First rule of Apocalypse Club… don’t talk about the Apocalypse! So we won’t. We’ll save it for next week.
This week is a lot about video games (sorry, to those who hate that), and about character archetypes, and why we like what we like.
Oh! And we predict the winner in the 2012 Presidential election!
Questions:
(* indicates an abridged/digested question)
Oh great hat of hats, who will win the 2012 presidential election, and why? –Anon
When you play an RPG or Video Game, what kind of character do you play? (e.g. Fighter, Mage, Stealth, Social, High tech, etc). — Bloodsparrow
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I gave Evil Alternate Universe Bloodsparrow $10 to comment on the episode for me, but Evil Bloodsparrow doesn’t post comments I guess.
She SHOULD have commented that Farris Bueler’s Day Off is not a super hero movie but has Shawarma. In fact, it might be the first movie with shawarma… but don’t quote me on that.
I just want to point out that I have submitted a couple of “timely” questions/topics (not this one though). This is not because I think you’ll get to it in a timely manner. It’s because of one or two reasons.
A: It’s just an interesting topic that was mentioned but didn’t get explored and I know you’ll pull the topic and get to it eventually. (i.e. – “Hillbilly Magic”)
B: I HOPE that it won’t come up until comically late and it’ll be funny.
The only exception is the one where I asked about how excited you were about the Game of Thrones show on HBO, because that came as part of the very VERY first chunk of questions and topics. Which were requested by Tony without any explanation BEFORE you had recorded the first podcast and he was being all mysterious.
Tony playing Fallout: New Vegas –
IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME! You may want to get and install the “Gun Runner’s Arsenal” and “Currior’s Stash” add-ons, since those are primarily equipment add-ons and they’ll likely be interesting and useful to be able to play with that stuff available from the start rather then after you’ve finished the game three or four times.
Skyrim –
I’m currently obsessing over this game myself. Damn, that game is full of sad SAD stories.
Skyrim –
Archery and Sword & Board are very viable
Speech in Skyrim doesn’t quite come into play as much except when buying and selling, but it does come up.
I think it makes perfect sense to go no-magic. Considering the way the Nords seem to be and the fact that you’re fighting dragons. Plus the critical hit manuvers are more interesting/exciting to see then the ones for magic.
Well, and as I thought about this some more, I realized that I’m really not big on magic generally. I’m not a fan of the Harry Potter universe or anything like that. It’s just that usually the magic-wielder in a game is closer to what I can relate to than anything else. But in Skyrim, I really liked the Greybeards concept (although I don’t know why they couldn’t have made it less sexist) and I guess I felt like, with that option in the game, I didn’t need to be a mage. So it was kind of like the first time in a fantasy game I felt like I had “permission” to be the kind of character I wanted to be without having to adopt the magic stuff that I wasn’t that thrilled about in the first place. It just gets back to that whole thing about how I never pick the magic-users because of the magic — I pick the magic-user because of all the other stuff that I imagine goes with it, so if I can get all of that without the magic, then I’ll do without it.
If… any of that makes sense…
No that totally does.
Yes, all the Graybeards are male (as per the name) but I like to think that it’s because women of power in Skyrim have better ways to use their time and talents then shut themselves up in a secluded monestary living off the offerings of people they never speak to… But that’s still a rather sexest view.
Young Sherlock Holmes has shawarma, and it was released in 1985. Farris Bueler’s Day Off was released in 1986.
I can’t remember any films earlier than 1985 doing it, but that doesn’t mean anything.
Young Sherlock Holmes was a pretty good movie as I recall.
I really liked it. I was disappointed that they didn’t make more.
On Gender and characters that you play: I don’t play male characters given the choice. I tend to make character look as much like me as I can and then maybe I’ll fiddle with it to make it taller or have better hair or give it scars.
I remember when I went to my first game convention and I played my first con game of D&D and I got a halfling rogue that was written as male. And I said I was going to play the character as female. And the DM looked at me and said, “Can you not play a character as a man?” and I said, “Can you not run a game with a female PC in it?”
I think in the case of gender in video games (particularly BioWare games which I used to work on as a tester at Interplay).
The only reason I would consider playing a male character because the options for romance for females often are fewer and totally suck unless you want to play as a lesbian, in which case, just about every female NPC in the game is available to you for one night stands. Don’t get me started about Baldur’s Gate 2 and (sadly) Fallout: New Vegas… Strait women get no love.
Skyrim has marrage and you can marry just about anybody.
I went for Farkas from the Companions. But I had to work for him because he will not respond to the signal that you want to get married until you finish a certain quest line. And if you don’t have a house yet, you get to move in with him in his quarters at Jorrvaskr.
Bah, sharp knives are always useful and totally safer than dull ones.
Hard Hat #1 checking in, ep 91 has been commented on though I believe that comment didn’t land until after 92 was posted. Maybe the reason it had so few comments was that the episode was so good that there was nothing left for people to say?
Episode 100: Maybe do a video cast? Redirect some of your procedures to bring in Wil Wheaton as a special guest? :p
Mass Effect: You guys lost me. I’ve never played any of these or Dragon Age or whatever other video games you were talking about. I’m currently replaying the entire Half-Life series on my laptop with occasional breaks for playing Lego LotR and I’ve got The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword sitting around waiting for me to play.
Movies: I saw the Hobbit, though from what I understand the theater I was at did not play it at the 48 frames/second speed and I only saw it in 2D. So I can’t comment on how Jackson handled these new fangled technological advances with his movie, but I can say it was fun to watch (though not as good as any of his LotR movies). I’ll be interested to hear your eventual thoughts on it.
Office holiday party: Wow that sounds lame compared to the one my employer hosted. While there wasn’t a lot of booze at ours, at least there weren’t “drink coupons” for them and my employer hired a stand-up comedian which was far, far better than I had any expectation of it being.
Apocalypse: Being in Illinois for the end of the world sounds very appropriate somehow.
Tony: Your imitation of Dracula (who has recently been to the dentist and had part of his mouth numbed) was strikingly good.
RPG Characters: I very quite a bit depending upon the game and who’s playing. I have a preference for stealthy and/or magic-using types; especially ones that attack quickly/lightly (vs slowly & hitting for massive damage).
RPG Characters (Male vs Female): For video games it depends on the game (long or short game, 1st or 3rd person, etc), in long, 3rd person games I usually pick a female character; as I want something nice to look at while I play a long game. Though that can change depending on whether or not the game is solo vs multi player or has negative stats/story changes based upon the sex of the character.