. There's also a lot of like small diagnosis he makes. Right. To showcase he's smart. Well, he's like, oh, he's right. He talks. He solves all these smaller ones. But the main case
00:21:15
Speaker
Um, like, like James just said too, like he'll get it right. But for some reason the treatment doesn't work. So then you go, Oh, that it's not this one. And then later at the end you go, it was that one. It's just that because of this, the treatment didn't work. And that's normally it's about the patient lying about the, the, the full symptoms or whatever, or their full history.
00:21:39
Speaker
Oh, if you just had all the information. That's right. He sounds like he'd be miserable, though. He is. Yes, he is. That's the other thing. Yeah. So does he have any friends? Yeah, he is. Wilson. Yeah. I mean, that's all friends.
00:21:55
Speaker
Yes, surprisingly. Yes. Andy, that's entire overarching season plots about like this house really have friends. Yeah. And it is a it's a full show that explores all those facets of being a curmudgity smart person. Charles, I'm in the therapy season on TikTok, which I love because it's like, you know what? I'm going to try to be a better person. And then at the end of the season, he's like, you know what? Fuck therapy.
00:22:24
Speaker
Yep. Therapy's not good for me. And he goes. Oh, God, he thinks he's even better than therapy. He's better than everything. That's that's the entire point of how. God, it's like a power fantasy for doctors. It is. It is. It's a power fantasy for people who think they're smart and are above the rules. Yeah.
00:22:50
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And that's why you go. Hmm. I'm just like, well, where my brain is going right now is like, I wonder when this show came out, if it like empowered like a lot of like people who just suck to like think they're smarter than they are. Yes. Yeah. That was a conversation too about the show as it got more popular.
00:23:15
Speaker
Oh, no. I guess I didn't know anybody like that. Granted, I didn't know anyone who would like tell you their IQ, luckily. But I'm sure there's people out there. So IQ is not a real thing. It's not. But if you bring it up, then you suck.
00:23:35
Speaker
Well, you know, what is a real thing? Tell me. Baldur's Gate three is the best rated game of 2023. Oh, I don't think any of us picked. Well, we couldn't. It was because it was in early access.
Diablo 4's Downfall and Gaming Trends
00:23:52
Speaker
It was an early access. Yeah.
00:23:55
Speaker
Yeah. Ballers gate three came out this past Thursday currently sitting at a 95 on open critic with a hundred percent of critics recommending. Uh, do, do, do, do, do, who's got the next. These are all weird companies that they're highlighting reviews from on open credit or someone I know. Oh wow. They, they really just gave it to the B team, huh? All right. All their reviews.
00:24:21
Speaker
Ravi Sina from Gaming Bowl says 10 out of 10, like Divinity Original Sin 2, Baldur's Gate 3 redefines what a role-playing game can offer in character building, combat, storytelling, and choice. It is a compelling experience that shouldn't be missed.
00:24:37
Speaker
Propy from IGN Spain says 10 out of 10, Baldur Gate 3, with Baldur's Gate 3, Larian Studios redefines the meaning of open world and creates a masterpiece that elevates the classic RPG to a new level that will take years to surpass. Oh, yeah, by Larian again when they make the video.
00:25:01
Speaker
So yeah, if you haven't been, uh, ballers gate three came out, uh, on early access, I want to say three years ago at this point. Uh, yeah, I noticed it because, uh, on GOG, it was like, you played ballers gate three, three years ago. And I was like, Oh, that's a long spend.
00:25:20
Speaker
Baldur's Gate 3 is what's called a CRPG, which I actually don't know what the C stands for in CRPG. Is it? Is it computer RPG? Yeah, I remember I just looked this up before the podcast. Oh, thank you. I appreciate it.
00:25:35
Speaker
Yeah, but basically you're playing kind of in a top-down isometric view, it is turn-based in combat, and it is basically a very faithful representation of Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition rules.
