No, they they're just sweatpants us sweatpants use. Yeah, yeah, just
repackaging his old sweatpants. And yeah, it's good. It's a good business
idea. Yeah, people do do that right now. People online, Hello,
Hi, hey, everyone, welcome the game Spot after Dark, episode
two hundred and thirty three. I think I got that right. I'm your
host's week joly Sapee and I. I'm joined to my left this time in
a surprise move. More shuffling around the left. Yeah, this is weird.
You have to back and forth like, oh, I don't know if
my neck can handle it. Also joining me on the right, Jake Decker.
Hello, squeaky chair. Jake's got the squeaky chair. Yeah, Lucy
on the far right, you got the short chair. You do. We'll
see how much you shrink. We like, do a time lapse. You'll
shrink down throughout the episode. We need to we need to get different.
We do. We're working on it. I don't know working on it.
Oh, now they're not making noise. Stage fright, turn not rock.
That's what I was doing, turned slowly. Oh that sounds bad. That
sounds bad. I hate to be listening to this podcast right now, all
right, well, hey, it's it's another week in video games. It's
uh, I guess kind of slowed down for like a hot minute, right
are we are? We kind of in the clear for for a minute big
releases now for a little bit. That's how you jinx it? Yeah,
shadow drop? What could what would even possibly shadow drop? Hold on night
so something? Though, I think it would be very I would be livid.
I know someone would be very happy about that though. But yeah,
I mean it's uh, it's it's slowing down. But that doesn't mean we
don't have a lot to talk about because, uh, we didn't get talked
about it last week because it like just came out and meet Jake and Kurt
hadn't played it yet, but we now have which is Dragon's Dogma two.
Oh yeah, I started playing it. I'm not very far in at talks.
I was very sleepy, but I'm down to here your thoughts after how
long have you spent with it? I've played like twelve hours or so.
I I played a good and out during the weekend, but then my brain
was like, hold on, hold on, you're in the middle of Final
Fantasy, semde you you want to finish Yakuza like a dragon, so you
can go on infinite. Well, so I kind of let off the gas
a little, but I plan on returning to it this weekend again. But
yeah, I've played like sixteen hours and I think it is fantastic or twelve?
Did I say twelve? Yeah, it's probably twelve then, but I
think it's been those two cents as you put in another four hours. Yeah,
exactly. I figured it out. I figured out time p a W.
I was going to say the would be a lot higher in other people's
games. Oh okay, how does that? How does that work? I
haven't like messed too much for that. How do you know? I don't
know. How do you know? What? How do you know? Like
if your pawn has been like, oh, he tells you you sit him
on question, but they still stay in your game, so it's not like
they leave. It's like a usually when you sleep, when you're sleeping,
they're off doing their own thing, and then when you wake up, it
was like, oh, your pawn's back in the game, and yeah,
and not you specifically, the game doesn't know when you're sleeping. That'd be
kind of interesting. Yeah, it's like your pawn's been on the on an
adventure and has got this stuff. But you usually when when they're done doing
quests for another player, they're dismissed. And when they're dismissed, the player
can usually give them items to take back, could give you some nothing.
But the more important thing is that they remember what they've done on those adventures.
So if you're like running through an area that they've already done, they'll
be like, hey, I know where to go. I did this,
and they'll be like, come with me, or did you take you to?
They can take you to like objectives, Like if you pick a quest
and you're like, I'm doing this quest and it's already done. The porn
has already done your master, I know where this is. Follow me and
you can be like go, Or if you're in an area, I can
be like, hey, there's a treasure over here, I'm pretty sure,
or there's a cave down there, I'm pretty sure. You can follow me
and I'll take you there. I don't want them to call me master.
I think that they the same master, and every every one of the porns
caused your master, whether you're whether you're one of theirs or not, because
it's like the origin is just the Master of all pawns. Yeah, and
they're like coming from like alternate realities like yeah, timelines there's they're also just
like walking around in the overworld. Oh yeah. And when they constantly bugging
me, yeah, they like hit you with their like tinderbio. Immediately they're
just like, hey, I'll do this. I'm great at picking things up.
However, I'm kind of hot. I'll never speak out of turn and
then like going on long walk. Yeah, exactly, that's exactly it.
I like picking them up and throwing them. Yes, that is entertaining.
Did you make because your porn? I made live from Eldon Ring. It's
pretty good. That's the main boy, Main Boy. I didn't base it
off anything. I just made random characters. I wish I had put more
BLI the nickname I've given him his baps I don't remember. Mine is called
Main Pawn because I didn't see where where You'll always know. Ye. The
other day I tweet and people are like, what the are you talking about?
I'm like, I didn't I didn't see the how to name it.
I must have like buttoned through it by accidents. And now I've got Main.
I think I did recruit Main pawn and I was like, I don't
want a character named Maine pawn and throw like good er though, so I
think it was an archer too. My main a woman. Yeah, that's
that's that's my that's my main pawn, which I don't look hard enough.
I'm just like, come on, join me and then they fall. I'm
bummed because I'm on PC, so I can't see. Okay, so I
can get your I think they cross platform. Oh they are cross platform.
I think so currently being allowed to me and said that it wasn't but well
probably not. We can my pon. I was just gonna say, my
pawn is my cat Brinks, So we like recreated Brinks. Took a lot
of time to really get the fur and the coloring just right. Very difficult
because she's got a lot of uh texture, texture, detail, color,
and so yeah, now I have no I have Brinks And yeah it is
weird because she's just like, hello, master, I shall take you this
way, and I'm just like, she does not behave like that. She
doesn't talk like that. Oh I should have made peanut and jelly next time.
