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Overwatch 2 IS CANCELLED & TOTK isn't the best game ever? - Add to Party 05.17.2023
11 Plays2 years ago
In this episode we discuss our reviews of Tears of the Kingdom & the news that the Overwatch 2 PVE mode has been canceled.
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Transcript
00:00:13
Speaker
Welcome
Introduction and Tea Party Simulator
00:00:14
Speaker
to a tea party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a new show. I'm your host, James Hartwell, and I'm joined by Charles. You bought and I'm joined by the NDK. Yeah. All right, Charles, we got for me. All right. All right.
When Do Customers Stop Trusting Companies?
00:00:30
Speaker
I really have it's a question of allegiances. Okay. Oh, we have to choose between who? Oh, don't worry. It's not going to be hard of a choice. Let's talk about, um, you know, company loyalties. Okay. Okay.
00:00:49
Speaker
I feel and when it when how far does a company have to disappoint you before you give up on them? Like, you know, this could be like, you know, basically saying, you know what? I'm never buying this product again. I'm not going to use this because, you know, there's there's some instances here like home appliances, you know, buying a certain type of like refrigerator from a company doesn't work out. I'm not going to get stuff from them. I did that with Sam's money. Right.
00:01:20
Speaker
And Samsung fridges are terrible. Yeah. Oh, no, I had a TV, a brand new Samsung TV that within a couple of months had a big old line through it. And I swore never to buy Samsung again. Well, yeah, I remember that. Yeah, I was furious.
Financial vs. Moral Company Loyalty
00:01:35
Speaker
I gave that TV away for free because I was so mad.
00:01:42
Speaker
Pretty sure it would have been under warranty, Andy. Um, some reason it wasn't. I don't know why I looked into it. I couldn't get it, but it was less than a year. I don't know. That's weird. It was very weird. So is it, is the question, is the main decider for you that it has to have cost you money before you give up on the, on the company?
00:02:04
Speaker
Probably. If I gave you a lot of money and then you betrayed me like Samsung did, no, no, no. Now, if it comes to moral questions... Wow, that's a lot more flexible, isn't it? I don't know. It's a sliding scale for me.
Can We Trust Online Reviews?
00:02:28
Speaker
Um, you can buy, you can earn goodwill and then you can spend that goodwill, right? Like if I, if it's like a company I've never been to before, you know, um, you know, it's like one failure, you're out. It's like, that's it. Um, but it's like, Hey, if there's a restaurant I really like, and then I get food poisoning one time from it, I'm like, well, I was just an off night. I'm going to go back there.
00:02:58
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, like, um, I've definitely have gone like looking for something, a place, a new restaurant to go to. Right. And I'm like, all right, this looks good. It has stuff in the menu I like. And then I look at their reviews and it's either a string of one stars or a string of five stars. Hmm.
00:03:18
Speaker
And they're both like equal and I'm just like, okay, what about recent reviews? Oh Yeah, recent reviews is always where I go to yeah. Yeah, and the recent reviews Three in a row of one stars. Oh It's rough. Is that enough to be like, you know what? We're not trying it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I see that's my thing cuz
00:03:45
Speaker
I like to try out new places and I do go on like walks and stuff like that that I like to try to go to different neighborhoods when I walk and try new things. And it is a struggle to trust reviews online to try out places. Trouble is everyone's an idiot. Now, when you say struggle, do you mean that like you've gone to low rated places and they were very good and vice versa? Yep. OK.
00:04:14
Speaker
So really you have to listen to your heart. I mean, but there's also a corollary too. If like I've been to many like high rated places and I'm like, this food is awful. Like everyone who reviewed this place has no idea what good food tastes like.
00:04:32
Speaker
So it's it's reviews are weird, but I do. I like the recency thing. If you get like if you if there's a string of bad reviews recently, that means that, you know, it's not like an off night kind of
Losing Quality and Searching for Better Options
00:04:44
Speaker
situation. Sure. It means it's like, oh, you're consistently fucking up.
00:04:50
Speaker
Yeah. Like we have, um, like places moving or like kitchen staff, changing situations that go around. Sure. You're like, okay, is this still any good? And then you hear the reviews that you go, maybe I'm never going back. Yeah. And that's a shame. I just, I said that recently with the Chinese place that I, I liked, um,
00:05:13
Speaker
They have spent their good will, I would say, like the last couple times I've gotten it. I've like, this isn't good. Like, this is very not like well made. And I'm like, you know what? Maybe it's time to go find a new place. Now, James, you abandoned them. Did you leave a note for? Oh, absolutely not.
00:05:37
Speaker
Would you have done that in Dark Souls, James? I've never left a note in Dark Souls once in my entire life. Oh, really? I leave notes. I definitely leave notes, but I leave them in like in pandering areas in order to get healed properly. Oh, yeah, I know.
00:05:58
Speaker
That's the if you're unaware in Dark Souls, there's mechanics leave notes. And if people upvote or like approve your message, you get a little it refills your flask, right? You get a flash charge. Well, it heals you outright your health if you need
Strategic Notes in Dark Souls vs. Reviews
00:06:12
Speaker
it. OK, yeah. And I was like, that's a good reason to do it. And that's why most people do do it. I can't be bothered. Everyone I walk my own path, Andy. Well, you walking your own path is leading others into dangerous Chinese.
00:06:29
Speaker
It's not dangerous. This wasn't good. Google Maps has a leveling system, James. I could be level three if I just said someplace has handicap access. I never answered the question. I got them stuck at level. That's it. I want to. This is another fascinating thing about reviews. I don't leave reviews. It's just I don't do it. And.
00:06:54
Speaker
It always interests me when it's like I was looking for a, I was looking for a hotel recently for a trip and going on next month. And, you know, I was looking at reviews and looking at recent and it's always shocking to me. It's like, we just got back yesterday. And it's like, and you're writing the review, right? Like that's the, I got to sit down and write this review immediately. I can't, like, I would be like, I write a review as soon as I'm done eating. I'm still sitting in the place when I write.
00:07:23
Speaker
I can't do it. That's the time to do it. I don't think my opinion holds such value. That's the thing. My opinion holds no value to anyone but myself, he says on his podcast. Listen, James, you matter. And it's even being a data point is important. OK.
00:07:45
Speaker
Yeah, but I just don't want to do it. A group of voices, okay, is... I don't know how to finish. Yeah. I got a notification from Google, and of course it's not really important, but it was like, your review of this one-time massage place in Japan has reached 7,000 views.
00:08:06
Speaker
Oh, really? Oh, that's really cool. Yeah. And I left the review for it because I was so thankful to them because it was like the literal day after I came back from Mount Fuji. I was wondering. And I was dying.
Unique Massage Experiences in Japan
00:08:23
Speaker
Yeah. I was so stiff and I could barely move around. Yeah. I just needed somebody to take me.