00:25:51
Speaker
Like if you have played Dungeons and Dragons, fifth edition, the spells, the action economy, the movement, everything will be very familiar to you. There is a lot of tweaks they've made to gaming, like for gaming's sake, that, you know, it's in there, but if you've played enough 5e, you'll feel right at home in this setting. I saw that you even roll a d20. Yes, you do. There's a little d20 pops up on the screen. We have to make skill checks. That's cute.
00:26:20
Speaker
Um, also it has a very compelling story and a very compelling cast of characters. I would say.
00:26:29
Speaker
Here's the thing. I don't really remember my side characters and divinity original sent to. Um, I don't know about you guys. Uh, these characters are very good. And honestly, I would say rival mass effect two in terms of like just quality character action. Like that's everyone, everyone is voiced except for the main character. Um, you also have a lot of choices for how you design your character. Basically every race, um, in the D and D pantheon, more or less.
00:26:59
Speaker
of like the common ones. And, you know, players handbook, not a you don't get supplements. Yeah, you don't get it. But honestly, the mod scene is going to take care of that. And what was I going to say? Oh, yeah, the character customization. You can you can go pretty buck wild in there, also including like gender neutral and gender nonconforming identities, too. That's cool. Yeah.
00:27:26
Speaker
Um, I know last time we talked about it being a horny, horny game. It's pretty horny. It's pretty horny. I mean, yeah, I've seen some folks. Yeah. I mean, what's funny is, uh, I play, I have, my character is a dragon born and I, I deleted his, uh, his camp clothes. So now when he goes to sleep at night, you see his little penis just sitting there.
00:27:53
Speaker
I just thought in my head, I just role played is like when I was Dragonborn, you know, when I'm comfortable, I take my clothes off. What about it? This is me living my life. Everyone else is dressed. He's just walking around with this dragon piece. It's funny. It was an accident. And now I've just included this part of his character in my head.
00:28:15
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I've had a great time with it. Um, I, I have luxury problems with it as I've talked, uh, I talked to you guys about it previously, uh, where.
00:28:27
Speaker
There is a four-player character limit on this game, so you can only take four characters out. I don't know what the total number of companions you can get, four including your own character, by the way. But it feels very restrictive. As Charles and I talked about, the four-player party is kind of normal for a D&D.
00:28:49
Speaker
Uh, but I think the issue with this is, is the world is so intertwined and player, like the, your companions have so much like fun dialogue and quest things that can come up randomly. It's like only having four players means that you miss a lot of that. So they talk a lot about like, Oh, you'd have to play this game a hundred times to see everything. I think part of that is because of that four player limit where, you know, you have to run with different parties to get different things happening. Um,
00:29:19
Speaker
And that kind of bugs me. It where it's like, uh, there is already a motto where you can just destroy the party limit and more or less run with like eight people at a time. I may stop that just because I'm like, you know what? I don't.
00:29:33
Speaker
It's like I'm getting to the point where it's like, oh, all these characters have all these things that are about to happen in this one area. And I'm like, I want to bring them all because I want them all to have their time to experience it. Yeah. And that leads into another problem that I have with this game is
00:29:52
Speaker
It, again, because there's so much content in there, they have some sort of world clock running in the background that you are completely oblivious to. But if you take too long to do certain things, the quests will more or less fail where it's like, that's interesting. You know, whatever you're going to rescue a person, they're dead or like the world progressed without you or something like that.
00:30:16
Speaker
Like, oh, I took too many long rests. You get there and everyone's dead. It's like the classic problem of like, you should, you can't just rest the entire time. Yeah. Which again is fair, right? It makes logical sense and I appreciate it, but they don't tell you anything about it either. So I don't know. Like it's like, if I knew I had to rush to do this, I wouldn't have taken that long rest, but I don't know
Twisted Metal Show: A Surprising Adaptation
00:30:44
Speaker
that. So.
00:30:45
Speaker
It kind of blows in that way. That's another mod I'm kind of hoping someone released to kind of just turn off that, you know, like counter in the background or at least expose it so I can know these things. Yeah. Like there's been times where I've started quests and then it's like four quests have been updated. And when you go look at it, it's like, can't do that anymore. And I'm like, fuck me. That's pretty deflating. Yeah, it is. It is a deflating thing.