How many poems can you make? You can only make one of the
main poem and then the others you have to hire. Yeah, so you
have your character and then a pond. So far, I've hired Captain Levi
from Attack on Titan just showed up and said, Hey, what's up,
and dude, you're a thief getting my party? Let's go. Yeah,
I hired Patches. That's a good one. Patch Ye's. I thought about
starting again, but those first few hours are an uphill struggle. Every moment
in that game is an uphill struggle. So every moment exactly. So,
I mean, you're going downhill the mountain though mmm, I'm not sure that
you're going downb mountain to the but likestand I understand like getting attacked by random
dragons and it's true. I love it, though I'm like, oh,
so I'm so into it. So far, I feel like I've barely scratched
the surface. So because I'm only like six or seven hours in, like
I kind of like just got to the main town, which because I like
really took my time to like explore that opening area and and and see everything,
and it was just like, oh, what's over there? And then
it was like this, you know, you just find a cave and it
takes you like all over the place, and then you get you spend like
forty five minutes fighting control. It's lovely. Yeah. Usually caves will lead
you most of the time, they lead you to like one of the special
stones that you can and they will give you like a special pawn out of
it, an extra powerful one. But then you can find them on the
I think you can add them as a favorite and then you can go to
pornhub and find them there. It would I so I didn't play the original,
Tam you played the original, right, how much of this game is
like, was that first game? They made that game again? Okay?
Because I noticed how like the titles are smart. Also the title screen it's
just called dragons Dragons, and I was like, oh, I didn't even
notice that. That's interesting. I think, like it makes perfect sense.
They were like, this game is great, nobody played it, so let's
just remake try again, I mean, release it on switch. You could
argue that's kind of what Demons Souls and dark Souls to some degree, I
mean different, but like they were kind of just like, hey, let's
just do that again, but differently, I mean, you don't want to
fight John Luke. Okay, all right, I was just trying to make
a little you're right in it in a way, like the spiritual success part
of it. Sure, sure, Demon's Dark is very value. Yes,
it was like they didn't really add anything. They didn't expand it in any
major ways. Okay, they just used the technology that's available to them now
to make the experience of playing Dragon Zogma more interesting and easy. Sure,
so it's like the the ideal experience. Maybe they wanted to do but couldn't.
They could have called his director's cut and it had been perfectly fine,
except they already did directors cut, so they couldn't do that to Uh.
Yeah, I I I completely agree with I think it's it's Austin from a
Skill Up channel was saying how it has that like Lord of the Rings party
adventure type quality to it, and like that is the that's the vibe I
get playing it, like it's me and my ponds and we're going on a
little adventure and we're gonna we're gonna fight a k and I'm gonna climb on
his back. And then my pawn walked into the lake, and then I
threw my other pond into the lake, you know, just like in Lord
of the Rings just like very much is that Lord of Rings meets Skyrim style
where it's like, oh yeah, there's a big open world. I'm gonna
see what's in there. And then I've got my friends along with me who
are occasionally very annoying. They talk way too much. They do talk way
too much, that is true. Yeah, yeah, my favorite ones are
because I have accidentally, well accidentally, but like I just picked the pawns
that I was would be most useful with all women, and one of them
keeps pointing out that it's a party of women's Like, I've just noticed this
is a group of women. Interesting? Is that interesting? Well, not
only that, if your pawn is, then I guess that makes sense now
because if if your pawn visits like another person, they'll come back and they'll
talk about people. Feel like the last master I was with had a party
of all women. Isn't that interesting? There's like, ah cool, you
help me with this griffin On' not. I know a lot has been said,
but I think about this aspect of the game, but I just love
how exploration focused it is and how it really just emphasizes like trying to entertain
you or give you exciting things to do while going from point A to point
B, rather than like like it's cheesy, but it's all about the journey,
not the destination, you know, And it feels really authentic in the
way it is where it's like it's like I'm just like I don't really care
about the quest I'm doing or the objective. I'm just excited to get there,
which I think is such a cool thing that I feel like you don't
see a whole lot in modern video games. I would say like Zelda is
probably a good example of it. But I feel like for a while there,
we kind of got stuck in this sort of like here's all the question
marks on the map, you just got to go to them. You can
fast travel around the map, like we can make getting across the map as
easy as possible. We just don't want you to think about traveling. We
just want you to be shooting or slicing. Well, this just feels like
like I don't know, I just like strolling through the fields and with my
ponds, and then I see something interesting and I stroll over to it,
and then all of a sudden, the griffin shows up, and I'm like,
all right, let's go leveled by you know, can you come up
against an insurmountable phone? Yeah, oh definitely. There's there's like major like
there's a dragon just knocking about and it is clearly way too hard to beat
when you start. But it's what it's like the gen and of that game
where it's like your ultimate goal is to kill that dragon knocking about, or
one of your ultimate goals is to kill that dragon, and it's just there
and if you try and fight it will kill you very quickly, so you
kind of just have to maneuver your way around it. And the journey is
very much the point, especially considering especially for the early stages, the quests
are kind of not great, Like I agree, yeah, yeah, it's
very much how do we get this person out of these hub areas which are
also not great into the open world. They can do stuff and see stuff,
and it is a game where if you try and play it quickly you
will have the worst possible time. Yeah, it's like a D and D
campaign, right, Or it's like it's about building up the party, just
like soaking in the atmosphere, like like you're you're yeah, you're there for
the you're for the for the bands, but like picking a small objective and
trying to do it. Like I'm going to go from here to that cave,
explore that cave and try and get back before nightfall because nightf always gets
way harder. Or I'm going to try and go to that cave, explore
it, and then I know there's like a campsite here. I've got a
camping bag. I'm going to rest there and then continue my journey. Yeah.
Absolutely, I had. I mean speaking of like the hub areas and
stuff, they are kind of boring, but I had a troll attack the
capitol. It was just like this giant troll running through like picking people up,
throwing them across, climbing on buildings, and like me and all the
guards were like, all right, we're taking this thing down. We're chasing
it across the city while people are screaming and shouting. This is pretty cool.
Like it's like on fire, running into buildings and stuff. It's just
it's it was pretty cool. It was a it was a cool moment.
It killed a lot of people. Don't know how that will affect progression,
but ever kind of have like I don't know that that makes it kind of
fun. Yeah, Well, When people die, they get taken to the
cemetery or like the mausoleum into them, and then if you have a like
a revival stone, you can bring important characters back to life. But if
they're there for too long, they rot and die. So I love that.
Have you encountered the Dragon's play yet? But I'm trying to so excited.