00:08:30
Speaker
And if you don't know, Thai massage is not a relaxing massage. No, using massage. It's it's a very abuse. Yeah, they they fold. It's not it's not gentle. They fold you in such a way to get stretched out.
00:08:47
Speaker
Oh wow. It's not about whether or not it's comfortable. It's just you need to, you should be this flexible. Be this flexible. They don't reset you to your natural position. They reset you to the position that they think you should be.
00:09:03
Speaker
Like this lady, like I, I was whimpering the entire time I was, I was, I was so constricted and this lady was ever so surely after two hours, just worked me over. Wow. But I could walk again easier at the end. I, I, I use the, the, the public hot springs. That's how I healed myself on a regular basis.
00:09:32
Speaker
That's how you heal and harvest moon. Did I tell you my hots that want my one hot spring story, which was there? How many hot springs did you go in, Charles, when you were there? Oh, zero. Oh, really? OK, so some of them are like lava hot. Oh, like.
00:09:51
Speaker
Like there were some, I got in just fine. It wasn't like, it was warm, but it wasn't like a big deal. There was one that I stuck my toe in and my body was like, you're about to be scalded. Whoa. Were there other people in the water? No, no, I was the first one there. This is the crux of the story. But they have, they have like little, you know, tap faucets with like cold water to help like cool it down. So I'm sitting there.
00:10:13
Speaker
You know, I'm kind of just dipping my toes in trying to adjust it as the cold water, like she gets it down to like, you know, less than scalding. Um, the Japanese guy comes in and you know, I nod to him and he, uh, he looks at me and I can just like, American can't handle this hot spring water.
00:10:35
Speaker
And he just walks straight in, and then the look on his face is like someone shot him in the heart. Like he chuffed out. And I was just sitting there like, I was shaking my head. I'm like, that's why I'm here.
00:10:54
Speaker
That's not the way I thought it was going to go, James. You thought he was going to be able to handle the intensity. Yeah, I thought he was going to show you to be the coward, but no. No, listen, there are plenty that were plenty hot that like, oh, the stream isn't on. You're right. I'll turn it on. There are plenty that were like hot to me that, you know, native people just walked right in without a problem. But that one, you know, this one, like it took me like 15 minutes before it got to a human temperature.
00:11:25
Speaker
So what did he do after he recoiled? He was like, oh, and then he sat like I was sitting until it got down to him. But to be fair, he did get in before I did. So his level was higher than mine. That must have been validating. It was a little bit. You're not the Baka Gaijin in this situation.
00:11:50
Speaker
That reminds me of one last piece of the visit to that time massage place. I had to find a English speaking place. Sure. And they literally what I called ahead, it was it was literally I got off the train from Sapporo, found my Airbnb and then went to Google to find a massage place.
00:12:15
Speaker
And then I found it and I called and I said, hey, I need a English speaking person. Um, and it's for a time massage. They're like, hold on, give us 20 minutes. We found our lady. She'll be here in another half hour. So they, they called their over apparently to come in. Oh, wow. And, you know, I explained everything that I'm feeling what happened. Um,
00:12:42
Speaker
And, you know, we go through the entire thing. It turns out we didn't really need too much English. But I definitely wanted to explain to them, like, yeah, this is where it hurts. This is where it's really tight and all this other stuff. But she didn't care. But as I was leaving, because I was already speaking a little bit of Japanese with them.
00:13:05
Speaker
she says something in Japanese, and I turn around and I'm just like, oh, you know, mooichi do kudasai, which just means like, once more, please. Right. And she looks at me confused. Now I look confused. And then she just bows and goes, bye. And I was like,
00:13:28
Speaker
Was I not supposed to hear it before? Okay. Well, this is already awkward long enough. I'm going to turn around now, which is something I think James, you probably ran into too, which is when the Japanese people give up on you and just repeat their one English phrase that they know to get you to leave. Yeah. Yeah. No, that did happen. Um, I usually left before it got too far though.
00:13:56
Speaker
I saw, I saw the writing on the wall and I said, well, let's just evacuate the situation. Uh, but to your original question, Charles, yeah, companies, companies can lose, uh, my, my business.
Is 'Tears of the Kingdom' Better than 'Breath of the Wild'?
00:14:10
Speaker
And we'll talk about that today with the one, uh, but, but first shut up. It's time to talk about tears of the kingdom. Whoa. Whoo.
00:14:22
Speaker
All right. All three of us have been playing it. Andy tricked Charles into playing it, which is hilarious. But so let's let's let's kind of give a sense of where we are. So I've I've been playing all weekend. I don't have like an hours on it. I would say I've completed one dungeon and I've done maybe I don't know.
00:14:45
Speaker
30-ish shrines, maybe 20, 30-ish shrines. And, you know, I've just been exploring the map. My play style is kind of as such that I kind of just walk around the map and I go, what's that? And then I walk over there and I see what they're there. And I just kind of end up. And if I get bored, then I just kind of like reset myself back at the center and then start again. Sure. And I forced myself to do a dungeon just because I wanted to have an opinion about it for the podcast. Otherwise, I probably would have waited to dungeons for like
00:15:14
Speaker
It might have been like Thursday or Friday before I got to a dungeon, honestly. What about you, Andy? Just to level set, how has your play style been? I have been trying to be conscious of not getting hung up in places because it has that dangerous lure of, hey, you have five quests in this area.
00:15:38
Speaker
Why don't you finish all of them before you move on? And I've been telling myself, no, kind of like what you've done is just like, I'm bored. I want to go do something else. So I've been trying. I've been trying. That's not normally how I play, but I've been trying to keep that in mind. And that's been my play style is just go, go where it takes me. I've not finished a dungeon. I've maybe finished like 15 of the little baby ones and then just explored.
00:16:08
Speaker
just explored. And what about you, Charles? Um, let's see. So my play style is if I see something I can obviously interact with, I go over there and do it. But I tend I aim towards the direction of a quest objective.
00:16:27
Speaker
And for me, I was going northwest towards Rideau Village the entire time. So I had done three towers, 17 shrines, including the ones from the tutorial. And I am at the temple for Rideau Village. I've not actually started it because it took a little bit longer than I thought it would to get there.
00:16:56
Speaker
Yeah. OK, so we all we kind of have like a we're all playing a little similarly, but a little differently, too. I actually went to the Death Mountain and did the Death Mountain dungeon for Cerrito Village that Charles talking about is the one they actually direct you to go to first. I just ended up in Death Mountain, Goron City, and I was like, oh, I'm here. All right, I'll do it. Yeah, I would have I would have done similar. But my.