00:31:14
Speaker
That is possibly my only take on this game, right? Which is that it's it's so well crafted that I can't experience all the content.
00:31:25
Speaker
But I don't know. I think there's a middle ground they probably could have found. But I also I wasn't there. I don't know what the weird spider web of story things in there. I'm sure there's reasons because it's like, well, if you did this, then that has to turn off and all that. Sure. But yeah, I mean, it's if you're a fan of RPG stories, D&D, you know,
00:31:48
Speaker
great character action or I guess not character action but just like character stories this game has it um and you're gonna get sucked into it like I'm 35 hours in and I think I've gotten to act three just about now
00:32:05
Speaker
Um, it's supposed to be like a hundred hour plus game. Yeah. I play games fast. That's true. Do you think, are you fatigued at all yet? Um, I am starting to get a little fatigued with this game. Um, but I think again, it's because of that thing where I'm like in the head, I'm always like, all right, now I gotta make sure.
00:32:26
Speaker
Yeah. And it's funny, too. And I'll say this is non-spoilery. Like I, in that same way of like, I have an idea of who my character is at this point. So there are choices I will and will not make as him. But it's funny, the game presents these choices. I'm like,
00:32:44
Speaker
I really want to see what that is, but that doesn't make sense for the character. So there's definitely a whole, like, there are very like split paths you could take. Like I'm, I'm already thinking about, Hey, I want to make a character who's going to really go this way this time and it's going to end up differently. So.
00:33:05
Speaker
I'm neither of you have played it yet, correct? No. No, I have not. Charles, you've have you seen have you been watching Andy and Mike play it? That's it. I've been watching people play it. OK. My thing is it can't it actually doesn't hold my attention that long. Yeah. It's a much better game for people playing it than it is for people to watch it.
00:33:29
Speaker
Sure. Like you definitely like if you're watching it, you need to have really funny people in it. Yeah. Which is like so like, for instance, these people that James is talking about, there are some points when it's going to be funny watching them. And normally you could tell that when somebody starts yelling. So I don't have to watch them until I hear yelling and then I flip back on. Sure. Oh, OK. Now that's pretty funny.
00:33:54
Speaker
So you did or you didn't watch them? Because I have them on. I'm not actively watching. Oh, OK. All right. Like every time I take a look and look and see them, they're in somewhere different dealing with something. And there's nothing I can connect on how they got to A to B. Oh, that's fair. I understand. Yeah.
00:34:16
Speaker
Why? Yeah, because I'll be honest, it's not. It's definitely this thing is like you want to make a decision. Yeah, that's how that people make a decision. And you're just kind of like, that's true.
00:34:26
Speaker
Well, the reviewers and I are not the only people who agree about Baldur Gate 3 being great. It hit record-breaking performance, passed the all-time peak players of Apex Legends and entered into the top-highest concurrent players for a game in the history of Steam with 630,000 concurrent players. That was August 5th. I don't know if that number topped. That was Saturday, I think. Great.
00:34:54
Speaker
Yeah, that was Saturday. I kind of doubt it'll get higher than that. Saturday was like, you know, the big day. But yeah, taking taking a spot beating Apex Legends and having six hundred thirty thousand concurrent players. That's great. And you have to think there's a nonzero amount of people like me who are playing it on GOG, too. Oh, yeah. Because that's where it first, first came out. So. Oh, so is this inheriting your copy of the early access? Yes. OK.
00:35:24
Speaker
It went on early access in steam. Eventually it started on G.O.J. Sure. Yeah. So I would I would almost hazard to say that number could probably be 50,000 higher. But so I've been thinking about this since last week or so, which was Baldur's Gate might actually take game of the year from its kingdom.
00:35:48
Speaker
Oh, yeah. That's another thing people have been talking about. Ballers K three is now a very it is sitting in a good position to take game of the year.