It takes a while. So much. Everyone was like, oh my
god, why this game is broken? Move and it's like, maybe it's
fun. There's a lot of amazing ideas. There's an arrow in that game
which you can only file once and it will whatever it hits instantly kills,
like it's a one hit kill. But the game also as soon as you
let go of the arrow, you have to live with the consequences. If
you miss, it's gone, If you kill, it's gone forever. But
like you could say, with it for the last bots and just be like
bam done. That's what I would do. Uh yeah, I mean yeah,
I think this game like playing it. It gives me the same vibe
and energy that I feel like when I first played Far Cry Too back in
the day. Yeah, where it's just like, you know, hey,
like the story and why you're doing these things. Isn't really the point.
It's more about like the systems, about exploring this space, about the way
the game causes friction because like I mean, like people complain about how and
far cry too. Like in that game you get malaria and then you'll just
have like malaria attacks. So like hearing the Dragon's Plague was giving me flashbacks
to like getting malaria like attacks randomly in the middle of like battle and being
like, yes, I want that more thing like that. I love one
a game. It's really funny. It pushes against me. Everyone's like,
oh my god, why do we know about this thing? The pawns actually
mentioned it immediately, like pretty much immediately. Yeah, porn will be like
I've heard about a strange affliction that is hurt, like that is impacting the
pawns where the Orisina starts to lose control and they will like not listen to
them, and like he's giving you clues about like this could go bad,
and someone else will be like we should keep an eye out for that,
right, Okay, Cool, It's just because you hear it in like the
in between like twenty others in between there's a ladder over here. Oh my
god, the ladders. I'm just like, shut up, I don't care.
I'm done with ladders. Yeah, they really like to tell me that
my party is a well composed party where everyone's a different class. Yeah.
Every now and then they do this thing where they're like, just over here,
Master, there's a treasure, and then they'll run for fifteen minutes just
over here crazy. Yeah, it's good. I like it quite a bit.
I feel like I barely scratched the surface on it, but I yeh,
it's like, yeah, it does that thing where it makes every vocational
class really really interesting and worth your while to go through, especially like when
you pick like the Mage and like you oh, halfway in or like during
that development, you basically unlock the ability to fly, and it's just like
really weird stuff like that. The the like Fighter or one of the other
ones can do this thing where they will use their shield to basically launch ponds
up into the air, so you can like give people a piggyback onto larger
enemies and stuff like that. So all the the the Archers was really really
fun. Even when you start, one of the first abilities you get is
like you hit jump and then hit kick in midair and if you connect with
an enemy, they do a backflip away and you can like shoot your bow
and arrow in the when you land in the or in mid air as well
to do like this, and you can like sliding maneuver. They basically genuinely
they looked at legoless and we're like, how can we make this a video
game? Which I can't tell if you are all trying to pander to me.
Pretty much, he is lego less, like or your porn or your
orisen can be legal less. Okay, that's good. Yeah. He can
also change vocation anytime. Yeah, you can. Pretty much. The point
is to change it because like usually there's some sort of ability that will change
the way that class can be played. And sometimes you just know, like,
oh, I need to I need to be an archer for this battle,
or there's certain quest where it's like there's a there's an early question chain
where you're helping an elf figure out why he's having problems shooting his bow and
arrow and hitting is Yeah, he's having like performance anxiety with his bow,
and like you have to be an archer to do that question. Okay,
cool, cool, But you can just go to the tavern and like all
the battle battlements and change it and stuff like that. So yeah, it
is very good in making sure that you always are having fun and you're encouraged
to change. The only downside to begin with that makes it hard is like
it's very difficult to carry a lot of stuff. Yeah. I mean you
can like move stuff between the ponds, but that's that's always the thing I
found kind of annoying games. Yeah, but I have to move it back
and forth, especially since the camping packs are very very heavy. Yeah,
if you have like two of them, you basically are The penalties for being
heavy aren't severe. It's not like you suddenly can't move like some games.
Yeah, but it just means that you will slow down and your stamina your
stamina. Yeah, but you can just keep an eye for these golden beetles.
They're pretty much everywhere, but like every time you grab one and consume
it, it adds a little more, Like see them on trees. I
have them, all those beetles and get those beats. All right, Well,
I'm gonna go eat a bunch of beetles when to get home. One
thing too, I didn't realize when I started playing, is I thought every
time you camped it like burned a camp set up. So I was like,
I gotta have like three of them just in case I'm out for a
long time. And then I found out that, oh no, they only
get destroyed if you're camping. You don't clear enemies, and the enemies destroyer.
There's like different levels of camping packs and the lower level ones when you're
attacked and you if you're asleep and you're attacked, they're usually destroyed. It
will destroyed the encamping. The higher you go, the more resilient the camping
equipment is, so you can like, like, for example, yesterday I
was attacked by a bunch of goblins, but because I had a higher tier
camping equipment, I could just fight the goblins off and then reuse it.
So it's just a matter of like disposability. Yeah, that's cool. It's
cool they got the SZ meat. They do. People are very upset about
it, but I don't why why people. That's cool. People are upset
about a lot of things with this game that if you like, they don't
fully understand. Yeah, it looks really good as well, Like how can
we be as entertaining with our food as we are always break out the red
camera for this one, because I mean just to kind of like, I
don't know, I don't want to touch too much on like all the micro
transactions, but I feel like this game is it kind of follows its own
rules in a way that many open worlds do not. And because of that,
I feel like, if you don't play this game, but you see
those micro transactions and stuff, I could see why people would think that's annoying
or unfair. But like, I think that the being able to fast travel
more, I think would make this game considerably worse. Like I think people
have been primed to like see micro transactions and assume, especially for something around
fast traveling, right, I assume the game has been like carved up and
compromised for those micro transactions. But playing the game, I could definitively say
like that doesn't feel the case is very much an optional thing, and a
lot of people didn't really like we didn't mention an R review because we didn't
really dig into the it wasn't even available at that point. It wasn't available.
But like I think, as you mentioned in the documentation, but we
were like, we don't want to get spoiled. We don't want to look
at stuff ahead of time. And also like so we didn't see it,
but the review just did not. Afterwards, I was like, this is
going to change anything, And I thought to myself, is this gonna do
I need to have it redone or something like that. I was like,
no, it's completely ignorable. Sure, yeah, and all the items that
they're selling, like you can find very easily early in the game. It's
expensive, but that's kind of the point, like they're not supposed to be
able to easily get from. Yeah, it's not expensive because they're trying to
like micro trans expensive because it feels like that's the way the game intentionally designed
itself. So yeah, I mean I understand why people would like, out
of context, see it and like assume the worst, but like, no,
I don't think it compromises the game. Do I wish they weren't selling
micro transactions for full price game? I know, I never I don't think
they ever should. Personally it's my sholing stamp on things, but uh yeah,
I mean, like the issue is don't buy them and do the micro
Can you tell whether usually you can tell whether the micro transactions have informed the
design of the game. Like you said, like, there's there's no grind
beyond the intent intended grind in this game that comes from the core design.