00:17:23
Speaker
Uh, I was, I was so desperate for certain quality of life stuff that I was, I was recommended to go that way if I wanted it. So I went that way. All right. So, uh, we will give our kind of in progress reviews in a second. Um, currently sitting at a 97 on open critic with 99% of critics recommending it. Uh, Tom Marx at IGN saying legend of all the tears of the kingdom is an unfathomable
00:17:49
Speaker
follow-up expanding on a world that already felt full beyond expectation and raising the bar ever higher into the clouds. Also, Kyle Hillard, a game informer, gave it a 9.8 out of 10. Nearly every encounter, whether puzzles, traversal, or combat must be reconsidered. It makes you think in new ways. I didn't get the same goosebumps exploring Hyrule as I did in the past, but I did experience new emotions both on a granule level from solving individual puzzles
00:18:14
Speaker
And on a larger scale, by going back to one of my favorite video game locations, they say you can never go home again. But I adored returning to Hyrule with all new tools. And then finally, Steve Watts at GameSpot said tears of the kingdom is a triumph of open-ended game design that pays how much the best parts of the Zelda franchise's own story history and sometimes exceeds them. So, yeah, everybody is tripping over themselves to say that this is one of the best games ever.
00:18:46
Speaker
Hmm. I'll start. It's better than Breath of the Wild. OK. I will say that I mean. And you loved Breath of the Wild. I loved Breath of the Wild. Breath of the Wild was also a very different Zelda experience. It's not my favorite Zelda game. Twilight Princess holds that in my heart. But
00:19:11
Speaker
But breath of the kingdom or breath of the kingdom, breath of the wild was such like a step forward and like Zelda design that was very important and very impressive. Tears of the kingdom is just a refinement of that formula. And it's really impressive what they've done, both technologically and story wise, to a certain extent. Right. I think they've expanded the world of Hyrule. It's more.
00:19:38
Speaker
It's more lived in. I think it's, I don't know exactly how many years it's been since Breath of the Wild in universe. I think it's been at least as long as it's been since Breath of the Wild released two tiers of the kingdom. So, you know, seven years or what, but
00:19:53
Speaker
Um, you can see all the changes that are going on in the world and frankly, like the new combat abilities that you get, um, with ultra hand and, um, the ascendability, they allow you to approach puzzles and dungeons in this game, which again, I did do one dungeon.
00:20:12
Speaker
in a completely different way to a normal Zelda. I was basically climbing all over the Goron dungeon doing it in a way that was completely unattended and I still had so much fun. Like this is a fantastic game for people who liked Breath of the Wild. If you liked Breath of the Wild, you will like Tears of the Kingdom even better. What about you, Andy? I've been thinking about it a lot.
00:20:38
Speaker
I don't, so, okay, so essentially, like you said, people are losing their minds over how much they love this game. And I think that had me enter it in not the right state of mind, because I'm that like try hard contrarian, where I'm just like, well, if everybody likes it, I don't wanna, like, I don't want to. So I don't like how I've been approaching it. And I don't know if I'm criticizing it correctly,
00:21:06
Speaker
Um, but I think it's definitely just breath of the wild, but more it's insanely creative, the new abilities that it gives you of what you're able to do with them. That's very impressive. Um, but it was also extremely disappointing to me that it's, it just feels like more breath of the wild. Like I.
00:21:30
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know how to say that. I just wanted something different, but it's so similar. And why should that be a bad thing? If so many people wanted more and it just does more and does it better, but I just, I don't know. I don't know, but to its credit.
00:21:46
Speaker
I've still been playing it a ton. Like I still think about it. I still want to play it. So even though I'm being a big baby about all this, I'm still playing it. So it's still effective. And I think probably that's the ultimate, you know, I guess testament to it. But God, like it's it reuses so many assets, like even armor. The first armor set you're able to buy is from the first game.
00:22:10
Speaker
Like it's it just feels it just feels like what did you do? Right. I wanted more and I wanted different. Well, I guess more isn't the right words. I wanted different. I was talking with Charles about it. I would have preferred we played as Zelda in this game. I like the when you run around the world, everybody doesn't shut up about Zelda.
00:22:31
Speaker
Everybody's obsessed with Zelda about how great she is, all this different stuff, but you're never shown why Zelda is so great. Everybody's just obsessed with her. And why am I not playing Zelda? I haven't completed the story yet, obviously, but I think there is a reason for that that is based in the story.
00:22:50
Speaker
Well, I wish they would say why they love her because it's annoying. And it just makes Zelda infinitely more interesting. And then so you have this whatever this is a nitpicky thing. But all I'm saying is that I feel like with every iteration, every single Zelda one to the other, it does something different. It's insane that they have such a large IP that keeps reinventing itself. And Breath of the Wild feels like it's the least
00:23:17
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know. But I still play it and I still want to play it. So screw me. I want to ask you questions about that, Andy. But Charles, give your review. I want to hear Charles. Yeah. Breath of the Wild is a fun game with that offers a lot of creativity, a lot of ways to solve problems, and it's letting everyone kind of revisit the joy of exploration.
00:23:44
Speaker
That being said, I don't enjoy it. And, you know, and which is OK. Oh, listen, I'm not apologizing for it. I know you're not, but I think it's important to not like it's OK for people not to like Breath of the Wild and by extension Tears of the Kingdom. Yeah, I mean, so like and, you know, James and Andy both know this about me, which was four Tears of the Kingdom.
00:24:08
Speaker
I absolutely wanted to approach this with an open mind, not stained by my previous experience with Breath of the Wild. I asked people, should I play it? You know, hey, if I was like this and critical about this, should I play it? And, you know, and people were like, you'll still have fun. You can do it. And, you know, in the name of friendship and the trust I have with the people I care about, Andy said to me, Charles, you will enjoy this game.
00:24:35
Speaker
And I said, fine. And I bought it right there. And, you know, sometimes people's friends steer you wrong. But that's not their fault. They definitely enjoy it at all. Well, so here's my thing. And this is this is where I think Andy and I can kind of understand each other more, where I understand why Andy didn't like Elden Ring and how I don't like Tears of the Kingdom.
00:25:04
Speaker
Like, and reminder too, I beat Breath of the Wild for Divine Beasts, a large chunk of the Shrines, and beating, then beating Ganon. It's not like I didn't play the other game and did not give it a shot. No, I did. And I think now I'm able to better articulate why I liked Elden Ring more versus Breath of the Wild and now Tears of the Kingdom, which is,
00:25:32
Speaker
I care a lot about progression and making my character stronger. And, you know, one of the things I liked about Elden Ring is when you explore, you're likely to just find something that either is a new weapon or a new skill or new whatever that feels like because it's a new thing that you can use that you're likely to get better in. But the joy of like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom is
00:26:01
Speaker
creativity, story exploration, and just finding people that happen to know each other. Then, hey, look, it's still, it's interactable. You could do this thing. Isn't that great? And for me, it's not that important to me necessarily. Like, for instance, when everyone's losing their mind about, like, look, I built this thing or I came up with this solution. Isn't that neat? And I go, yeah, that's neat.