00:35:58
Speaker
Makes sense. I can hear argue. I can hear arguments against it with tears of the kingdom and real ones like that. Even just like, you know, cheers wasn't great. Yeah, exactly. Like, well, I like actual arguments. Not. Yeah, exactly. It's not worth bringing up arguments that people have of just feelings. Yeah, exactly. No, they're there. This game is a achievement in content is achievement scale. It's and, you know,
00:36:27
Speaker
Next story is going to cover this, too, a little bit. But people have been not sure place to use them coming out being like, hey, by the way, it's not fair. All right. This is not just because Larry and did this doesn't mean everyone can do it. OK. I was honestly thinking about that as who else could do this? I don't think anybody. Well, the problem is not many other people have been in this space.
00:36:55
Speaker
And like the format for this game, like we've said before, when Larry was doing divinity, it was just that divinity, when we heard that they got Baldur's Gate, we're just like, that makes sense. That is the easiest translation because when you describe divinity, you say it's the closest thing you could have to D&D. And Baldur's Gate was literally that. Like they just jumped into it. So it was a home run.
00:37:20
Speaker
getting into it. And that being said, they're probably the biggest one as well that is doing a CRPG, as they call it. Who else is doing those?
00:37:33
Speaker
I can't think of anybody. I mean, the studio that did like I would say like maybe Disco Elysium development. Yeah, that was the that's the one I was thinking of. Yeah. But like it's not the same. Those are very different games. Yeah. It's like I think they fall in the same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we're saying they're starting here and Disco Elysium devs are starting all the way down there. Yeah. It's not just not looking like they'll catch up today. You know,
00:38:03
Speaker
Well, I don't, um, I don't know. I mean, I haven't beaten ballers gate three. I still think disco Elysium might be a better disco Elysium is a fantastic game. Like fantastic. How long is disco Elysium? Uh, as long as you want it to be, are we talking 140 hours?
00:38:22
Speaker
You can beat it in 10 hours and you can beat it in 100 hours. Oh, interesting. OK. Yes, it is varied because I was going to say Baldur's Gate being that long is like makes me not want to play it. Yeah, Baldur's Gate 3 still has like a very it has a very normal narrative extract structure. Disco Elysium has no extract. Sure.
00:38:47
Speaker
Yeah, I do mean to get to that game someday. Disco Elysium. You should. It's a you. Charles, you played Disco Elysium. I remember you playing it. No, I started it. I haven't felt like and by started, I mean, create a character. And then but I was on the plane without headphones. And then I was like, I need to put play this with sound. Sure. I stopped. Yeah. And then I haven't started again.
00:39:12
Speaker
I figured it was going to be a great airplane game. So. Well, as one rises, another must fall. What Diablo Four ain't doing so. Really?
00:39:25
Speaker
Yeah, so we didn't cover this because I think there's some of the weeks we had to take off. But yeah, yeah. Diablo four released a terrible patch on the eve of season one launching so bad that I didn't even roll character for season one. Wow. Basically, nerfing survivability across the board about 20 percent, nerfing cool down reductions by about 30 percent across the board, basically doing everything in their power to make
00:39:54
Speaker
you stretch out the game longer. It's the classic don't wait. That's the classic way to not patch games, which is to make the characters less powerful. Yeah. This has been reflected in the fact that Diablo Four's peak viewership has dropped from nine hundred thirty seven thousand viewers at launch.
00:40:19
Speaker
Right. This is like Twitch interest and then only twelve thousand. Well, as of August 7th. So I tried to because I remember reading an article about like, it's so bad. And then I tried to get an understanding of how it could be so bad. Like, what was so bad? Like, I'm genuinely curious because how do the devs release something that bad?
00:40:47
Speaker
Well, the idea being, and this is again, what we have constantly talked about. Um, and yet everyone seems to fuck it up is that they released the live service game and then they didn't have enough content for the next release.
00:41:02
Speaker
Like you when you release a live service game, your next update better be fucking done. Like at the same time you release the game, more or less. The theory on the matter is that the players were beating the game faster than devs intended already before season one came out. And they basically kind of looked at it and went, shit, we don't have it. There's not enough content in season one to keep people interested if they're playing this fast.
