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No Man's Sky is Back4Blood - Add to Party 08.11.2021
15 Plays4 years ago
Originally recorded live @ twitch.tv/addtoparty on 08.11.2021
This week the boy's discuss Epic buying your love, shitty gamers and Titanfall, No Man's Sky's 5th anniversary, & EA surprised that people like good old games better than shitty new games.
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Transcript
Intro and Andy's Shower Mishap
00:00:17
Speaker
Welcome to Add to Party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a new show. I'm your host, James Hartwell, and I'm joined by. Uh, Charles Jumat, and I'm joined by. Andy K.
00:00:29
Speaker
Good evening. Andy, what the hell is wrong with you? Nothing. All right. I'm living a vibrant, healthy 33 year old life. Okay. Are you? Cause it sounds like your arms falling off. Also, you didn't say anything about this occurring from you falling in the shower, which is classic old person behavior.
00:00:53
Speaker
OK, the falling in the shower was a separate thing. All right, everyone, please, please get a bath mat.
Andy's Arm Pain and Surgery Concerns
00:01:02
Speaker
And also, everyone, please understand the surface area of your bathtub. When I went to go buy a bath mat, I bought a large, but really, it's just a tiny little thing on the on the bottom of the bathtub. So I can only stand in like a small area in the middle of my shower.
00:01:21
Speaker
It's very upsetting. Otherwise, walk around. Do you like to walk around your shower? I didn't realize you had like a shower. You know, when you like rinse your hair, you move towards the front of the shower and then I have like my shampoo at the back of the shower and you got to move around. Right. Do you have do you have a claw foot tub or? I have it. No, no.
00:01:43
Speaker
I just have it's like embedded in the wall. Right. Does that make sense? Just a normal one. I literally navigate like using the walls now. I just I just hold on to everything I can. But no, my arm pain was before my bathroom tumble. OK, I'm my shoulders still recovering from it, but I'm pretty much back to normal.
00:02:08
Speaker
but no now I have cubital tunnels so everyone please please don't put your elbows on the table okay we all have to protect our ulnar nerves so that they don't get worn out and then you might need surgery on them later I don't know but I've got about four weeks left to convince a surgeon I don't need surgery
00:02:33
Speaker
Well, we'll see today wasn't a good day, but um We'll see just on my yeah, it's weird because it's it's weird But I do have these sleeves that have like dedicated padding for my elbows. It's kind of great So I get to walk around and be a real cool. Yeah, so you look like a real active guy now. Oh
00:02:58
Speaker
I look like I might as well be rollerblading. Yeah. Maybe he does. Maybe he does MMA on the weekends. Oh, maybe she got a knee brace to Andy just to kind of. Well, I've certainly got the physique for it. All right. Everyone's going to be wondering about my extreme active lifestyle.
MMA Strategy Joke
00:03:20
Speaker
I think who knows, Andy? I mean, listen, your your style is to absorb and contain. All right.
00:03:30
Speaker
Charles, that's a valid MMA strategy, isn't it? Oh, I thought it was my diet. Not not in that language, but yes. Absorb and contain like I'm like storing that kinetic energy. I'm like that OC Mortal Kombat character. Yeah. When do I release it? The one from the movie. Yeah. I'm not surprised you forgot already, Charles.
00:04:00
Speaker
It was so bad. You have to understand he wasn't worth mentioning. It was so bad.
James' COVID Experience
00:04:10
Speaker
I still think about that. I won't be one upped by you, Andy, because I might have COVID. Oh, no.
00:04:18
Speaker
I don't know. We'll see. Oh, OK. I had I took I tested today. But last night I had a fever and pretty bad chills. Oh, my gosh. They say Delta presents kind of a sore throat and like runny nose sniffling, which I don't have any more than usual with allergies. Right. Sure. So I don't know. We'll find out. I will be pissed.
00:04:46
Speaker
You've done everything right. I have. Well, other than going to giant gatherings of people who weren't wearing masks, but I was. My KN 95 mask protecting me. There you go.
00:04:59
Speaker
You tried your best. I did. We'll see. I'll find out tomorrow. Okay. I'm going to manifest for you that you don't have COVID. I hope so. When I got my COVID swab, the lady was like, all right, what's your birthday? And I was like, oh. And I was like, oh, it's your birthday. And I was like, yeah. And she's like, oh.
00:05:22
Speaker
Well, you know, happy birthday. Thank you. Hopefully I don't get Covid. She's like, no, you're a Leo. You're too strong for that. Oh, my God, that's beautiful. Oh, so apparently, apparently I emit strong Leo energy. Oh, listen, you must have walked out of there feeling encouraged and confident by that scientific information. Oh, it was OK.
00:05:51
Speaker
Yes, I got COVID tested from the comfort of my car. You know what? That's great. I hope it turns out well.
00:05:58
Speaker
Yeah, we don't need more of that Delta flying around, please. I had a whole weekend of just getting to hear about all the terrible things. So please, please, not you, not me or anything, but not not you. Well, I told I told Charles, at least for when we go up to visit him for packs, which man, I can't believe they're still there. We're going to have that convention. Hello, high water, they say vaccination proof and masks, you guys.
00:06:27
Speaker
Uh-huh. Yeah, that worked real well. That worked real well for me. But yeah, I was like, won't be me. I'll be immune by the time that comes around. Well, hopefully if I got if I got it. Yeah. But oh, God. Oh, God.
Epic Games Store Financials and Legal Battle
00:06:46
Speaker
No, we can still be safe with vaccines and masks. Hopefully we'll see.
00:06:51
Speaker
Listen, if they want to listen, I got Pfizer. And if they want to just shove a couple modern is in me a Johnson Johnson AstraZeneca, I'll take them all. Just line them up. Just line them up on my arm. Just I don't mind. Go nuts. Well, you know who else likes to go nuts? I tell me about them living this reckless, but hopefully a satisfying lifestyle. That would be one epic game store. Oh,
00:07:21
Speaker
Yes. About the problems of the rich. Yes. Epic. It's been a while since we talked about this, but that Apple versus Epic legal battle is still going on. The lawyers are getting a little snippy.