00:26:28
Speaker
And the reason why I feel that way is just because the game was already tell like a preview telling you that this is what you can do. And everyone is happy that they're not lying to you. So for me, I was just like, yeah, they said that you can do that. And you're able to do that. I'm not surprised that you can do that. So I mean, it's great that you could, it's fun for you.
00:26:53
Speaker
Um, but like, so, you know, other people find their joy in doing that, which is great. Everyone can have fun with it. But for me, like what I'm doing right now, I'm creating my own objectives and checking them off a list.
00:27:08
Speaker
And I'm doing it just to be like, my own sense of completing something and creating my own narrative of the game is desperate to create something nice and without the feeling of getting stronger and progressing really from exploration, I have to come up with my own thing to do, which is go, all right.
00:27:30
Speaker
check this off. All right, all these geoglyphs, it looks like I have to do it in order to get all the memories properly. I'll do that too. All right, so that means I need to travel here, here, here and do that. And I'm just checking things off. I'm just doing that and feeling plussed.
00:27:46
Speaker
I think that's fair because I would say too, I can't remember when it was. I think it was maybe like Saturday. I had that exact feeling you were having, Charles, which was kind of like, I don't feel like I'm getting stronger. And I think it was because as I was doing my weird exploration, I was running into like kind of these higher level monsters. And I was like, I don't really know how to gauge their strength versus my strength.
00:28:12
Speaker
And, you know, via the ability of fusing mechanics with ultra hand and how you, you can upgrade your weapons. And again, I'll maybe broad more into that in a second, but you can kind of overcome scenarios based on how much you want to invest into them based on what you fuse your weapons and your arrows with.
00:28:30
Speaker
Um, but I just remember feeling, it's like, Oh, I'm always the same strength. I only get stronger just based on knowing what the best combos of how ultra hand are and that kind of thing. So that is actually a fairly fair knock about it is that, you know, outside of like hearts and stamina, which really only kind of give you buffer to fuck up. They don't really make you stronger. Um, you don't, you're, you're more or less at the same point you were as when you started the game.
00:28:59
Speaker
To make a point to with that James. I'm sorry. Yeah, which is okay. I I have 17 18 ish light blessings. I've not turned them in I've killed everybody like I I know these strategies. I'm just like giant thing poop like use a bomb here use that here and I'm just like I only like I'm already bad at
00:29:23
Speaker
the the combat mechanics for this game that i'm just like no i'm not i'm not fighting these people fairly i'm just going to do all this and then walk away and it's not and i don't feel bad for running away from things it's not like they're making me stronger
00:29:37
Speaker
So yeah, yeah. So there's there's not really a big reason to do kind of the open world combat encounters other than to experience combat unless you're trying to either get to something like, you know, there's like hidden armor caches or gear or stuff like that. But or but there's not a they don't.
00:29:57
Speaker
Grant XP right and I think at a certain point our role-playing experience has trained us to seek that and Zelda is a complete rejection of that idea And that is honestly a very fair criticism I think it took me like I said, it took me maybe like until Saturday afternoon To switch my thinking and that's when suddenly I really got into tears of the kingdom. I
00:30:22
Speaker
I remember telling you it was real dry at the beginning and that's kind of what it was taking me to get through to kind of switch off that like I have to stop thinking of it like Elden Ring and I have to start thinking of it as Tears of the Kingdom and how Nintendo wants me to play this to a certain level which is do whatever you want but also don't expect that kind of like progression.
00:30:44
Speaker
Mm hmm. We put you in this world exactly as you're meant to be. And then that's it. Go experience the world. We're not getting anything from you, which is honestly different. Right. Then, you know, 90 percent of games. Yeah. So Andy, back to your point about what was it? I'm sorry.
00:31:08
Speaker
What was your main criticism other than you hate Zelda? I just know I want to play as Zelda. Link is boring. She's a woman and you hate her. Yeah. Yes. Yes, I do hate her.
00:31:19
Speaker
I don't know. What was it? Trying to remember. Oh, I think that it's the same, that it's just breath. It just disappointed me that, like, I really thought it would. And OK, it's not the same. I'm, you know, being a bit. Well, that's that's what I wanted to ask about. Like, how deep have you got into the the new game mechanics? And maybe then we take this opportunity to just talk about them a little more. So you have the ultra hand ability that allows you to fuse
00:31:49
Speaker
Basically any two things in the goddamn world, like I have yet to find if you can grab it, you confuse it is basically what ultra hand does. And that can create some crazy combinations like putting a mine a mine cart on the back of your shield or.
00:32:07
Speaker
Um, you know, putting a bomb on your sword so that when you have a bomb, you're having bombs or like it's it, or you can build a goddamn Mecca with, with auto targeting lasers. Right. Like they, they put a lot of materials in this game to get crazy with ultra hand. Um, there's also the ability to send, which talked about is the ability to basically go up through any surface with a roof. As long as there's a certain height below you or above you, I should say. Um.
00:32:37
Speaker
And then also the rewind functionality that again, in that same sentence, anything you can grab with ultra hand, you can rewind. So you can grab something with ultra hand, move it around, do whatever you want. And then you can hit rewind and it will actually go back the path of everything you did with ultra hand and the grab ability.
00:32:55
Speaker
So it opens up the game to like really weird solutions. We talked about Scribblenauts a week or two ago. This really is kind of like Scribblenauts in the level of complexity and solving. And I think that's the difference between it and Breath of the Wild.
Challenging Puzzles in 'Tears of the Kingdom'
00:33:13
Speaker
Like Breath of the Wild had
00:33:14
Speaker
I mean, you could get creative with like their solutions and people did, right? But not to the level you can in Tears of the Kingdom. Like you can go crazy with your creativity and how you solve problems in Tears of the Kingdom.
00:33:27
Speaker
Oh, yeah, it's insanely impressive. And one of my favorite things has been the mini puzzles or whatever. Like, I love it. I have been stumped. I love this that I've been stumped during Zelda puzzles, right? Because normally you can kind of figure it out, right? You look at the room, you just trace with your eyes and you can figure it out. Maybe I'm just a big dumb dumb.
00:33:48
Speaker
But I've had to like I've walked into puzzles and I have to play with the objects and play with how to attach them and play with the physics to figure out things. And that's like thrilling to me. It's so fun that these are stumping me. I love it. And that has been one of my favorite things is that they have been using at least for me. Maybe I'm an idiot, but at least for me, it has been challenging how to implement this. And I absolutely love that part of it.