00:41:28
Speaker
so we have to make players play slower. And we're going to do that by increasing cooldown time so that you can't do things as quick, you can't use your abilities as quickly, and be nerfing survivability so that you will die faster.
00:41:45
Speaker
Yeah. So does that make better sense? And that's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. Like that was it was it was basically like I saw those patch notes and I went, all right, I'll be back next season. See if you guys figure this out by then. Like they know because I. So here's where I got stuck. I appreciate that explanation because that makes it more that makes more sense. But like because the devs released an apology, right? I did.
00:42:14
Speaker
I was trying to figure out like, okay, what happened? And to be fair, it was like a lot of bulleted lists and I just immediately stopped caring. But, um...
00:42:23
Speaker
that only makes it less fun. Even you're describing it to me in two sentences, that is a hundred percent less fun. Yeah. And there's a lot of like little things in there that are like other, there's a lot of other little nerfs that are in there too. Like people like playing sorcerers and the most popular builds of sorcerers got nerfed. If I recall, they, they did just fix that. They did buff that this week. Um, yeah.
00:42:48
Speaker
It seemed like they had a lot of goodwill. Why would they? Oh, yeah, because because and again, this is a speculation, but the idea is that season one was not content rich enough that people people were, you know, and and this is not necessarily the devs fault, but you know how people are, Andy, right, where it's like fucking three days and I beat all the seasonal content. Boring, you know,
00:43:17
Speaker
And I don't know, like, I mean, yeah, at a certain point, they definitely need to have a certain level of content ready for that first big seasonal patch. But also, I don't know, that's how I always played Diablo seasons on three, which was, I was like, Hey, I popped in, I played for a week, maybe two, if I was having a real good time. And then I left, you know, I thought that's how seasons are supposed to work.
00:43:42
Speaker
Well, I mean, they want to have player retention so that you spend money in the store. And if you're not if people are, you know, leaving the game after three days to a week, right, you're not going to get those opportunities to push twenty dollar skins and everything on them. So it just blows my mind that they think making the game slower means people want to play it longer. Well, I don't. Well, I don't think they thought that. But I think that was a stopgap. Yeah.
00:44:12
Speaker
But it's really strange. One of my friends over at my board game store was telling me, he's like, yeah, I spent 50 hours first week playing. And then he was the furthest finish than everybody else. And he is an adult person with adult time. And that's how much time he spent. He's not playing that much nowadays.
00:44:38
Speaker
and to have the developers be surprised at the ability of people to know life again when it comes out.
00:44:48
Speaker
I'm like Diablo. Yeah, exactly. You know, why why didn't you get a special set of high schoolers? Or like middle school kids to play this game and see how long it takes them. Yeah. Like that's your ultimate, like time people that have time. And that's that's like your speed mass measurement. It's just it's just a little weird, strange. I don't know.
00:45:13
Speaker
Yeah, I mean there's also this interesting discussion of Diablo 4 is a
00:45:24
Speaker
is an attempt at recreating the magic of Diablo 2 in a more MMO setting. And that's what everyone said they wanted when they released Diablo 3. They're like, no, this isn't like 2. We want 2. But now everybody likes 3. So there's this interesting discussion of they were kind of working off old feedback, and they made this game with the idea of itemization and how Diablo 2 worked. I don't know.
00:45:55
Speaker
They fixed Diablo 3. I have faith that someday they'll fix Diablo 4 again. Hopefully it won't take an X-pack like it did with Diablo 3. They can maybe get in there with Seasons, but we'll see. I don't know. So wait, is the honeymoon period gone?
00:46:10
Speaker
Oh, yeah, they killed it. It's over. Yeah. Yeah. Plus, like, again, the other problem we just talked about is Baldur's Gate three also came out. Yeah, it is great. Yeah. So I'm sure that's a crossover. Yeah. And then once you lose people, you lose people like the public zeitgeist and consciousness is just moved on.
00:46:30
Speaker
Yeah. And we're going into this period now where you're gonna have Baldur's Gate 3, you're gonna have Armored Core, you're gonna have Starfield, you're gonna have Spider-Man, you're gonna have- Oh god, that's like Starfield. Yeah. You're gonna have Spider-Man, you're gonna have Liza P. Liza P. went gold yesterday, by the way. And there's other ones. I mean, we're coming into a packed time. Yeah.