00:07:38
Speaker
And during it, basically Epic was trying to compare themselves to the App Store and Apple's lawyers came out basically saying, no, you're not. The Epic Game Store is unprofitable and not comparable to the App Store, quote unquote, the lawyers began and will not be profitable for at least multiple years if ever.
00:07:59
Speaker
say epic has lost about 181 million dollars on epic game store in 2019 projected to lose around 273 million from 2020 and epic themselves has committed 444 million in minimum guarantees for 2020 alone while projecting it even with significant growth only 400 million revenue that year
Fortnite's Cultural Impact
00:08:22
Speaker
Um, they're epic themselves say that they may not be profitable until 2027. Oh, my gosh. And it's just and it's not a problem, right? And it's just not the books money. Ariana Grande had a concert in Fortnite just last week. Oh, yeah, I heard about that.
00:08:45
Speaker
That's right. How does that work? This is this is Boomer Andy. How does that work? You've never you like this is the first time they've done concerts there. You've never seen. You've never seen the marshmallow. Yeah. Or Travis Johnson. I have not seen any. I don't know how that was. Yeah. It's Travis Scott. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Sycamote, blah, blah, blah.
00:09:07
Speaker
So anyway, but it's like the you're it's just like the same mode as in your your characters in the overworld map. But there's a concert there. Yeah, everyone stops fighting to watch the concert, basically. Oh, so like a hundred of you spawn in the normal map. You like jump out of your airplane and then Ariana Grande is there. Not. I don't know if it's exactly like, you know, you'd go through the same mode of jumping, you know, of going through a plane or anything.
00:09:37
Speaker
But you are basically controlling your character like you do in the normal overworld map. OK. It's almost like a special map type deal. Originally, it was the original mode. I don't know if they've changed that since now. Yeah. Because they do most of their events that way, too. When the eclipse happened and when all those other events happened, if you were playing on the server, when the event would go live, it would happen in your game map.
00:10:06
Speaker
Yeah. What a fun thing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's really cool. It almost makes me want to play Fortnite. Yeah. I mean, like what a neat thing to experience with other people and also just bring like other media into it, like people from other media into it just to see how that's represented. Like, did she have like was she dancing? What was she doing? That's the giant person in the middle. That's Ariana Grande. Oh, oh, Fortnite style. I got to bring it up.
00:10:36
Speaker
Obviously no music because my desire to deal with anything DMCA related is low. That's completely fair. Holy cow, she's just dancing. Yeah, there's a whole part where she's walking up like all these stairs. I saw bits and pieces of it. It was a very big experience. Floating in bubbles.
00:10:55
Speaker
Oh, this is cool. Yeah, that's why they don't care how much money they lose on Epic Game Store, because this shit happens and people pay so much money on battle passes. Oh, my gosh. You see, like this person watching it got like some sort of Ariana Grande outfit.
00:11:14
Speaker
Yeah, listeners just just be impressed is the way I mean, just Google Ariana Grande Fortnite. It's not just her standing on a stage. It's just this whole like experience.
Epic vs Steam: Long-term Strategy
00:11:27
Speaker
It's basically like being in the middle of a music video. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's the perfect way to put it. That's the perfect way to put it.
00:11:34
Speaker
way more effort than I thought was going into. Oh, no, these are crazy, especially when they were doing the Marvel thing. And it was like you you you got on the party bus and you like attacked Galactus like it was the Death Star and Star Wars. It was a whole thing. Yeah. Wow. Yep. Keep the kids engaged. They're going to be talking about that next day at school or at work around the water cooler. And that's true. Well, do adults play Fortnite?
00:12:04
Speaker
constant constant constant mention of the show Greg Miller is playing it right now because there's a What do you call it? There's a Superman skin and he's obsessed with Superman
00:12:16
Speaker
No fair. Yeah. Well, I guess good on them spending 500 million to beef up a store. That's just insane though to have. Yeah. Well, it's, it's, it's that whole thing, right? Like, uh, they're accepting these losses, you know, fully understanding that they're gonna lose all this money for a while to try to get a new foothold and then it'll be profitable. Yeah. Yeah.
00:12:41
Speaker
And that's what you have to do if you wanted to become a new distribution for software on PC that's not Steam. Yeah. I mean, even Twitch is doing that with like Twitch drops and things like that. And honestly, I don't know. I I've never started up the Twitch app to play a game. That's like the games they give you are never that great. Sometimes there's some good ones, but not often. Yeah. Epic Game Store usually kind of throws a lot of really good games at you.
00:13:11
Speaker
Agreed. And only one of these games made only one of these games, by the way, made a profit in all the free games that they gave away. Right. And that game was satisfactory, which is a fantastic game.
00:13:26
Speaker
, and
00:13:48
Speaker
Great. That's true for their strategy. And I'm just wondering, though, I'm trying to picture, OK, it's 2027, probably six, seven hundred and fifty million dollars in the hole. Are they just hoping then that it's a pretty like low effort, like maintenance of just raking in that 12 percent of every sale? Like, I'm assuming they're hoping it's going to be a pretty passive income. I'm guessing.
00:14:16
Speaker
I don't know. I'm really curious what how they feel about the steam deck. Oh, sure. Because I feel like that only in dirt, only locks people more into the steam ecosystem, not that people need effort to be locked into the steam ecosystem. Right. But it's interesting. I it's one of that same thing. It was like Microsoft better make a Linux capable game pass app. And I wonder if Epic Game Store will do the same thing just to kind of like
00:14:46
Speaker
Fuck Steve over. Yeah. Oh, I know. We're not talking about this too much today, but I do know that steam when Microsoft is working with Steam Deck to make a Windows 11 version to run specifically on Steam Deck with like digitally signed drivers and all that stuff. So it'll install cleanly with only what it needs. Oh, yeah. So it's all very interesting. It is.