00:34:17
Speaker
I would definitely say I've been challenged by most of them. And to the game's credit, I have looked up one puzzle. That is it. Yeah. And that was to get I then understood a way to use ultra hand buildings in a way that I never thought of before. And that opened up a whole new level of solutions to me.
00:34:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's so cool. And that's what I think is the strongest thing of it. I had to look up something, too, because I never thought to use a send in a certain way. And that's that's exciting. Like, that's where this game is so strong. I think I have maybe I've never heard this criticism before. Maybe it's just very unique to me and it's kind of dumb. But the the graphics give me a headache.
00:35:03
Speaker
Hmm. Either of you. No, but expound on it because I can maybe I think he did in Breath of the Wild. Yeah, it's like a certain type of like brightness to the to the scenery. But then it's also muted in a way. It's like this muted brightness, that Breath of the Wild. I had this with it, too, but it just gives me this weird headache and then paired with like the minimalist music like starts to make me like feel like on edge.
00:35:33
Speaker
or ill. It's real dumb. I hate the music in this game. Really? Yeah, I really, really don't like it. Every time that battle music like when you're like like running around, you can hear like a battle might start up. My stomach starts to turn. Really? Such it is such a weird combination.
00:35:53
Speaker
But it is general and I think maybe that's what I was really hoping for like a different art style or something. Because this is like, it's very pretty to look at for some reason in motion. And then with this like fluid in and out music with it's like, like there's no
00:36:10
Speaker
God I'm being mean but like it's not it doesn't have the type of personality to the music that I enjoy It just it feels too like listless and I think that just affects me in a weird way So it's also like physically uncomfortable for you to play this game. That's so interesting
00:36:30
Speaker
So I think that's also like what like as I've been thinking about it I was like, I don't know if I'm judging this fairly. It's so important to so many people What are we missing? Yeah, like I here's the here's the thing and I would say to both of you, right? Your complaints both come down to personal taste. Mm-hmm. Right like and
00:36:53
Speaker
There's I don't think either of you would say is there anything wrong with this game? Like maybe you and he said the music is maybe less than ideal. But like, would you say anything is wrong with this game? The inventory manager. Yeah, they made it a little better, but it's still kind of a sucks. Yeah, it's awful. And yeah, I would say the combat needs help.
00:37:11
Speaker
I kind of like it. Just because like, because you only have, you have three different weapon types, right? Which is sword, heavy something, and then spear, like it's thrusting. Spear to hand. Yeah, bro. Yeah. And like, which is fine. Like you, like, okay, like you don't need that much variety, but like it gets.
00:37:32
Speaker
Like when you're dealing with multiple people, right? And you're trying to juggle and like switch focus on things. It's not, it's a little clunky. Like you're like your movements on dodging, isn't so responsive that it feels like you're, you can do, you could handle them very well. Say pedantic correction to save you, Charles, actually five, because there's the bow and there's actually a new weapon type of magic rods.
00:38:01
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:38:04
Speaker
That's it, so yeah, so there's these things, right? But I feel like it stumbles a little bit when you bring in multiple enemies. Yeah, yeah. It gets really wonky just a little bit where you kind of, it's probably better for you to retreat a little bit to distance and then just handle a few at a time, you know, which is a choice. But I think there's a way you could feel a little bit better, especially for people that choose to stay close and melee to do it.
00:38:33
Speaker
The other thing I would say is there needed to be a little bit better indicators when doing fusing for builds. I was on a call with a friend of mine when I first started playing. For three hours, she just heard me get so mad at building something.
00:38:56
Speaker
And then going, I got the unattached and reattach it slightly to the left of where I want it for it to move properly. Like if there is some way to tell me how if I turn certain things on, how it would move, it would be helpful. So I love it. I would say I would say to you it does, but but it's not good enough because I would say the camera
00:39:22
Speaker
in this game is a little weird. And I think that is part of like how they managed to get this game to run so well is that like the FOV on you is very tight. Not it's it's as far as they could get it. It doesn't feel claustrophobic. Like it's not like some third person shooters where you're literally on your fucking character shoulder. But it's still kind of tight when you compare it to say like a horizon or something like that. And because of that,
00:39:51
Speaker
And to the same point, I thought about this when you're talking about the combat. It gets messy when there's a lot of people because really you can only kind of see like at best two enemies on screen in front of you at once, just based on how the camera looks at you. Yeah, even with Z targeting, it doesn't kind of help that much. I think what you run into is a problem I run into a lot of time is just that because you're existing in this 3D space and it doesn't the camera doesn't really move. It's still locked to you when you're doing ultra hand.
00:40:21
Speaker
You can kind of be like, oh, that looks right to me because you're at this angle. And then if you moved to another angle and looked at it, you'd be like, oh, that was completely fucking wrong. What was I doing? I'm an idiot. And is that what you is that kind of what you're having? Having happened to you because it happens to me all the fucking time. I mean, yeah, I think that's part of it. Like, I think that it's this might be like even a different core issue, which is menu traversal does need to get improved.
00:40:49
Speaker
Yeah, I actually don't like how like switching bows, for instance, right? Like it like it ran out of buttons on like for switching weapons around. So you kind of have to be like, all right, well, while you're in both, now you can do a quick switch or like doing some other stuff. So I feel like there there needs to be some way to improve
00:41:11
Speaker
Messing around with being able to switch powers, which weapons, which, you know, being able to go into your materials and do stuff like they want you to go in these, like, especially like cooking and doing all this other stuff. Like it needs to be just a little bit easier. How often do you click and write stick when you want to lock on something, Charles? I don't. Oh, you got over it. I still do it.
00:41:36
Speaker
Yeah, I'll still I'll still go into a fight and I'll click and right stick to start combat and my camera will come up Yeah, yeah, that's I think those are very fair and I would agree with you inventory Menuing could be could be much better. They didn't prove it, but it's still
00:41:55
Speaker
trying to attach something to your arrow is just wild. The decision. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I got I got over that one really quick. I don't know if that's because I do it so often that I don't think about it anymore. But I got annoyed that it only does one at a time.
00:42:14
Speaker
I really. Oh, you wish you could make like a like a stack of arrows. Yeah. And just go like, you know, I don't want to have to do this between every fire. Like that's the thing. Another like menu traversal. You have to do in between every shot. Right. Yeah, that's I mean, yeah, there's definitely times I was fighting some fire enemies where it's like, you know, it was splash arrow, splash arrow, splash. You know, it's like it's yeah, it's it's it's clunky.
00:42:42
Speaker
It's yeah, I agree. That's it's not great. It's not the perfect game. I still love it, though. But look, everyone can look. It's still a good game. Everyone enjoys it and has fun with it. That's fine. It's just not for everybody. It doesn't fight you the same way Skyward Sword and the Wii. That was a game that I word sword. Yeah, I felt like I was fighting against it.