00:46:53
Speaker
Um, so it's like Diablo, just go sit on the bench and think about what you did. Maybe take longer, maybe take a little longer to make season two, honestly. Yeah, that's another thing, right? The season Andy, do you know how long this season one supposed to last until I'd I don't know. No. That's it. If I'm if I recall correctly, this is supposed to be season one last until October, right? I would say they're usually like two or three months.
00:47:22
Speaker
My my idea of a season was and my only reference is Path of Exile is I thought they introduce a gimmick and then you play it for a couple months. Yeah, like it's like not like brand new content. It's just a gimmick. Yeah, they introduced they introduced the gimmick, but the game has to be fun to play the gimmick, right? Yeah.
00:47:45
Speaker
And everyone was kind of like, hey, these are our issues with the game, of which being like cooldowns blow survivability is real tight.
00:47:56
Speaker
Also, mobs stun you like fucking crazy. And Blizzard took that information and went, how about if we just make your problems worse? I just I refused to believe that people sat around and said, yep, this is a good idea. Unless it was profit driven, like it could only be money driven. It is definitely profit driven. But.
00:48:20
Speaker
You had so much goodwill, guys. It is. Or maybe they knew that they were going to lose relevance anyways and said, screw it. It like in sports and sports terms, they were literally on like the one line and then they just went, oops.
00:48:37
Speaker
They just had to have a good season launch and a good patch and everyone had been like, Hey, Diablo four is great. Now everyone's like, all right, Diablo four, you got one more season to make us not eight. You have forever. Do you think this was Microsoft's doing? Oh, absolutely not. This is activation. This is an Activision thing. Well, I guess good riddance. There's other stuff to play anyways. Yep.
00:49:04
Speaker
and other stuff to watch. Ooh. Because you know what's actually surprisingly fucking good? What's that? The Twisted Metal show on the clock. Oh, that's right. Now, you guys both are big fans, right? It's street. Well, here's the I have never played. I have never played a single Twisted Metal. Yeah, I'm the one that's played Twisted Metal. I played a couple, I think, and Rogue Trip. There you go. I like that one. Rogue Trip is a good one.
00:49:33
Speaker
But tell me about the show. Why is it so good? You want you want to do it, Charles, or do you want me to do it? All right. OK, I'll go for it. So, Andy, the the awkward part about adapting Twisted Metal is a very much similar to how you adopt any other video game property and put it into real life. Right. Like Twisted Metal in the game is wacky.
00:49:58
Speaker
Right. You drive around, you blow up the Mount Rushmore and it changes the face. You go and blow up the Eiffel Tower to make a bridge. Like all this crazy stuff happens, right? How does that translate to a show and still make it like not stupid? Well, I think you have to realize it can't not be stupid. Correct. So so they make. So what they did with the show and this is what it was surprisingly good.
00:50:28
Speaker
The first couple episodes are not as good as the final half. And the reason why is the first couple episodes need to spend that time setting the expectations for the viewers. This whole thing, Anthony Mackie has the main character playing his character called John Doe because
00:50:48
Speaker
As a child, he got amnesia and doesn't remember who he is. And all he has is like a half burnt photo with only, you know, conceivably the top half of his parents faces are gone in the photo. So he can't see who they were. He just sees himself in the photo. This nice little humanizing thing for him. But he is effectively an adult grown up in this apocalyptic world where electronics don't work anymore except for cars.
00:51:18
Speaker
And these are still work for some reason. Yeah, yeah. And so major cities have created fortresses as the world descends into chaos. But guess what? You still got to deliver supplies to and fro these major cities. And that's where you get cars armed to the teeth with guns. And these drivers are called milkmen as they deliver the goods across all these cities.
00:51:45
Speaker
Um, so you just see people with cars doing, you know, driving around and then other, uh, people called vultures as they try to crash those cars and pick up whatever they're trying to deliver. And what I like