00:15:13
Speaker
And you know, I'm sure Valve has enough money to not make a profit on the steam deck and just see what happens. All these people have so much money. Yeah, everyone's rich, but us. Do they pay in taxes? Are they paying their taxes?
00:15:30
Speaker
No, Andy, you know the answer. That makes them smart. Oh, can they at least pay their taxes? No. Yeah. So I mean, Epic has enough to throw around. And then Charles, your point like this is the only way you can compete against steam. You have to have just unimaginable amounts of money to even siphon a little bit away of steam. And are they even siphoning? I don't know. I don't know. They have the numbers.
00:15:56
Speaker
Um, probably not. I mean, it's not for me. Yeah. I'll see. I let seem auto open. There is no other game platform that I do that with. What would make.
00:16:09
Speaker
Genuine question, what would make either of you buy a game off of Epic over Steam? Anything? That it's that well, sometimes I've done this because sometimes they offer like $10 coupons. Sure. Other times because they buy like a exclusivity. I'm like, well, I want to play that game now. So now more money buying a game from Epic goes to the developer over Steam. That's true. Does that sway your purchase choice?
00:16:41
Speaker
Like I understand why moral compass, which is if it could, if it could benefit the developers, good. You know how entrenched I am in steam right now. If I was not nearly as entrenched on steam. Yes. So it's more like a 50 50 choice, but I have all my stuff on steam and it's all there in one place. I don't have to open two things. What's my current count. Let's see here.
00:17:06
Speaker
I don't care about the developers nearly enough.
00:17:08
Speaker
I'm a baby. I only have 227 games. I have 834 games on Steam.
00:17:18
Speaker
You know, I guess you can't switch to Epic. It needs to consistently. Right. Like, okay. When did I start getting used to buying things from Amazon was when they were doing their pre-orders of 10% or whatever off from buying. If every new game on PC came to Epic and it was always X amount cheaper. Yep. I would, I would go, okay, I'll be buying from Epic and now I'm used to it. Yeah.
00:17:47
Speaker
Holy crap, that'd be smart if they offered like preorder discounts. Yeah, the problem is the developers don't like that a lot. That's why Amazon stopped doing it, too. Oh, I bought a lot of games I haven't played because of that. I know, but it apparently devalues the game when they get upset about it. OK.
00:18:04
Speaker
The other thing too with indie developers is if their game is good enough, I'll end up buying it on multiple platforms. That's fair. I've bought Slay the Spire on three different platforms at this point. Oh wow. I bought it on PC, I bought it on Switch, and now I also have it on Android.
00:18:21
Speaker
Oh, wow. Yep. Yeah. I mean, that's the way to make it back. I've bought Crypt of the Necrodancer on a couple of different platforms. I actually felt bad because I bought it originally for three dollars or something like that. And I was like, I this this feels wrong. I didn't give you enough money.
00:18:37
Speaker
So I literally just bought it in other places just to give them more money because I felt so bad for a game that brought me such joy. They deserve a little more. So well, I'll be the altruistic one. I'll buy from Epic. I'll let them have more money. But I don't buy games on PC. So it's really a non thing unless you guys are playing a game on Steam. I guess I got to buy it on Steam. Well, now we have a problem. Well, in 2027, it's going to be all different.
00:19:04
Speaker
We'll see. We will see. I mean, you know, boyfriend dungeons are finally released and my team is available for PC on Steam. So isn't it? Is it out for is it an early access? I read the email today. Boyfriend Dungeon, by the way, if you're not aware, is a Kickstarter that launched in 2017.
00:19:27
Speaker
Yep. Several kickstarters have come gone and released in that span. Exactly. And it's a it's kind of a rogue like visual novel game where you date your weapons.
00:19:42
Speaker
You make them stronger. It makes sense to me. God, that's fantastic. That's right. Oh, that's great. It is. It is not early access. The rest are just like planned updates to the content. I was I was debating if I should try it yet or not, but that sounds good. We might have to talk about that next. There we go.
Surprise Releases: Boyfriend Dungeon and Axiom Verge 2
00:20:03
Speaker
Yeah. That's a party. Yeah, exactly. Review of Boyfriend Dungeon. I have not seen any reviews of Boyfriend Dungeon.
00:20:10
Speaker
They kind of they kind of shadow dropped it today. It seems like it was a pretty stealth release. Same with Axiom Verge 2 actually released today, too. That came out of nowhere. Yeah. Yeah. That's weird. User reviews on seem positive right now. Hey, that's all you can hope for, right? I'm glad it's also coming out on Switch, which makes you wonder, do I get the Switch version or do I get the PC version knowing that I will have a stream deck at some point? Oh, I'm thinking Switch.
00:20:39
Speaker
But I don't like to play in handheld mode, but I don't like playing. Oh, but I just for the first time yesterday used a controller on my computer. Or was that Monday? That was Monday. We play a couple party. Yeah, which is a fun game. And did you know you can use a controller on the computer? Yes, Andy.
00:21:01
Speaker
That's how I play Hitman 3. Oh, makes sense. Yeah. First time I think in my life I ever used it. And you just plug it in. That's all I did. And Steam. Uh oh. Steam knew what to do with it. Does Epic know? Yeah, they're not bad. Oh, OK. Well then that's fair. Bye.
00:21:19
Speaker
So, yeah, I could play Boyfriend Dungeon on the PC. I just plug in my controller. What switches plus plus Sandy Boyfriend Dungeon on PC will get you access to mods when people add Randy new boyfriend weapons. Who are they going to mod into it? Probably someone from Toho. Oh, yeah. 100. It's always it's always Toho. 100 percent. Let's mod in. Hmm.