00:43:10
Speaker
Uh, the control scheme in that game was just fighting against you every time you want to. I don't know what it is about me. I feel like I'm the only one who didn't mind the controls at all. I enjoyed it. Yeah.
00:43:22
Speaker
So that's how dumb I am. Look at us. Look at us, me being the mainstream towing the line, you two standing firm, standing up to big media and saying, no, this isn't the best game. I don't know if I'm coming at it through the right lens. And I mean that like I feel like am I being overly critical because everybody loves it? Like I'm trying so hard not to be contrarian. I mean, you're worried I'm falling into that.
00:43:48
Speaker
I mean, your criticisms are valid, Andy. I mean, the only thing is, but again, they're all personal tastes. They're all valid. You haven't said anything where I'm like, that's crazy. How could you think that? How could you think? I think also though, literally on paper, it sounds like the perfect Zelda. Too many people, it is the perfect Zelda, and I'm frustrated that I'm not experiencing it that way because it sounds like the perfect game to me.
00:44:14
Speaker
Like it's not as try hard as Elden Ring and try hard in a good way, right? But Elden Ring was just too much and I had my complaints about it with the combat and everything. Zelda seems like the baby Elden Ring to me. It's like, Andy, this can be warm and comforting and easy enough for you. And that's why I want so bad to love it. But at the same time, I still want to play it. Like that's a testament to it. I have all these complaints. It's still on my mind.
00:44:42
Speaker
I still want to see what's next. I just need to not focus on missions. And I might want I should see if I can turn off the music. You should also you can also you should go see if you can do a dungeon. I I like the little dungeons.
00:44:56
Speaker
No, no, but like go do a real dungeon. Yeah, I'm I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to being challenged more. That's part of the. Oh, I would say the boss encounter in the dungeon. Super fun. I had a great time with it. I obviously have only done one, but yeah.
00:45:13
Speaker
Oh, good deal. Hey, we all tried it. We all have our opinions. Yeah. It's just everybody's giving it a perfect score. Yeah, I think 97, like if you asked me, I would put it in like 95, 97 range, like.
00:45:30
Speaker
where it's like, this is a game that is technically flawless. I mean, especially running on a fucking switch, right? That's another thing too. Performance issue-wise, I haven't had any significant problems. Obviously, it'd be cool if it ran at 60 frames per second, and it can if you know what you're doing.
00:45:50
Speaker
Um, uh, I might end up actually doing that later on my, my second play through. Um, cause you know, I dumped my ROM, but, um, yeah. Uh, no, it's just kind of like, Hmm.
00:46:07
Speaker
Yeah, it'd be. Yeah. Were you not to keep harboring on this, but did you want it to be different, more different? I didn't think it was going to be. I mean, the only thing I wanted different was the dungeons. Sure. And and I was kind of scared that it would be almost too different because I liked the shrine so much.
00:46:23
Speaker
OK, I was worrying they would they would pivot. So like finding that nice balance between dungeons and shrines is hard to do. I would say they still didn't quite get there, at least based off the one dungeon that I've done. Like the dungeon was really great and the set design of it and the challenges in it were much closer to a traditional Zelda dungeon. But it still didn't quite scratch the itch.
00:46:44
Speaker
You know what I mean? And I think that's because traditionally as all the dungeon, you would be getting a unique skill in that dungeon that you learn through and use in there. Now you get all that straight ahead. So you're approaching every dungeon with your full power set, and that kind of takes away a little bit from it. You know, part of the fun of dungeons is getting a new item or new skill and learning to use it while you're in there.
00:47:08
Speaker
Honestly, with the way it keeps reinventing itself with building these items, I'm thrilled. I'm amazed every time they come up with something new. Yeah. Every single time. I've just been so impressed. But yeah, Tears of the Kingdoms, you guys. We played it. Listeners at home, play it. I will be playing it. I'm sorry, Charles, did you like the puzzles? I thought that might be the most interesting part too.
00:47:35
Speaker
Uh, no, you don't. Well, yeah. So guys, I, I'm a little, I'm a little too much of a know-it-all. Um, when I do puzzles, I'm just like, all right, that's the solution. And then I just go and do them. And I'm like, cool. Like, uh, I did look up two puzzles, but the reason I looked them up was one, I didn't know how lasers worked.
00:47:59
Speaker
Like at all, I thought you just died when you touched them. It turns out it turns out they drop open a door that normally kills you. I was like, oh, got it. And then the other one was there was this one shrine and I was like too lazy to I was like, I think the solution is this. I was like, but I don't want to walk all the way over there if I if it's not the solution.
00:48:23
Speaker
And then I went online, looked at it and goes, Oh cool, it is the solution. And then I had to walk all the way over there and get the stuff I needed. I was like, Oh, okay. Did either of you find the pinball shrine yet? No. Oh, that's a fun shrine. You'll, you'll know when you get there. Um, that I heard someone describe the shrine as a mantra story puzzles for adults. I was like, yep, that's about right.
00:48:48
Speaker
Well, we have 10 minutes left and we have another big story. What other story? On the release of Tears of the Kingdom, what else could there be that deserves any amount of time to talk about?
Blizzard's Overwatch 2 PvE Cancellation
00:49:03
Speaker
My God, that's Blizzard's music.
00:49:08
Speaker
Oh my god, Blizzard came out literally today. It's like 3 o'clock in the afternoon. They had a stream today to talk about the future of Overwatch 2. Guess what the future of Overwatch 2 is? There is none.
00:49:24
Speaker
Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, not not. No, they're not closing the game down. Makes them so much money. But what they are doing is they've canceled the PVE portion of Overwatch 2. Now, if you say to me, James, wasn't that the whole fucking point? They said we had to move to Overwatch 2. And I would say you're correct. Yeah, so there there's they had a stream today where basically said that
00:49:52
Speaker
work on the PvE portion of Overwatch 2 has been canceled. Any existing assets or development that makes sense will be moving into Season 6 content of Overwatch 2, but there will be no discrete PvE mode anymore.
00:50:15
Speaker
Did they charge for overwatch too? Yeah, no, no, no. So here's the thing. And this is what everyone is kind of saying. There's a lot of great. I mean, this news came out literally hours ago at this point.
00:50:27
Speaker
There's a lot of hot takes about this, but if you were saying so, the only point of Overwatch 2 now was to change the monetization scheme because they said when they released Overwatch is that you would never pay for heroes. So to change that, they had to release Overwatch 2 so that they wouldn't go back on their progress. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's down to technicality. And listen.
00:50:52
Speaker
I'm not saying there's nothing that confirms that, you know, that approach. Is it what's happening now, though? Absolutely. They they change 66 to five five. And now you have to pay for heroes. And the store is different now. You pay real money. It used to be you just bought loot boxes and the loot boxes would give you skins, but you could earn the loot boxes. I think I just love.