There's no part of their where it's like, oh, you need to level
up your character to this degree and we're gonna make it very hard, but
if you buy this thing, it'll be quicker. That just does not happen.
If you are if you are perceiving something as being a difficulty and then
believe it is because to encourage you to buy a micro transaction, you're probably
incorrect. That's instead the way the design is made. They don't want you
to buy fairy stones. They want you to look at the ox carts and
use those as a way to get around. So it's there's there's literally nothing
in there that I would say is even remotely essential to have totally just ignore
that stuff. Yeah, yeah, well that's Dragon's garment too. Yeah,
it's worth playing. Yeah, absolutely, ten game spot. I'm that's that's
all I want to play right now. But you know what else happens over
the weekend? You two rare pas remember that that was That was that was
for five days ago. Yeah, how was packed? Thanks? Was nice?
We were there with Giant Bomb. We did a couple of panels thank
you to everyone who came out and said hi, Packs, because Packs West
last year was my first ever, and so I didn't realize that that show
was so much bigger. But I think Packs East is just a really nice,
like I don't mean this in any negative way, just a manageable show,
like I still didn't manage to see everything, but it was not like
spread out over so much space. Three buildings, Okay, so that's what
we mean by bigger one hole yeah, one hole yeah yeah. Well,
how would you rate the experiences between the two now they've done both, I
think I preferred I preferred West, I think, okay, but also I
did I did East just after I've done DDC. That's not an ideal.
You didn't get to take a train four train. Yeah, the overall experience
of going to West and then being in the West was really really cool and
fun compared to East. But both shows are fun, I feel like,
and I mean this in the most like, I understand that this is what
a lot of people want. I feel like a lot of conventions these days
have become elaborate ways to sell people things and buy things. It is.
I've seen it done in more severe ways. I think PAS is good because
it also gives a bunch of people other ways to come together and interact and
have fun. You have not those gaming sections where you can sit down and
play board games and the tables have a section speed games done quick sections of
that's so cool. They didn't have that when I was there. So the
main floor was more just like do I want to buy anything? And to
be fair, I did. I was walking around and I found some cool
stuff I wanted to buy. I only bought one thing, which was like
a card game, like a competitive card game, magic gathering style, but
it's designed to teach you how to speak Japanese. Oh I think I've heard
of this. It's really cool. Yeah. I mean like I was listening
to the guy talk about it and he was like, by the time you're
done playing this game and you've mastered it, you will have the ability to
speak an elementary grade school standard. I was like, sweet, I know
how to do that. Same guy like try to sell it to me at
a PAX, like probably been there for years. Yeah, So I was
like I want to I won't learn anything from this kind I've studied it,
but I will I will at least get to see how the design is making
people or aiding people in learning. So I'm excited to get dig into that.
And then there was some like other like art stuff, like they had
like a metal gets sort of lithograph style thing, oh, which was really
cool. That box things. Yeah, yeah, how are like the game
stuff? Because I remember when I went to Backs East back in like twenty
twenty eleven to like twenty fifteen, they actually did have like some decent like
booths there you could go play like Gears of War four, like The Darkness
Too, or like Outlasts, like they actually had like a couple of big
games that I remember when I first went was like whoa, I can wait
three hours in line and play a game for twenty years and I would do
it. Nowadays I'm like, I'm over it. I don't need to do
that anymore. But they had a boulders Gate three booth, they had new
Blood, they had Honestly, we didn't spend I didn't spend too much time.
I mean that made that's fair. I mean also like they just did.
But yeah they didn't, don't. I don't think they had very many
games to play sure, like not out there nothing that was like, oh
brand new, this is the only a bunch of stuff that just was at
GDC, Like there was that game about Kevin I forget what it's called,
but like there was a bunch of stuff that was in the GDC Awards that
was there at school. I mean, the indie section is always like where
the really good stuff is. Yeah, So no, I don't like it.
I had a really nice time with it. I think it's a really
fun show. The vibes were really nice, because the vibes at you know,
Dice in GDC, where it's all like kind of the business side is
a little Yeah, and that's totally understandable. But it just felt really good
to be at a show where everyone was just excited to play games again.
And I think that was very infectious. And I and you know, the
crowds and panels were just really hyped and it was just a nice refreshing reminder
of the almost like a rejuvenating for the soul. Yes, in a way.
Yeah, but I am super said that I didn't get to spend Like
I don't know, there's never enough time to do everything. Yeah, I'm
bummed. I didn't get to spend more time at the speed running stuff,
because that was the stuff I really wanted to see. I mean, like
to be fair, going into it, I didn't realize that GDQ was even
there in a major way, but it turned out like they were having like
full on runs being done. But I don't think they were doing charity stuff.
I think it was just like on the ground floor yeah wow, and
we had like loads of panels to do and stuff. Do they still have
the Steel Battalion Room? Yes, I don't think it's a room, but
they definitely had a Steel Battalion set upon. Every year I've been there for
like ten years, they always had a room set up with a ton of
original xboxes and full Steel Battalion setups with like land yeah, multiple and so
one yeah, and then like you can like bring people in and they'll like
basically run do like a crash course, and then you get to do like
a multiplayer match like a four v four. So if you've ever wanted to
like experience that insane controller set up, PAX is the way to do it.
They had that room where you could just they had a bunch of consoles
set up and you can just rent games yeah, and like because Grub and
and like a few others snow back, Mic and a few others were playing
Powerstone on Dreamcast and oh yeah playing deaf Jam and was someone with a dance
mat Yeah got in yeah some somehow Mike and not you got a sour a
meebow when he walked into that room. Not sure how that happened. Yeah,
he was just holding it was like, what do you get that?