00:21:48
Speaker
We've tangented too far. And and and you know why? Because we're shitty people, because we're gamers and gamers are shitty. Exactly. Oh, good tangent. That's right. So let's talk about gamers being shitty, but not involving misogyny for a difference, as you know, alarm. That's right. Take your finger off that horn, James. But that is it. That isn't to say they weren't misogynistic. We just don't know.
00:22:15
Speaker
They probably are. Yeah, you know, you know, that's it's allegedly right. Allegedly. Allegedly. Yeah. So I'm going to try to condense this story down because it's a little long, but and it carries a little bit of in knowledge. Respawn games, developer of Titanfall, Titanfall and Titanfall 2 has had a lot of issues with its multiplayer experience for a long time.
Respawn's DDoS Struggles
00:22:42
Speaker
with DDOS attacks, distributed denial of service attacks. It's basically where someone uses, they have kind of tools and accounts where they can basically slam your game with as many logins as humanly possible and just destroy it.
00:23:02
Speaker
And they've had issues with this for a long time. Other games also struggle with this. Rainbow Six Siege has issues with it. Apex Legends, which is also another game made by Respawn, also has trouble with it. So someone has been doing this for a long time. And similarly, someone also Apex Legends spammed DDoS to Apex Legends and managed to hack it to say a message saying save Titanfall to bring attention to the issue.
00:23:30
Speaker
I don't remember that. They would also target specific streamers, so basically making streamers have a bad time, which is a death knell for some multiplayer games, although Apex has done a good job of surviving.
00:23:43
Speaker
And basically, right, there was the save Titanfall Discord Reddit community that kind of came up and they're like, Hey, give us access. We know how to fix your shitty net code. If you give us full access to your source code, we'll fix the game for you. We'll, we'll just take care of it. We know how to do it. We can do it. And then what we found out.
00:24:05
Speaker
is that the same group of guys who say, hey, we know how to fix Titanfall were the same group of people who were doing the DDoS. Yeah, because they wanted because allegedly they wanted access to the source code, which then they could use to make a fan version of a canceled Titanfall Chinese free to play game or getting hired by Respawn, ideally. So.
00:24:30
Speaker
Yeah, they basically made three games shitty to to revive a dumb fucking mobile game version of the game and pretended to be saviors while they were the ones doing. Yeah. And, you know, yeah. And have the dream probably of being hired by.
00:24:54
Speaker
the developer. Yeah. User B Boy Dragon Wing on Reddit condenses it down into one one sentence very well. I'm going to hack and destroy a game franchise so that the actual fucking owner of said franchise will hire me to make another parentheses inferior version of the said franchise that I destroyed. Yeah. Thanks, B Boy.
00:25:20
Speaker
Yeah, I wonder. I wonder outside of them being allegedly misogynistic. How who are these people? Right. Like I'm trying to put myself in the place where I think this will work. Who am I? Andy, let me ask you this. Does the universe revolve around you and your desires? Uh, no. Well, then that's the first step you got to take to understand.
00:25:50
Speaker
that any inconvenience or trifle that affects me personally is a grave issue that should be struck down in the highest of courts. Charles, I know you feel this way. Well, he's silencing them. Here's the issue. I admire their moxie.
00:26:12
Speaker
Oh, sure. To see what has never been done. What has never been done. And they thought, no, we will. We will take these steps. We are big enough. We are organized. We will take down a corporation and we'll gain their trust.
00:26:35
Speaker
You know, it's, it's a, it requires a certain type of person, a certain amount of chutzpah. Yeah. And you know, step one and two, check, check. That's true. He did achieve 30 or 66% of their plan. Yeah. That's, that's successful as far as any project is actually. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:02
Speaker
That was admirable. It's never going to work now for any successors. Well, and how do you get hired in the future? Right. Like, well, I guess you just don't put it on your resume. You just say the ideally they don't respond, doesn't find out that they're the ones D does exactly. Well, no, we just know how to. Yeah. Well, they didn't. These people. Yeah. One of us. I mean, we don't know the real names, but.
00:27:29
Speaker
We know who they were on the discord. One was a moderator on the Titanfall subreddit has that has been since removed. You know, and one of the biggest shames is that Titanfall is really good. Oh, it's a great game. Resolve knows how to make shooters. It feels good. It's just it. Yeah, exactly. It feels so good. It is so much fun. And they took that away from people.
00:27:56
Speaker
because they had, you know, some 4D chess plan that did not pan out. And I'm just trying to figure out, are they teenagers? Are they like 20 year olds? You got to be dumb enough. They got to be in their 20s.
00:28:12
Speaker
I just, I always play this game now where when I hear people doing stupid stuff, I try to think, well, they're not as old as I am, are they? Like any shitty people are shitty no matter their age. I have to, I have to be a part in a way. I have to be separate from the ne'er duels.
00:28:33
Speaker
And so I always try to figure out how am I not like them. The easiest default is age. Well, well, you know, here's a here's a good way to separate it. Hmm. Have you ever been part of a conspiracy to take down? I'm not sure I can say yes to that, Charles.
00:28:55
Speaker
I mean, I've been part of some forums or two. That's right. That's why I can't run for political office. Yeah. Yeah. I've never been part of a conspiracy. I was part of a
00:29:10
Speaker
You could say paper DDoS attack. By that, I mean a mail in letter campaign to Nintendo to get Xenoblade releases here. Oh, we did a write in for Xenoblade and Last Story. It was called like Operation Rainfall. Oh, Andy, you are the alpha nerd.
00:29:38
Speaker
Here's the thing for last story. We ripped out a page out of a book for some reason and included it in the envelope. That'll let them know we're serious. Oh, that'll let them know. Exactly. Exactly. But that's the greatest I've gotten to a large scale conspiracy. And I'll have you know, we bought got both games. All right. Thanks to me. Exactly. Well, that's the power of organization.
00:30:06
Speaker
Except for these guys. Oops, I assume they're male, but let's. Allegedly. Allegedly male misogynist. I want to give it to you like a 90 percent shot. I will be the progressive one. Oh, no, that's it. That collection of men, women and non binary. No, it's it. We're trying to ruin these games for us and screw them.