00:51:22
Speaker
Yeah. And also, what is it? I haven't played. I've never played Overwatch 2. I just me neither. That part of my life is gone. But we the three of us loved Overwatch. Like when it was hot, we were in there all fucking day. Not me. Not me. Really? I thought you played with us. Literally everybody else did. OK. Well, Charles and I were the twin fangs of the dragon. And he's just all at the same time telling everything.
00:51:48
Speaker
And it was a fun fucking time, a wonderful time. Yeah. Um, and it's just so incredible how Blizzard created brand new IP with a cast of characters that like everyone attached to loved everything about it. It's great rule 34.
00:52:06
Speaker
I was just going to say, yeah, in multiple media, yeah. Technological lease and balance in many industries. That's why Diva is 18 now. Oops. Why did we release a character who's 16 years? Yeah, she was 16, Andy.
00:52:23
Speaker
Yep, yep. But and they've just squandered it. Like, do you know how many companies fucking struggle to create new IP and Blizzard created probably one of the best new franchises in the last 20 years and have just done shit all with it. People resonated. Yeah. Like, you know, it's they talk about it as kind of being like, you know,
00:52:52
Speaker
They, it didn't meet their internal standards. And if you to overwatch came from a canceled MMO, um, PvE project called Titan. Um, and the, the ruins of that are actually what created Overwatch. Um, but you have to see like the success of like destiny and.
00:53:09
Speaker
Honestly, still the division and warframe, right? Like there's places for these kinds of games and Blizzard's thing has in the past always been, we're going to take what other companies have been done and just polish it till it's a mere fucking finish.
00:53:26
Speaker
And they've traditionally been good at that. Um, there's a question here of this thing, like all the fucking scandal at Blizzard, right? Like, and, um, I did hear a thing. This is unconfirmed. I don't know. I think they might be forcing people to be coming back into the office for Blizzard. Like they don't do remote from home.
00:53:47
Speaker
Um, that too. Yeah. So it's like, have they just lost all their talent, right? It's like, they're like, we couldn't make this work. And I'm like, you're fucking blizzard. You know what I mean? Like this, your job is to make this work. That's what you as a game company do.
00:54:03
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, and people also, you know, it's like, why are people so excited for Microsoft buying fucking Activision Blizzard? And it's like to just do something to rate this ship. Like, you know, we love to shit on Redfall and that stupid thing of what happened under Microsoft's leadership rate we talked about last week.
00:54:21
Speaker
But, but, you know, just to be like announce a fucking game and then go, yeah, no, we're not going to do it anymore. This whole reason that we said like, that's a PR nightmare.
00:54:35
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely true. That's interesting that, like, it is their job to do things better. Like, that's kind of what they do. How could they not have done this right? I don't know. Well, obviously they didn't get the MMO to work and they turned it into Overwatch. Like, I guess, yeah, you can admit defeat. So, you know.
00:54:58
Speaker
Abandon it if it needs but i'm very surprised that they didn't make it work especially like you called out like Isn't um warframe all pve like that's what it built itself on and it's wildly popular Yeah, they added a pvp much later. It's like yeah, there's so much to pve. That's such a huge market to tap into Yeah, I and like
00:55:24
Speaker
It's one of those things where if you had to ask B, right? Listen, we don't have enough resources, whatever. We have to cancel something. What do we cancel in order to get this going? I would never pick the PVE option. I would have been like, guys,
00:55:43
Speaker
We're not going to have a ranked season right now. We're going to work on all this. We're not going to make new heroes. We're going to do this. And to be honest with you, they haven't made new heroes in a while because they're supposed to be working on this. But they're not. This had to have been months down the line, the thought of it. It must have just taken a while for them to formally announce it to people.
00:56:06
Speaker
Yeah, in there's an interview on GameSpot with Tamora Hussein, and I believe there's a line in there that sometime even around like 2020, they were starting to think that this might not happen. So like it's pretty crazy.
00:56:24
Speaker
How could they have done it that bad? I'm just amazed. It really sounded like they kind of just had a wish list of ideas and they could never quite get it to where they wanted it to. Which in which case why fucking announce it, but of course we always talked about it, right? They announced Overwatch 2 because Activision wanted to have a fucking 2 for their shareholders.
00:56:46
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, and also, right. We said this is not the first time this has happened, right? With a fucking Blizzard game, right? Hearthstone was great while Ben Brode was there. And then he left. And I mean, it was starting to go downhill before he left, to be clear. But then he left and then it really went downhill. And then what Jeff Kaplan has left Overwatch and man, it's
00:57:12
Speaker
You would not, you would not necessarily think that he would have, you know, one wonders that this kind of thought process and planning led to the reasons that he left outside of maybe, you know, the horribly toxic to terrible place that is Blizzard to work at. Yeah, I've had a lot of problems.
00:57:31
Speaker
Yeah, that's like it sucks to think, though, to that, like, really, is it one person who defines the success of a game? But sometimes, yeah, sometimes, yeah, like a Kojima game isn't going to be a Kojima game without Kojima, right? Yeah. So why can't I subscribe the same type of importance to these people? I don't know these names, so I like they mean nothing to me, but
00:57:57
Speaker
I mean, it's not like one person sitting there doing all the fucking coding. You know what I mean? But like a good creative director knows like, like these are the things that we can sacrifice on and these are the things we can't sacrifice. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I think without that vision, sometimes you get, you know, designs led by committee and those don't do well. I read fall. Yeah.
00:58:22
Speaker
You have to cancel a project because no one could bring all the pieces together. Yeah. I mean, that was the problem with the first Final Fantasy 14. I remember reading or watching like a mini documentary on it. And basically when it started, like Square had this huge ego. They thought they were the best at everything. And then everybody worked independently, didn't really talk. And then when they tried to tape all the pieces together, it was bad. They really thought they thought that after 13, huh?
00:58:50
Speaker
Yeah, that's all I was going to say, too. It's just like, well, I think it was developed in tandem with it to be fair, but like they're right. That would that would be there. We've got sure they felt that way after 12, the best one. OK, now. Yeah, yeah. I mean, to be fair, though, it's like square is top of the world. Like to us, they were like they they were the best at everything. In my mind, they were. Was that around the same time the Tomb Raider remake to around the first 14?
00:59:19
Speaker
I don't know, but the the Tomb Raider reboot was excellent. Yeah. But that was Eidos Montreal. I might be. I know, but it's still a square studio. Yeah, like square. Yeah. I mean, so I guess I only meant to say the like, that's what a confidence studio not working under correct leadership turns into.