Yeah, it was Grub's birthday. It was back Las birthday. Grub one
right, grumbling wanted a lot of money betting on hockey. Oh was at
what the sport was? Ida? Yeah, hockey? I thought that's what
she said it was. Oh I made that up. I was just like
football hockey. I was okay, Yeah, it's hockey eleven game parly apparently,
which means a lot of money, a lot of money. Wow.
I feel like I need to go back to pack s East because I've gone
once and it was like twenty sixteen and it was like it was ten and
went with wind show moving into May next year. Okay, now now I'm
more interested. But I was so miserable, like I was just not prepared
for that at all. And I remember a lifter. It was like,
yeah, it's weird because last weekend it was like sixty degrees. Oh my
god, I wish it was last weekend. It's brutal. It's just another
short walk. I just remember the short walk from the Uber to the convention.
I was like, if I was here thirty more seconds, I would
probably die. Like we had the tunnel. Yeah, we found a tunnel
between now hotel and oh yeah, because you haunted it was like three times
as long as going overground. It was ridiculous. Grub was obsessed with this
tunnel and I did it for the first time. Okay, tunnel, but
it's a tunnel. It takes for it. When you get there, you
can't go in from the tunnel. You have to go outside and go around.
The worst the worst part of the tunnel is when you emerge outside,
you can see inside the hotel lobby where you would have been if you had
just crossed the road. Like you come out and you're like, I was
there ten minutes. Like the way US cities are designed and infrastructure, it's
not that interesting. So when you see like a tunnel, I want a
tunnel walk through next year. You know, I'll give you the Tunnel Tour
Tunnel Tour, Were there any snakes down there? No? Zero tunnel snakes.
I think that'll be aout back once the Fallout Show is out. Okay,
make if the Tunnel Snakes aren't in the Fallout Show, what is even
the point? Where does that show take place? In the fall California?
Okay, no tunnel snakes there, damn Yeah. The Boston Boys d c
many of the California chapter. Yeah, the California chapter of the Tunnel Snakes.
Yeah, uh well was there anything else you guys check down? Yeah?
That was packs was that gendc was fun. We saw a bunch of
things there, right right. Got a game in the office now yeah,
oh yeah, but yeah that's the official Office Games. Then yeah we should
shoot a video with that. Yeah. It wasn't that bad, like gimmicky
as hell, you know, but sure I was. I was like,
oh, this is actually works, fair play. Yeah, it works,
and it's not like hideous looking. It looks. Yeah, it doesn't look
cheap. It has an app and at the end, if you're if you're
done with your sense, you can just hit a button and it just what
sense does it come with? By default? Gunpowder Forest fire rain I'm not
sure, and then clean air and something else. I mean Dragon Soccerate two
seems like the perfect came to test it with no no gunfire, but you
know everything else fire definitely regular fire, regular fire or smoky. I don't
know I should double yet. It would be it would be good if they
We talked about this with them, but we were like, are you working
with developers to make packs like that? And I think they indicated they were
trying to. Yeah, it'd be like, oh, you know, the
the Elder Scrolls pack is coming out and you buy this thing and it will
make it smell like the next Elder Scrolls game. Well, you know the
Spider Man pack. I just don't want that. Well, I'm sorry,
I just don't want that. I think their smell. I don't want my
apartment to smell like anything other than what it's supposed to smell, like,
like I kind of want to know it, like their version of like what's
neurn roots smell? Like? You know, they also own the Smell of
Vision pattern now or the Smell of Vision IP the trademark they purchased it,
which they told us in our interviews. So they are they are the smell
of vision company now sounds like a waste of money. Who was like the
biz guy on this kind of went, yeah, I invented the digital photo
frame and what was it the first Android tablet before the iPad? Stuff like
who is this much? Yeah, it's culminated into the game sense. I
mean the good use the use case for it is like streamers, like once
you get it hooked up to write and you can make you know, yeah,
that'd be pretty funny. Bits to make it smell like dog shit or
something like that. Cool, that'll be funny. Once again, wouldn't want
to do that in my house, but I definitely she stopped peeing on my
bed. Oh okay, she was a little stressed. She's fine, yeah,
gool I mean that was that was that. We also saw the InVideo
AI start Oh it's kind of cool, which they hate to say, so
explain what I've heard. There is a thing, but I don't know specifically
what it is. Three different ones convey which is the one that's kind of
working with I believe Unity right now in videos version and we saw Ubisoft one.
So they were basically and what do they do? So it was using
the I'm gonna use the in video example, it was basically a character that
they had written basically a character sheet for and a backstory and programmed no program.
But you know, they kind of had sliders to be like, oh
this this character is empathetic or this character is real aggressive, right, and
then you have dropped into this scenario where you basically had to infiltrate a hotel
and you had to talk to the NPCs to find out which room someone was
staying in and then figure out a way to get up to that room.
And you had to talk like push to talk and you could communicate with the
NPCs. And so there was a guy who was like a doorman and he
was really tired, and there were multiple ways of getting to leave his post,
and if he did, he would drop a key and then that he
would help you. Or you know, you could try and ask the receptionist
or his business partner was in the lobby and you could try and say to
him, Oh, that paper you're working on, shit, it's terrible.
It's getting get canceled. The whole conference is canceled. Like you you know,
the Envidio one was the one that worked the best. It's like they're
trying to do, like talking based effectively what it was. This is just
a demo, this is not Yeah, sure, and it was cool and
it was into reaction time for them. It was quick. It was not
Microsoft Sam. I mean, ethics abound about I'm not sure if it was
an AI generated voice completely, but like I know in video does have some
of that tech m H. Characters had emotional intonation and everything, but it
definitely still didn't feel right. It didn't feel like there was someone crafting an
experience for you. I also wonder about people who maybe don't I don't know
people who don't know how to respond in social situations like that, for example,
like there's there was no hint system at all to try and push you
forward, yeah, or just you know, you have to talk to people.
Yeah. When it happened to us, like, oh it happened to
me definitely, I don't know about you, but they were like play it
and I hit the button. I was like, I don't know what to
ask this thing, like what I suppose where do I start? Right?
It's overwhelming because you're like, what are the limits of this? Like the
first thing you just be like is how do I solve this mission? Like
you know that kind of thing, but the characters have guardbrails, sure.