00:30:32
Speaker
There you go. There you go. It was an inclusive group. I apologize. There was, but they were still all misogynistic. I hope you know. No, I don't. I don't want to get into that. No, I don't want to get into it. Never mind. Let's move on to the next stop. I can get me out of this before I say something will get me in trouble. No man's guy is still here.
00:30:56
Speaker
Isn't that incredible? I mean, of course it is. Like, you know, let's say you keep building.
No Man's Sky Redemption
00:31:01
Speaker
Everyone's already stopped looking.
00:31:05
Speaker
Who wants who wants audio audio listeners? I'm playing the anniversary trailer they released and there was a man screaming in what looked like orgasmic joy. It's just, you know, and this is what's incredible. And correct me if I'm wrong. Fifth anniversary, five years of free substantial updates. Yeah.
00:31:32
Speaker
That is mind-blowing. And I don't think in any way does No Man's Sky owe us five years of free updates, right? I didn't. I'm not of the mind. I bought this game. I shouldn't have to pay for anything. They lied to us, Andy. Nothing will ever. Oh, yeah.
00:31:50
Speaker
Remember, this was a penance on the line. They needed to win back customer faith in them. If you need to understand how to win back customer faith, you just follow No Man's Sky.
00:32:06
Speaker
That's true. They did it. And I think just after a year or two, you forgive them, but they can charge by now. They also they also shut up, right? They just. Yeah, they stop talking. They did not talk to anyone. There's like, hey, here's a new thing. Here's a new thing. Here's a new thing. And they just not address any controversy. That's a good point.
00:32:25
Speaker
Yeah, they just did it. They they just they just dug down and did it. And I'm very impressed with it. I thought the game was boring as but but I played it on release day. And that's one of the that game I use as an example to myself of Andy stop buying games when they're released. And then seven and then and then five years later, you still do it. And I still do it. But I'll let you know when I feel that pain of regret.
00:32:54
Speaker
It starts with No Man's Sky. That was where my innocence ended. That was literally at one of my and actually it's very topical because we'll bring up the game soon. My other regret buying.
00:33:10
Speaker
Oh, yeah. So, oops, go back here. So they, yeah, they put out this trailer and basically they've been doing updates this whole time. And this is also a soft announcement for their next free update, which they call frontiers. That guy screaming every time. Yeah. But it's he was all of us, all of us.
00:33:37
Speaker
But no, it's I don't know what they could add at this point. I don't know. I mean, Frontiers seems to say to me it's going to be something about Planet Generation or something like that. If you don't know what No Man's Sky is. Yeah, fair. It's OK.
00:33:56
Speaker
It's an exploration resource gathering game in a similar way to Minecraft, except instead of being in a voxel flat world, you are a fairly faceless explorer going from planet to planet in procedural generated words.
00:34:14
Speaker
and you can build bases there. There's kind of this little secret about getting to the center of the universe. In full disclosure, it's been probably about three patches since I've played it. Andy did not join it. I enjoyed it. It was actually very Zen. I think I probably paid like 60 hours when it first came out. Oh, cool.
00:34:34
Speaker
Um, yeah. And they've, you know, they've revamped their space combat. They've added more like ways to traverse on land. They've added more spaceship thing. They've added more animals. One of the big cries in the original beyond the fact that it didn't have multiplayer and Sean promised us multiplayer was that there were no sandworms much much like the Dune series. And they did add them in one update.
00:35:02
Speaker
And, and, you know, I believe, so, you know, if people weren't aware of this controversy basically it was there was over promised everything. They were, you know, they were saying,
00:35:18
Speaker
If in the off chance you are actually able to find each other in the galaxy, you'll see each other, which was not true. There was this talk about all these more dynamic, emerging gameplay that would happen as you explore worlds and they just weren't there. But now it is, actually. And now it is.
00:35:43
Speaker
It's it's more it's more than they promised at this point, to be honest with you. Yeah. So I think part of that, too, was just the continued hype for Star Citizen, which we are still in. And people are like, we're going to get Star Citizen with this. This will this will fix it. And then I think Star Citizen saw this happen. They're like, you know what? We're going to take a break for a while.
00:36:06
Speaker
I'm going to continue scamming money for a couple of years. So no, it's it's a great game. I was actually wondering if you guys want to maybe try playing it again with all the new updates. I mean, I will I will knock the dust out and find it under, you know, the discarded boxes of all my stuff and I could find it again.
00:36:29
Speaker
The truth of the matter is, too, I do love exploration games. That's actually one of my favorite things to do in video games, which is explore new worlds and do all this stuff. And it was very cool in my 20 hours of playtime of No Man's Sky on day one and two.
00:36:51
Speaker
to repair my ship and then fly off the planet and realize how big the planet is and go to a new planet and just start mining there and then realize some of the models are basically the same as the previous planet and then just go well that sounds lame and then I can log out but I'm willing to see what's happened in these five years that I didn't pay for
00:37:13
Speaker
Yeah, that it blows my mind. And and I think, yeah, the way it was put was right is that it's more than the game we were promised now. Like, and this was a game when the trailer was seen. People like stood up and screamed at how excited they were. This was a darling of every reveal show.
00:37:32
Speaker
it was the thing where Andy remember he like he was on the planet and then he got into the ship and he fled to space then he saw the solar system then he went to the galaxy map and then he just kept zooming out forever yeah you just couldn't believe it and you're like every one of these is a place you could go and your mind just exploded yeah it was something you didn't think possible and
00:37:54
Speaker
I realized with this game that I guess I don't really like exploration games. It's just that maybe there is the magic is gone inside me, but I just don't care, which is I think one of the reasons Breath of the Wild didn't catch me as much. I don't know. You're just a monster on that one. And I like who cares what's over the mountain mountain. I mean, if there's puzzles, I care. Well, which breath of the wild? Yeah. What was over the mountain? If you were lucky, a shrine, if you are unlucky, a Korok.