00:59:37
Speaker
And maybe that's kind of what happened here. You have a lot of talented people that can't bring it together because you don't have that type of personality at the front of it. And that's too bad because who cares about Overwatch anymore? PvE would be the perfect way to bring in people. I was so excited. I was so excited. I was like, this could bring me in.
00:59:59
Speaker
Maybe they're going to approach Yoshi P. Like that's how you get it to work. Well, it's just, I think, I think we, we loved Overwatch. We loved the world and the characters and the combat to a certain extent. Right. And it was just, we hated the fucking online PvP community. Like, which, um, you know, I, obviously a lot of this news from people have been talking a lot about the current state of Overwatch too, and like the meta and all that. And I've been completely removed from it, but it sounds like.
01:00:26
Speaker
Honestly, it's gotten even worse when it's gone down to 5v5 just about like pressure on certain roles like tanks and healers because In 5v5, there's less redundancy. So yeah, yeah I know I wouldn't start writing that I would say I mean overwatch League is definitely
01:00:53
Speaker
I would say on life support. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's basically the cost of the league is not worth it.
01:01:01
Speaker
I mean, to be fair, there's been a lot of problems with esports in general. OK. Esports orgs have been struggling to actually make money. Sure. And it's finally the time when people are like, you should be making money, but you're not. OK. Is there that much cost to it? I'm approaching this naively. I don't actually know. But to me, it's like you pay a bunch of people to play games, like so you pay like their salaries and stuff. But like, is it a very is it like a really huge investment?
01:01:31
Speaker
Well, this is the weird thing about money and like investment money, which is not enough that it's opportunity cost. I could put this money in esports and make this much, but if I put it in, you know, missile manufacturing, I could make this much, right?
01:01:51
Speaker
And it's the weird state of the economy that yes, those are two equal propositions, right? Yeah. So you're competing with every other industry, unless, you know, you have some sort of angel investor who's just like, well, I just want this to flourish. But, you know, you don't always have enough of those to do those kinds of things.
01:02:09
Speaker
Well, you've got a bunch of streamers now, like Charles, streamers you like have gotten into eSports, right? Yep. Ludwig and Moise critical have Moise moguls now and toast. I didn't know that. Yeah. Toast has DSG, which is for Valorant. And so where do they get the money? Like is it advertising? Is it just winning? Well, no, no, they're paying it out of their own pockets because they like eSports. Well, how do they mean to make money?
01:02:39
Speaker
Oh, that was actually the big joke. Toast tweeted literally after he said, yeah, I'm going to do it, at least for the year. And he just tweeted, how do esports orgs make money? So to be honest with you,
01:02:56
Speaker
doesn't seem like there's a good plan there. Yeah, like it feels like it should be relatively cheap. Again, I don't really know, but it's not going to cost as much as football players, right? Well, no, no, not necessarily football players, but it is a lot of money. Like I think one thing that toast has said is just like,
01:03:18
Speaker
You know, uh, other orgs, if you're a new org, your players get poached by other orgs that pay more. And if you're trying to start up, you're screwed because you don't get, you don't get enough of the good players, the good players that you do get, get poached away. And then you have a bad team and then they don't perform well, which means you don't get many fans. You don't get much support in the league.
01:03:39
Speaker
I love the way Blizzard did it with like regional teams. I think that's super interesting. Right. I agree. Something to cheer for in your area because me, a newbie, I don't know who to root for. All these have like elite gamer names. So I'm just going to root for whoever is the Midwest. Like, I think that makes sense. There was going to be a Chicago team, wasn't there? Let me see what the leagues are. I want to see that. I mean, Andy, you're getting very close and becoming a sports fan.
01:04:10
Speaker
And, and, and it's, these are, these are questions about like salary crap and drafting and things like that. And this is like, how do you keep a league competitive? Because you don't want there to be such a strong skill gap between every team. Yeah. Like a lot of, you know, it's like baseball, you know, they actually like, there are enough people that play at a high level that they can have that many teams and have that many games football.
01:04:38
Speaker
Very it gets very tight. They're always talking about expanding the the NFL, like four more teams in Europe, of all places. But but it's people are always like you understand that we barely have 32 starting quarterbacks now. Right. Like it's tough. It's tough to be a starting quarterback. And it's the same kind of deals like being a competitive esport player. Yeah. There are not a lot of people who play at the highest level.
01:05:08
Speaker
Yeah. Um, it's difficult and it's like the difference between the top skill players and maybe like the middle tier, that middle tier skill players is a golf. I mean, like Charles, I was speaking a bit out of turn cause I don't watch that much esports, but would you agree with that?
01:05:27
Speaker
Um, I mean, I'd say yes. Um, yeah. Like generally like the, for e-sports too, right? It's also this weird, weirdly even younger age range, uh, for players than like conventionals, like athletes too. Like your kid, you're likely to sign, they're going to try to sign you as young as possible, right? Like 16, 17, 18. Like it's very rough. And then if by like 21, you're not good, you're fucking out.
01:05:59
Speaker
I also like the weird thing with esports leagues is it's almost like a truly world league in the sense of like East and West divisions are like literally cross continents, right? They're like looking at the Overwatch League. There's these obvious North America players, right? But then you also have the London Spitfires.
01:06:22
Speaker
And then even further east, you have the soul infernals, the Shanghai dragons, Hangzhou, uh, spark Chengdu hunters. Uh, so there's like, this is fully across the world. And there's even rules on like how you recruit because, uh, not to play a stereotype, but a lot of e-sports professional e-sports players, Asian people.
01:06:46
Speaker
And, uh, there's been rules on how many people from across the world you could have in your team. So you can't just have a North American team and have them all be from Korea. Sure. Cause apparently those were all the good players are. This is, uh, this is the, the football, like not the international football, the football problem. So you get, you get these players moving to, uh, moving to countries so they can play for that country in the world cup.
01:07:15
Speaker
Oh, it's funny. Uh, but, uh, well, we are already running late and it's fun to dunk on blizzard and I'm sure next week there's going to be more fallout from this. And honestly, we're probably going to talk about tears to the kingdom even more next week. Um, stone. What?
01:07:34
Speaker
Well, probably to hear about all the sales goals that it fucking broke. It's already, I think the second best selling game of all time in the UK, uh, Zelda game all time in the UK based on physical sales alone. Yeah. Um, so good on that. Well, yep. But we'll be talking about all that and more on another episode of add to party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a new show. I've been your host James. I still think Zelda is a great game. Hartwell.
01:08:06
Speaker
And I've been joined by... Charles will begrudgingly finish Tears of the Kingdom, Yamant. And I've been joined by... Andy. Tears is a good game. It's not bad. I might finish it. I don't know. Does it compete with Harvey Andy? Oh! Oh! Tune in next week to find out that answer. Good night!
01:09:02
Speaker
Good night. Good night.