And then there was the year Beside one, which was they did it.
I think they did a GDC talk on it. There was definitely tweets that
one. Oh I saw the tweet for that album and one was definitely like
not as good. It was interesting just to see. It kind of provided
a little wrinkle to gameplay. So it was this mission where you had to
become friends with someone who had eventually become your infield buddy, and so the
whole thing was you quizzing them and then quizzing you. You had to build
up a rapport. Yeah, that's when I asked him if he was a
child of divorce and he said, terrifyingly, no, my parents are still
together, but my ex wife and kid are no longer in the picture that
you kill them, but you're still talking, like talking with Mike. And
then that was kind of the first part of it. And then the second
part was you were looking at a map of an apartment and you had to
basically plan an infiltration route to get something out of the safe, and there
was someone with you and you basically had to convince them why your route was
better. So it'd be like, hey, how should we scale this window?
Should we use a ladder or a grappling hook? And then I would
say, oh, we should use a grappling hook and then go I don't
think so why And then you would give your justification and they go, oh,
I think you're right. So very rudimentary. And the other one was
watching someone guide a drone and you would just chat with the other character about,
Hey, what's going on? Why is the drone stopping? It felt
clunky, Yeah, not as bad as convey Convey was like real rough video
at the end. Video convey Convey was like firstly Microsoft sam like it just
sounded like a robot using Second Life, Yeah, and like the thing.
So the issue I found was one, there's that gap between you saying something
and then it like figuring it out looking at you in videos, the power
behind in video is insane and this is not going to be implemented immediately because
the sheer like processing power requires and requires it to be online like this is
it's tapping into your gu the cloud all this. Yeah. The other thing
I found was like, I don't want to hear my own voice when I'm
playing a video game. I don't like. I don't like it. I
don't want to be because you're you're supposed to put yourself like, oh,
if I'm like putting myself in the shoes of like Corvo, L I'm trying
to be like Corvo. And then I'm like, where do I find this
key? Yeah, I don't want to turn my social anxiety and awkwardness into
a game. There's a clear theater role play that they're asking me to do
that. I think a lot of people just like, don't. I just
don't want. I think the most useful part of everything we saw was the
n video like tool where it's just a big textbox and you just like put
in information and then the AI just uses that, like Lucy said, and
you can set like guardrails or personality stuff, and then the AI basically bases
its entire personality history and like the way it behaves off that text. So
it could be really an interesting way to make NPCs more have more depth without
putting in a crazy amount of work, you know, instead of having that
one NPC who's just constantly going, I like turtles see you or something like
that. I kind of that's the stuff I love in games. Yeah,
yeah, I mean, and that's the thing. It's like you still very
much need a narrative designer and write, but that the human touch was so
missing on I mean yeah, like just that tweet from UBI Software it's like,
Hi, my name is blah blah blah, I'm from the Resistance and
we're fighting the Megacorps. Let's get to know each other better with this quiz.
And I was like, who what, like something like oh, extreme,
yeah, here's we're going to be an epic duo. Epic duo said
epic duo repeatedly, And I'm just like I don't know if this was like
the the human touch added or like the an but like either way, it's
just I was like, this is like really awkward, and Lucy's it's so
far away from being like ready to do anything like it within games. I
think like, right now it's a bunch of people justifying it to themselves right
now, And I don't I don't mean that like as a like I'm not
talking down to anyone. I think they need to do that to build upon
it, to people to give them money for it, and like maybe one
day you'll get to a place where we can use it in games, but
right now, it's just like you'll this, it pales in comparison to having
actual humans working on characters and stories and that kind of stuff. And it
feels like a what was that game from a really long time ago that Danny
was obsessed with about you talking to a mic? It's like or something like
that. It was basically sman, but it was a couple. You walked
into their apartment and clearly they just had an argument and then you like ask
questions and they'll be weird about it. I think it might be called Facade
or something like that I remember, but it's basically a super high end version
of that. Like that was that was from like ten years ago? What
was it? Was it? Milo? I was abroud Tone? Yeah,
where where Peter Maw was like child Oh okay, I've never heard of the
game. That seems kind of interesting, but yeah that Milo, Yeah,
it's interesting to think of that, Milo, what is it? Screen show?
It just says how about great? Okay? Great? But I mean,
like the mile of thing was so funny because it was like completely smoking
mirrors, like it was all fake and what that was like ten years ago?
And now we're in a place it was more than that. Oh yeah,
wow, okay, so like almost fifteen years interesting to see that we
are actually now in that place, you know, yeah, it doesn't seem
there yet. Also the ethics around it taking away job, the how are
you sourcing all of this? Are you feeding off of other people's writing and
work, and then all those things that just make it like or I'm just
like I don't I don't want to touch any that's without even like concerning the
uncanny value of it, or like if you want to try and implement that
in in high end games where the technology presents a super high fidelity world and
have this technology which isn't able to match it, you break the immersions so
hard. And that was the problem with Convey, Like they played this game,
which is like a cyberpunk style game. It's like super high like glossy
good graphics, and then the characters are behaving like numpties and it's just like
what Yeah, then I even think of like like just game design wise,
do you really want the player to stop and just have a conversation with an
NPC for twenty minutes? Like does that is that even good? Like do
you want that kind of pacing? Like, sure, there's some NPCs in
games that I like enjoy getting to know and chatting with, but they are
written and like there's intent behind the words that they say and and the actions
that they do, right, And I feel like even if you are able
to kind of like tune these characters a certain way, there's still not really
that intent behind. There's also the limitation of you can only have that happen
in the like voice, but like as far as like you know, animations
and like what actually they do. So it's like you they could say whatever
they want, but you can't be like, you know, you could be
like, oh, hey, do you have like a thing back there and
they could be like, yes, I do, and be like can you
get that for me? They can't do that surely right, Like so it's
like there's a bunch of technologies that are still very nascent that need to also
be in parallel advanced to the degree where it can keep up with an AI
working it. Like the audio stuff, the voices, even when we the
video one where it sounded good, the delivery of the lines was terrible,
like they didn't like they didn't know when to pause properly and went how like
to the intonation part of it. And so you know someone who's like,
oh, we can just like train, we can do this the ethical way
and train our AI, our voice AI based on you know, Troy Baker.