00:38:23
Speaker
Yeah, I just want puzzles. That's what I love about Zelda. I don't know what game has given me such excitement and wonder over exploration. I genuinely don't know. I don't know if I've ever had that. The first five minutes of No Man's Sky. Fair.
00:38:44
Speaker
before the curtain fell. I had a great time playing it. I think that's great. I love it. I know people who picked it up later on and they didn't even know about the controversy in the beginning. Absolutely in love with the game. They absolutely love it.
00:39:00
Speaker
This is also just Sony's dogged refusal to call anything early access. And this is a game that should have just been said, hey, this is an early access game. So I think it's really interesting how early access I feel is more prevalent now. I don't think it was nearly as prevalent then.
00:39:21
Speaker
It had just started coming around. Exactly. I think we were like a year or two into early access at that point. But I mean, it definitely this was a game that this was a vertical slice of a game that was missing like core depth that it needed.
00:39:36
Speaker
And I love them. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, again, so let's not put this all on Sony here. These developers betray us. John Murray. I'm not mad at his name like Ash on my tongue. Every time I see that that quick snapshot of him talking in interviews and stuff, I was like, God damn it. You son of a bitch.
00:40:00
Speaker
But in my mind, it's forgiven, though. They they went back and they fixed it. As long as as long as they never have him come up to talk again for his next games, I will be fine. I mean, I you figure they're still working on updates. We didn't talk about this game today, but there's another space game that ended its development this month. Kerbal Space Program has ended development. It will no longer do any more updates.
00:40:27
Speaker
The first one? Wait, is there a second one? No, it's the first one. They've been doing updates for 10 years. Oh my god.
00:40:34
Speaker
That's it. And that's a, you know, that for them, it's been commendable ever since because it's been a good game from day one. And well, there's I don't think there's ever any promises. Yeah, exactly. There wasn't a Sony presentation. Also, that was like the hypest Sony E3 because that was also the one where they revealed Ghost God of War Ragnarok. And Last of Us 2, I think as well. That was that was like it was happy. Yeah. Yeah.
00:41:03
Speaker
Listen, that wasn't the seven remake slash Shenmue three one That one goes down in history for me as the best press release. That was such a yeah What a what a wonderful time that was tears real. Yeah real tears
00:41:20
Speaker
Genuine friendships and you play and you play a chance with friendships and you play a chin move three to completion now I Huh, I bought down Kickstarter trying to back it. I Have not opened the game. I never redeemed a code
00:41:36
Speaker
I don't know if I read the code. Oh, that better not expire. Looking that up. If you if you want to hear about the troubles of Shenmue 3, there is a YouTube video by Super Eyepatch Wolf that I highly recommend you watch.
Mass Effect Legendary Edition: Nostalgia and Remakes
00:41:52
Speaker
Yeah. I love the first two Shenmues. Yeah, this was not it. But speaking of other classic games. Hmm.
00:42:03
Speaker
Mass Effect Legendary Edition sales were well above EA's expectations. It's almost like people like good things.
00:42:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's like all maybe all the shit we've been releasing isn't good other than Jedi fallen order Which they did commit to also today in an earnings call the same earnings call that gave us this information There's they said they're committing to the fallen order brand so soft confirmation of fallen order to there as well Good. I know a lot of people liked it. Yeah
00:42:35
Speaker
But yeah, Mass Effect Legendary, people like them member berries. Yeah, and to be honest with you, my...
00:42:43
Speaker
Ah, I have this current thought in my head about, you know, maybe just me being older and, you know, and also just a sign of the maturity in games as well as possibly movies about a lot of things just being remade or remastered. And I wonder what my limit is because I don't think I necessarily want everything that I enjoy to be remade or remastered.
00:43:13
Speaker
And I'm trying to, I'm forming in my head, where's the line? What's not the line? But here's the thing, Mass Effect, I definitely wanted it remastered. I was just like, you know, I think they did a good enough jobs, even trying to, you know, save some of the gameplay from the first Mass Effect, which it did. I think, you know, it was better than what it was even before, but still has the limitations this kind of still has. So whichever.
00:43:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:44
Speaker
Go ahead, Andy, be the bad person. Yeah, I was just going to say, and it wasn't played. I haven't played it yet, so I could also be the bad person. But no, no, no. I do love it. I only meant to say buying this game day one at full price. It really made me rethink how I buy games because I genuinely don't like this. That's why I'm trying. It's not true. It's not true. No, I played about an hour of it and I hated it.
00:44:13
Speaker
Skip one, go to two. And then I was told to replay it as a different class to make the gameplay more fun because one of the biggest things was just the game. And I'm sorry to use strong language. It feels terrible. Andy, just skip one and go play two. I'm not going to skip one.
00:44:29
Speaker
That's not you'll be like 90 percent of people in the Mass Effect franchise who played two and then went backwards and played one. I don't think I can skip it. I don't I don't know. I'm thinking of just selling it. Maybe I'll come back to it again a couple of years down when it's like 10 bucks. But he won't. No, I won't. But and I hate it so much because I was so excited for this because it's so important to so many people. And I hate that I walk in and I didn't like it.
00:44:56
Speaker
I am mad at myself. I do not want to think this, but it really made me rethink. I need to stop buying games. I need to stop buying games. I need to play the ones I own and I like, and I need to be more careful with my purchases. But to my to be fair, though, walking into this person or purchase, I had literally every single reason to think it would be the right purpose purchase. But I'm sorry. Match effects one at least that opening hour or so is bad.
00:45:26
Speaker
Well, this is why it's so funny because I don't think anybody would really defend the actual gameplay of one. The reason why it's important is just that it is a world building section to get to two and three.
00:45:52
Speaker
And two is where it's been great. And then three, and we've talked about this in previous episodes, but as a whole, taking it is a more beloved franchise rather than looking and necessarily examining into the first game, second and third.
