We’re forty weeks old, people! Can you believe it? This week we discuss video games, monetary policy, hating William, politics, and dice. How’s that for a diverse rundown, eh?
LINKS:
Courtesy of Bloodsparrow, here is more on everyone’s favorite badger. And here is the *real* difference between Kraft in the US and Kraft in Canada.
And this is an episode of the Nerdist that I recommend, if you like Penn Jillette.
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As I’m listening to this again, I’m recalling that it was the Fallout property that was running into legal issues related to a possible MMO. (Then I looked it up to verify.) Sorry for the confusion. 🙁 Now you know why when I can’t remember something precisely, I often just give up!
That would be because the rights to make a Fallout MMO still belongs to Interplay… Or rather, what’s left of Interplay.
(It’s really just a dude in a cardboard box on a street corner in Irvine with some rats he calls “the QA department”.)
Ooblek! The substance Penn and the Little Person wrestled in.
I’m trying to convince people that we should have a kiddie pool full of the stuff for the fundraiser we’re doing tomorrow at the ATX Hackerspace.
It’s the true, the mathmatics is different.
For instance, 2d6 vs 1d12. When you roll two six sided dice, the lowest number you will ever roll is 2 and the top of the bell curve would be a different (slightly higher) set of numbers.
Also, computers are stupid and only know what we tell them to know. So a computer doesn’t do actual random numbers because it can’t.
It’s also a tactile thing. You pick up the dice, you shake the dice, you roll the dice and it makes a noise.
It’s also a paraphernalia thing. Part of the charm of Monopoly (for instance) is fighting over who gets to the the race car, and who has to be the shoe. Some people have a different set of dice for each game they play in, even in the same system. (Like if we put Fallout into RPG terms, they would have a different set of dice for Fallout 3 and for Fallout:New Vegas. For instance, I ran a GURPS game set in the Fallout world so I got a special set of d6’s to use for that. But the game was focused on a Vault and Vault-Tec, so they’re blue with yellow pips. If it was focused on the New California Republic, they would have been brown with red pips.)
INTO THE WOODS!!!
Well done, Bloodsparrow! Bonus points!
I listened to this one at night, so hope I remember everything. I need some sort of mental bluetooth connection to my phone, so it’ll note down memos as I think them.
Anyway, important first point: sound quality was great on this episode, I think you guys have nailed the microphone settings. Couldn’t hear any distortion at all.
Also, /bow. Wales is now 3.6% more popular on the world stage, thanks to several mentions in this episode. I suspect we’re now more likely to devolve from the UK and become our own country of coal and sheep. And Tom Jones.
I’m trying to decide which list of games to give my missus (she’ll pick one to buy me for Christmas) so I’m glad all this videogame chat came up. I admin one of the biggest gaming forums in the UK, but ironically don’t get to game much so I’m pretty out of the loop on what’s what. I’ll be adding Fallout 3 to the list though, I bet the DLC inclusive version costs peanuts, these days. Same for Dragon Age 1. I think, on reflection, I’ll hold fire on Skyrim and wait for the inevitable GOTY edition.
William (inadvertently) raised an interesting point, though – I don’t think there are enough MMO type games on consoles. Sure, FF 11 (and now 14, or something?) and that Sega one they ported from the Dreamcast is out for 360, but otherwise there’s a real lack of persistent worlds going on. I mean, I can’t think of a single decent reason why, for example, Guild Wars 2 couldn’t have a console release. You only have 8 toolbar icons (you have loads and loads of abilities, but have to carefully select 8 each time you venture out) and clever interfaces like Mass Effect have clearly shown you can have quite complicated functions within a game and access them in a reasonable fashion.
It doesn’t have to be full blown WoW type affairs, but if Santa is listening, more persistent worlds for console owners, please. For example, anyone heard of Planetside? It was a Sony MMO from a few years ago, technically ahead of its time. It was a First Person Shooter with thousands of participants all fighting the same war/battle, with aircraft and all sorts. Think Battlefield 3, but on a massive scale. Well anyway, the sequel is in development, I just hope they give it a console release this time.
I played Planetside for a while. It was fun.
I think the sequel is out already actually… Or possibly it’s in beta.
I went to Penn and Teller’s live show last Christmas. Awesome show, with some really great illusions. But the best part was getting to meet the duo after the show. Teller has a much deeper voice than I thought he’d have. It was kind of amazing watching him scold a guy cutting in front of people for autographs. I found it ingenious that Penn called every person in the line “Boss”. He so knows who pays him.
Happy Holidays, Hatters!
I didn’t get a chance to listen last week, so just now catching up.
After the revolution comes, historians will look back at the invention of “American cheese” –and its childern “foods” of cheese food products — as the point when Western civiliziation began it’s ultimate decline and fall.
Nope, it wasn’t separate visits for each comment I left previous. I just thought it might make it easier for people to respond to my comments if I broke them up into individual bits rather than forcing them to read/respond to my ridiculously long comments.
Popular things on the show (in order of most to least popular): TMTH, the Producer, William and Tony. :p
Dresden files: I read the first 4 books as books and listened the the 5 as an audiobook (only form of the “book” available from my library) and found the experience to be of equal entertainment value. They’re definitely different experiences; each with their own conveniences and drawbacks but both formats are quite good for the series.
One can have too many dice, however the average gamer will never own enough dice to hit that limit. The limit of course being that you can fill more than a single Olympic sized swimming pool.
And there’s actually another reason not to use an app: cheating. There are some apps out there that are designed to roll “better” but look like non-cheating apps.
Paper books vs eBooks: Paper books do not require electricity to use and are more “open” than eBooks. In that eBooks can only be lent to a friend if the publisher allows you to do so, while Paper books can always be lent.
I am a sad panda. I feel horrible. I got a job and have had a VERY hard time keeping up with podcasts. I fell horribly behind and just last night listened to this episode. So… here are the links that Tony mentioned:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6WSs2fiPhY
Gainful employment sucks, man. I feel for you.
I need to get one of your dice bags, now that I have all these dice, and just the stupid skull bag they came in…