Once Troy Baker has given us permission and like it's involved in this,
you can't do that and the thing will sound like Troy Baker, but it
won't be able to deliver the lines in a way that can present emotion.
And to get to that point, will have to figure out how to make
an AI know what an emotion is and alter the way it speaks and behaves
to reflect that. And that feels like it's like computationally so far away from
being like a reality. That yeah, and it so much hinges on stuff
like that, working that the whole AI being involved to like make characters.
It feels like a pipe dream. I don't think it's gonna happen in my
lifetime. I agree largely. I think financially it just doesn't feel very viable.
Like you said, the amount of like computing power and effort you need
to even get to like what we have right now, like AI like chat
GPT like loses like thousands of millions of dollars. It's not the predominance AI
anymore, taken by another one, right, Yeah, So like, yeah,
I just I don't think this stuff is going to be prevalent in the
way I think people think it is any times. Yeah. I think the
closest we get is like developers use it as like a in an early phase
of development, where it's like you just need to sandbox or like gray gray
box stuff and just place characters in place, and you know, just put
these people here and then that's like the foundation, which then you go in
and then build everything you want by hand on top of it. That's the
closest I reckon we get to it. Yeah, I mean, like they
already use like a Microsoft sam is like filler text, you know, just
like you. So you could use an AI one us to like make it
sound a little bit more authentic as filler like a text, but then please
go and actually replace it with a proper person that you paid. What was
the name Prince of Pleasure? Remember how were they left one in there?
It got passed before I got to hear it. So it's so funny because
it's the same voice they used for TikTok and I was like, what's TikTok?
I finally beat that game over the weekend. Yeah, I beat TikTok.
I don't have to use it anymore. I'm done scrolled too much on
TikTok where they give you a video because maybe hey yeah, and they custom
like they don't look like you should stop videos like mine was a guy playing
piano and then instead of singing, he just turned and goes like don't you
think you should stop scrolling? Now? Wow? All Ai? Generated No
no, but yeah, good luck to Ai. It's not ready for a
prime time yet. No, no way, no, no, no no.
Uh cool Jake, Is there anything else deep and chucking out other than
drag a Dog? I mean, I'm continuing Final Fantasy se Rebirth. I
really like it, still having a good time, except I got to that
uh I don't South Coral. It's after Golden Saucer. Oh, so you're
in the desert. I'm in the desert the buggy right, Yeah. I
wasn't sure the buggy was a spoiler, but yeah I got the buggy.
But I got to that stupid goblin who's like, you gotta do the cacti
smashing, and I was like, I can't I can't. I tried it
once and I was like, I know, I can't if the pacing of
that game is disrupted by the mini games and makes it annoying. See,
I've been enjoying most of the mini games for the most part, but every
now and then one shows up that I'm like, hate this and that kctar
one I really do not like, and I think mostly I just don't like
that troll or whatever it is, because it's just like, why are you
dressed like a normal dude? Like it's very like, what is happening.
I don't like him. I don't like him at all, don't like Yeah,
no, but no, I've been enjoying that. That's pretty much it.
I've just it's it's final Fantasy track and Dogma and then I started Unicorn
Overlord, but I only played like twenty minutes and I was like, what
am I doing? I got a bunch of other games and need to play
it. Is anyone watching X Men ninety seven, No, I'm gonna wait
till more episodes here. It's very good. It is good, and yeah,
it is very good. I watched episode three last night in bed,
like it's like, I'm gonna watch it before I go bed, so I'm
like actively looking for new episodes. It's that good. Can you watch the
original series as well? It's on Disney Plus, Yeah, but I believe
it's on Disney Plus. But it picks up basically after where that ends,
And it's really interesting. They're doing some things that I never would have expected
to expected to see on a X Men TV show. I mean, like
an animated show, but like they are pulling some real deep cuts for especially
if you've like, if you know the X Men history, there's some characters
in there that you're like, remember when they did the Phoenix in the original
series. They've got one like that, which is like, how why this
is crazy? Why did you put this character in and do it this well?
But yeah, it's it's a really fascinating, really well done continuation of
a series that is a little more overt with its criticism and commentary on the
world. Sure, obviously X Men has always been about that, you know,
exploring the kind of the feeling of being outsiders and all that comes with
it, but this one is like in our day and age, it is
taking cues from things that have happened in real world history to try and delve
deeper into some of that stuff they made at work. Unfortunately for the people
that are upset about it, I hate to break it to you. X
Men was always that was the point of the X Men. The people have
upset about it, and I'm like, oh, tell me, you don't
know what X Men is. Without telling me, you don't know what X
Men is, And there is it. There is. Yeah. But they
like really have come up with some interesting dynamics for characters, like friends become
enemies, enemies become friends, that kind of thing. And you're like,
oh, relationships are like very strained and characters who wouldn't imagine would get on
or like getting on now. And it's it's like very it's very well done.
They continuation of the two thousands X Men next. That's the one I
watched behave the TV show Cotton. Yeah yeah, evolution, yeah evolution yeah
oh yeah, yeah, they should do that. That was really good.
Yeah that's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's good. I think the movie
no no no, no no no no no no no no. They were
like twenty more of those. I can't remember if there was a real rumor,
but I think there was some like discussion I had whispers that they might
be doing the same for Spider Man, the amazing Spider Man series. Oh.
Also I watched The Ship out of There. That was a good one
and that ended. Actually that ended in a way where I remember plot line
is very similar to what The X Men is doing now, and I won't
say which one, but there was a period where like the Madam Web stuff
came into play in that and right, Madam Webb was a huge part of
that. That's how I found out who Madam Web was. Yeah, yeah,
for sure, sounding now is the time, the sooner she's there,
Yeah, it's she can she can return the role. It's The X Men
ninety seven is well worth watching, and I genuinely I know people are waiting
for it, and you can wait for it. I'm happy that I really
am enjoying the week to week element of it because it reminds me of being
a kid and watching an episode and then knowing I have to wait until next
week and this time like mark my my calendar to it. And also I
feel like it they clearly know that they're working the weekly release cycle into the
way it's formatted and written and that kind of stuff. Because it ends in
ways which you're like, oh my god, what does that mean? And
then you have to wait for a week. It's like that Lost style thing
where it's like Lost will be interesting if you had like every episode available to
you. It's not a good it's not a good binge watch, but like
that, like the last episode. The reason I watched it yesterday at like
eleven PM is because I really wanted to know what the next scene would have
been after the episode two that I watched. So I do encourage people to
like watch it as it's coming out if you can, have you never watched
the original, or it's been so long that you like barely remember anything.