00:46:10
Speaker
And, but everyone does definitely love the second game. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, but, you know, also to be honest, Andy, you know, my, from my understanding with you, and we've talked about this before, you're not much of a sci-fi like exploration type person.
00:46:27
Speaker
I love Xenosaga to bits, but that's like anime. Right. That is a completely different aesthetic and extremely linear in a positive way, I want to say, and just very much down my more the themes I enjoy. It sucked, though. I was I love dialogue. I love adventure games. I am. I hate that the first hour didn't catch me and I tried it twice.
00:46:55
Speaker
And it sucks. It sucks. I don't know when I'll come back to it. I don't know. But at least it's sold well. But I don't know if it's a game for new. No, a ton of new people play it and like it. I'm just broken. OK, I guess I can't like nice things.
00:47:15
Speaker
remaster Zeno saga. OK, you're not going to get any one of the sales. There we go. I'll send in a fan drawing of Kosmos. All right. I will also buy any Kosmos figurine. Anyone links me to. I just want to say that.
00:47:34
Speaker
Well, you know what? You will buy unreleased Andy. Then again, breaking your rule. Oh, tell me about it. You'll buy death loop, which is now gone gold. Oh, maybe we'll be free of the market soon. September 14th. We're a month away from death loop and not ever having to see a presentation about death loop again. Oh, my God. To be fair, death loop looks really interesting. I mean, it's yeah, it's what's hard for me. Crap.
00:48:00
Speaker
Dishonored. It's Dishonored. It's Dishonored with gunplay. And that's fine by me. It's more interesting to me than Dishonored was.
00:48:09
Speaker
only because it's more stylized. I feel like it's got like, well, what do I know? It's not like I ever played it dishonored. I'm just going off of trailers by Charles. I do want to get your input on this, but also I want to just tangent into the next topic. Oh, which is there might be a stony state of play coming soon, which maybe we'll hear about. We're absolutely hearing about it. Absolutely.
00:48:38
Speaker
Oh, well, not gonna lie. My opinion on Deathloop is I've had enough media coverage about it. I will just play it when it comes out because I am interested in it. If I keep hearing more coverage about it, I'm going to be over it.
00:48:53
Speaker
So I'm going to need to not need to see more fucking you're going to. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a rumor going around that there might be a state of play next week. It's not confirmed, but I would expect I mean, Sony said they would be back this summer. Technically speaking, that gives them till September 21st. But I wouldn't be surprised if we see something a state of play next week or the week after. And the rumor mill kind of saying
00:49:22
Speaker
There's been news that Horizon's been delayed to 2022. We may get an official confirmation on that with a release date. I would bet Horizon's going to be a March 2022 game. And then an extended look of Keena, Bridge of Spirits, which is a cute game. What is that one about? What is that one?
00:49:44
Speaker
How to describe it was kind of like, did I have like a breath of the wild feel or is it? Sort of. It was it was actually more like. If you remember that. What are you asking about? Kenna? And every. Third person here. Well, I thought we were treating Kenna more like Pikmin because your spirit is going to be moving like independent. You could give orders to them, but also still moving around and fighting.
00:50:08
Speaker
Can you bring up a trailer, James? Yeah, I'm doing that right now. Thank you. I don't remember anything about this game. See that cute little guy? Oh, this looks cute. Here it is. No, it's third person action. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it got a little. Yeah, like little Pikmin looking things. Yeah, Sony. Sony doesn't make non third person action games these days. I mean, that's fair. Well, if any, any moment now, any moment now, it's a resistance gets remade and I'll be happy.
00:50:37
Speaker
Oh, resistance. Yeah, I'm not a Killzone person. I'm over resistance. That's a good time. That's alternative. Yeah, there's there's also some rumors that we may see some announcement based on that Nixis purchase. The Nixis is that game studio that does PC ports. So maybe and then perhaps a from software exclusive game for for PlayStation. You know, it's Bloodborne 2.
00:51:04
Speaker
I mean, listen, Elden Ring, we have a date now. It's the hype train is dying on it. So we need to start a new game. Yeah. Well, I would say, yeah, there's some posting rumblings and rumors about.
00:51:17
Speaker
hearing that from soft is making another exclusive PlayStation that's not bloodborne. And I said, that's stupid. Make bloodborne. What are you talking about? Like what? Bloodborne has such a rich setting. Don't be crazy. Well, did Miyazaki said he hates sequels, right? Oh, did he? Oh, yeah, does he? Dark Souls two, three. Oh, yeah, everyone hated to. And I think they like strong armed him into making three so he could make looking so he could make Sekiro, I think.
00:51:46
Speaker
Mm-hmm. It's like I want to make this Sam. I want to make this samurai ninja game and he's like only if you make Dark Souls 3
00:51:53
Speaker
I guess. And Dark Souls 3 was great. I read a thing about how do you remember the Disney movie like Atlantis, like that space version of Atlantis? The people the people who made it wanted to make it. But Disney was like, no, you can't make it unless you make other Disney musicals. And out of that, we got like Beauty and the Beast and Lion King and Little Mermaid and all these like extreme classics.
00:52:22
Speaker
all to get the forgettable Atlantis. Well, I love the Atlantis. Oh, well, I apologize. Michael J. Fox is great. I'm sorry. I feel bad. Yeah, it was a lot of young men's awakening. Oh, yeah, that's it. And girl white hair. That's exciting.
00:52:38
Speaker
started started that anime trend early for you, Charles. Mm hmm. Yeah, so I don't know. It's it's definitely Xbox also announced their Gamescom presence, which I think is tomorrow. Question Mark, double check. I should know that as a video games news reporter, but I'm not Xbox Gamescom. I think it's tomorrow.
00:53:02
Speaker
August 24th. There you go. Yeah. So you have to imagine Microsoft's going to be doing a presentation soon. Sony will also do one just to just to kind of fuck over Microsoft. We never got like an E3 quality presentation on a Sony, though, right? Nope. No, that's true. I mean, we got we got a deep dive into the horizon.