Is it's something you can pick up? Yes it is. But that's where
some of the writing awkwardness comes in, especially in episode one, because they
do try and reintroduce characters or mind characters or tell new people who these characters
are. So it'll do something like cyclops, what you're doing. He's like,
my eyes hurt because this Ladies is coming out of it like that kind
of thing, or like my name is morph. I can turn into anyone,
but no one that I can love me A bunch of people who have
known each other for years. They have to like reintroduce themselves, like so
you'll have characters saying their full name for some reason, Hello, it's me
Hank McCoy exactly. So they have that element of it and it's like clunky
in episode one, but it's over after Episode one is largely fine and the
dynamics are sold. Episode two is quite something. It is like a a
recent American event that has been very controversial is used as a a touch point
in it, which is really the X Men storm the capital. Yes,
I didn't see your face. It's like I just basically that is exactly what
happens. But yeah, it's it's really good, very surprising. I'm surprised
at how good it is and I'm okay, cool, I'm back. And
also like they do that they are like build holding off that world of the
original because like Bishop is around and he's like he comes in midway I think
through the series because they go to like the days of future past era where
cables knock around and Bishop as well, and he's about in the new series
because I think they ended with him being in their timeline. But it's really
really cool. I am surprised at how much I'm enjoying it cool. Yeah,
I wasn't sure if I was gonna check it out, but maybe recommend
Disney. Plus Yeah, it's also got the cheesiness of the nineties in it,
which surprisingly okay. The way they behave is like they've written it to
be from that era in any way it feels authentic as opposed to like trying
to not trying to be that way. There's like an awkwardness to some characters.
Jubileese are still a bit weird, which is very niceties. They thrown
a couple off model shots maybe yes, yeah, they do like that that
that joint looks a bit weird. Why is it like that? Or And
the only thing that really sticks out as something that I'm like, not struggling
with but like it can occasionally pull me out, And it's only because,
like I watched so much of the original is the voices are different. Jennifer
Hale is Jean Gray, which makes perfect sense because she played Gen Gray in
Marvel versus Capcom, which is probably the best version of her in a long
time for me. But the guy who's playing Wolverine is it's doing that voice.
It's a nat Steve Blum. I don't think it is. But at
the very least, it doesn't sound like how I remember that version of He
sounds like he's trying to do that. There are moments where he sounds exactly
like it, but it's not consistent. Scott sounds exactly like you would think
he sounds, but there's a couple of others that are a bit weird.
I remember you sounding a little different and a little better before, but it
could be like rose tinted glasses. Sure, well, cool, all right,
make a video game based on that version of it. God give that
to way Forward and let them make the new X Men ninety seven's so good.
That would be really early cool. But keep the welcome to Die quote
in there. One. Yeah, there's no way they wouldn't. Yeah,
yeah, then not achievemental pop up? Well cool, all right, I
think that's a podcast. Is a podcast, the whole thing. So yeah,
look forward to that from Lucy early next week. I can write the
cool things. Yeah, so do you know we're getting a Pets behind Closed
Doors. We can talk about that now because the left right, Oh yeah,
cool, it's it's ridicol Okay, it seems ridical. Well, we
didn't touch it. I'm just like we saw behind closed Doors. Yeah,
everything. It seems like fun Com is basically looking at every because all of
the MMOs haven't been like Crazy World of Warcraft successful, but they've each had
something interesting in it that sets it apart. The exect Sliders, Yeah,
sliders, And I feel like they've got to the point now whether like if
we take all of those cool ideas and put me in one game in the
Dune universe, that is a great game that is going to be a decent
game to play, And it seems like that's what they're doing now. They
have like a it's a survival mmo, so you have a survival phase on
Oracus, and then there's a there's a political phase, which is like it
kind of sounds like grass. Yes, they took a lot of Yeah,
they were like Russ is important part of it, and it's collaborative and stuff
like that as well, because I like the idea of Russ. But playing
Rust is probably one of the most miserable experience I've ever had in my life.
Yeah, there's like an area where like it gets wiped every week because
of sandstorms. Oh yeah, the PvP area. There's one like that's the
massive that's where the giant sandworm appears, only because they needed to create a
massive space for it. You try halude and then in the other places you
get the smaller sandworms, which are still pretty big and will kill you.
Can't you cannot them. They are working on that. They said, great,
so yeah it's and there's all this like you have to conserve water.
I did this. Yeah, yeah, still suits, and you should make
it like Star Wars galaxies, where like it's really hard to write, like
only one person can like ride a sandward amount of time. I think they
will do that because it is They are like, like it's got enough like
restrictions on how you can, Like if you move around in the sun,
you rapidly will lose like water and you have to Yeah, you get heat
stroke. You try and stay in the shadows, and if there's a sandstorm
coming like and you're not away from it, you will die and the only
way to like chance of survival is finding a strong enough outcropping of rocks to
hide behind or something like that. But it looks really cool based on what
we've seen so far, and for the most part, those fun coms like
MMOs, people say they're good play them. They just don't have that kind
of crazy staying power that people expect from MMOs to be. Yeah, that's
kind of felt about the con In one, like, yeah, was neat
but didn't stick with it. Yeah. I played a little bit of Conan
and it was it was fun, but it was just it is pretty brutal.
It was just like, all right, I died. I don't really
want to do all this welcome unity speak you up, please, I gotta
go write this thing. Okay, all right, we'll look forward to that
from Lucy Jake. Anything you want to quickly plug? Oh, the Wild
Bastard's preview from GDC is now after. If you want to listen to some
more focused thoughts on that. I know he talked about it on the podcast
last night last night last week, but it's there. That's it. Excellent
Tam. Anything you want to plug? Uh no, okay, cool,
I don't have anything I want to plug you there, Let's get out of
here. Thank you everyone for listening and I'll see you all. An excellent
Tam, get that out trouble for me. Thank you,