00:53:22
Speaker
Who cares I mean, I mean I cared That was a flippin comment, maybe you should maybe I don't know I'm sorry not those true. I'm not talking those true Sony fans Yeah You know fans like me whose first Sony console was a ps4 I
00:53:49
Speaker
Listen, to restructure my intention, I mean to say an E3 press conference wouldn't be like a 20 minute gameplay dive into a single game, right? Yeah, there's not like a hit after hit kind of thing. Yeah, it would be a hit after hit. So I apologize. I am also interested in the New Horizon, even though I haven't beaten the first. But yeah, I wanted I wanted like something was I will listen, if I sell Mass Effect, I'll maybe have time for Horizon.
00:54:19
Speaker
But now I'm trying to get to end Walker and 14 and that's a whole thing. It is. You owe it to yourself. I do. I want to get there. I want to get. And then one last thing to just kind of brush on today is that it was the first week of the back for blood open
Back 4 Blood: Beta Success and Innovations
00:54:36
Speaker
made. It was the early access weekend. Oh, yeah. And it did really well. It had reached the peak of 98000 players on Steam over the weekend. Nice. 98000 concurrent players.
00:54:48
Speaker
Yeah, they did a good job with it. Basically, they had two options, which is if you pre-order, you could get into the weekend beta. And there's going to be a bigger open beta in a few weeks, like one more week. But they were just like, also, on Twitch, here's a bunch of sponsored streamers. If you watch them stream the game for one hour, you will get a drop for a beta code.
00:55:13
Speaker
By the way, Back 4 Blood is a Left 4 Dead successor. It's basically a four person zombie horde kind of campaign game. And it's made by a lot of the same people who made Left 4 Dead who left Valve and then went to create Turtle Rock Studios.
00:55:31
Speaker
They also did Evolve, right? Is that they did make Evolve, which was trash and then no one it had one. It was a good idea. I like the concept for the one versus many. It was a great concept. I think they could not do it. I think the problem was the monetization. I think was that EA that published it?
00:55:55
Speaker
I think so. Yeah, it was. It became a lot of like think pieces on how like insulting preorder bonuses are. It was pretty bad. And I think that's what destroyed Evolve. But hey, Turtle Rock is talented. God bless. Hopefully back for blood is good. It sounds like it's have a very positive reception.
00:56:16
Speaker
It's it's good. It's I think it's one of those things where There's not many Games like Left 4 Dead that have come out since Left 4 Dead 2. I know I know there's been a couple World War Z. Yeah Yeah
00:56:33
Speaker
But yeah, and what the issue with them is just they either they they're missing something about it, but would back for blood. I think they, you know, they really hit their stride because they, you know, they updated the gameplay. They still had the good core gameplay left for dead, but they updated it by having
00:56:51
Speaker
like some new systems to augment the play style you know like uh because they have a card system and an expanded roster of characters that do have they don't necessarily have ability abilities so it's not like a class or like a hero game uh but they have like certain benefits like you know one character always has a melee weapon
00:57:11
Speaker
or one character has one instant revive. So it's enough to feel like it's relevant to pick a character, but it really doesn't necessarily affect the gameplay too much. So you still can just play whatever character and still feel like you're playing right.
00:57:28
Speaker
And it was fun. Definitely made me go like, yeah, this is exactly what I would expect a sequel to Left 4 Dead would be. And they did their best to improve map design. It was good. And there's been a fairly varied gameplay, you know, very in the sense that you do start to kill zombies, but you do.
00:57:48
Speaker
the sniper rifle seems a little underpowered i think it's they kind of designed it to be a boss killer but i don't know it didn't seem like there's that many um it was good though when i played it yeah you can't oh go ahead yeah i'd i'd say um
00:58:05
Speaker
Yeah, there was a lot of fun with people experimenting and how useful are all the weapons. I saw a lot of people attempting melee only, which was fun and surprisingly viable.
00:58:21
Speaker
considering, and that's thanks to the card system as well. Whereas, you know, like, hey, if this is your play style, you can start taking all these little augments to make that play style viable. And that's pretty cool. Yeah, the deck system with the card buffs is actually very interesting. And I didn't get a chance to dive too much into it, but it did just the kind of throwing together a deck and picking the buffs as you went through the campaign. I was like, oh, this is interesting.
00:58:48
Speaker
Yeah, I hope to. I hope I'll get to play it more this weekend. If I have COVID, I'll definitely have time. That's true. But I'm manifesting. I believe in you, Eddie. You got Xenogears three or whatever. God bless. You have one. No, not Xenoblade. I like Xenoblade. You like Xenoblade. I like Xenogears. Wait, I thought it's the reverse. No, you like Xenoblade. You like the switch one, right? No, I don't like that. I didn't like Xenoblade.
00:59:17
Speaker
OK, Xenoblade, I like Xenogears. I like Xenogears and Xenosaga. Xenoblade is the new cool one to like. OK, but like Xenogears. Yes, Xenogears is fantastic. Are you kidding me? I was listening to the soundtrack today. That's it. I miss Xenogears as a kid. I never got I did not get to play it. It's I played it later in life. Yeah.
00:59:40
Speaker
I think it holds up, right? Does it? Yeah, it does. Yeah. Doesn't like a final answer. That would that legend. It's it's legend how the second disk is just they ran out of money. So they just made like a five hour PowerPoint. And that's the that's the last bit of the game. There's a lot of text in that game. Still enthralling. I love it. Well.
01:00:04
Speaker
Hopefully this episode of Add to Party a Friendship Simulator masquerading as a new show was just as enthralling. Yes. I've been your host, James Hartwell, and I was joined by. Five hours of sleep, Charles Yamant, and I've been joined by. Wishing I liked Mass Effect, Andy. Why can't I? You're a bad person, but that's OK. We'll work on that. Have a good night, everyone. All right. Good night.