Diecast #154: Mirrors Edge, Doom, Overwatch

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Jun 14, 2016

Filed under: Diecast 92 comments

Fun story: We opened up the show with a cracking intro. It was one of those weeks where everyone had a joke ready and the whole thing was effortlessly fun.

So naturally after five minutes my computer locked up and we lost the recording. What you hear in this show is us awkwardly trying to remember and recapture the jokes. This has happened before, and it’s always stilted and disappointing the second time around.



Direct link to this episode.

Hosts: Josh, Shamus, Campster, Jarenth, Mumbles.

Episode edited by Rachel.

Show Notes:
0:02:34: Mirrors Edgier

0:19:45: Doom

Chris did an Errant Signal on the Latest DOOM. It’s pretty good.


Link (YouTube)

0:30:06: Bloodborne

0:30:57: Overwatch

0:38:10: Mailbag

Dear Mumbles

With lots of nerd culture, like anime, comics and video games, you’ll get a lot of mainstream commercial stuff and occasionally something odd and artsy. Is there artsy wrestling, or is that just the theater? I’m imagining a wrestling match that looks like Limbo.

Love, Christopher

Here is the link Mumbles mentioned: Olde Wrestling.

And I guess I’ve linked this before, but here it is again because I love it:


Link (YouTube)

0:42:18: Mailbag

0:44:15: Mailbag

 


From The Archives:
 

92 thoughts on “Diecast #154: Mirrors Edge, Doom, Overwatch

  1. Micamo says:

    Wow, that last question of mine had a MUCH angrier tone when Shamus read it aloud than it had in my head. I guess it was kindof an angry question though. Thanks for answering. (Also sorry Josh.)

    1. Echo Tango says:

      In one of the diecasts or something, Josh mentioned he works in tech support, but I never knew Josh worked from home! Josh y u so secretive? :P

      1. Sunshine says:

        I picked from the Diecast and Spoiler Warning that he does a tech job in the area of Las Vegas that involves some security measures, and decided that he studies computers from alien spacecraft in Area 51.

        Logical, really.

  2. MichaelGC says:

    Rats. I said I’d do the washing up when the DieCast went up, and now I have to do the washing up.

    PS Inadvertent if somehow appropriate past-tense of ‘Mumbles’ used in the line with the link to Olde Wrestling.

  3. Phill says:

    I briefly heard Jarenth’s suggestion for the Watch Dogs 2 subtitle as:

    “Watch Dogs 2 : Watch Dogging”

    rather than “Watch dogger”. That would be a whole different genre of video game, although one that Virtual Reality will soon branch out in to I guess.

    1. Merlin says:

      It’s trying so desperately hard to be edgy that I’m a little surprised it isn’t called Watch Dogs 2: Doggystyle.

  4. Ninety-Three says:

    I think [Doom] is like a game that anyone can play

    Well, anyone but Polygon.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3pQ0oO_cDE&t=23s

    1. 4th Dimension says:

      That to me looks like someone who is new to controllers being forced to play with a controler. I in fact am much less competent with the controller.

      1. Karthik says:

        Yeah, I’d be worse. But then I believe it’s silly to play first person shooters with a controller.

      2. RandomInternetCommenter says:

        If you can stomach watching more, you will see the reviewer shooting a medpack, several times, as well as an absurd amount of poor strategical decisions that can’t be explained by unfamiliar control schemes alone.

  5. Da Mage says:

    The modding tools in Fallout 4 are powerful, but impossible.

    I’ve been modding Bethesda games since Morrowind, and Fallout 4 is finally where I won’t be learning their tools. I made a few simple mods for my liking (my most popular on the Bethesda site has 5000+ downloads), but that’s it, no more.

    The problem I’ve found is everything seems to be ‘linked’ now, and even simple changes can mean changing 5 different forms that all need to be found using search tools. Lots of nested templates, and keywords that group things together…..the whole thing seems like a huge mess.

    There is also little to no documentation on how to use it either, thankfully I have years of previous modding knowledge that let me navigate through the tools, but I cannot understand how hard that would be for a new modder. The problem is complexity, each installment of the Bethesda modding tools had more and more buttons added to it until now it’s damn impenetrable.

    1. Wide And Nerdy â„¢ says:

      Its disappointing given how actively this is being touted as a feature these days, that Bethesda doesn’t put a little more work into making the tool usable.

      1. Incunabulum says:

        Uh, this is after *significant work* had been done to make it suitable for the community to use.

        After each game that delay before the CK is released is them tweaking how things are presented to make it easier to use for the community. Imagine what the developers were using if its this opaque.

        They still need to release their damn animation and nifskope plugins.

        1. Echo Tango says:

          So, they were using bad tools, before cleaning them up for the public? If they were going to clean them up anyways, why didn’t they do it when they’re still using them, so they could waste less dev time using bad tools? :S

          1. Nidokoenig says:

            There’s an issue of developer time. When an experienced programmer has to spend time making things easier for competent programmers, it may actually cost more in terms of his higher paid time and delays on putting out the fires he should be doing rather than just telling the (semi-)competent people how to use the janky stuff. Don’t forget, there’s a fair bit under the hood we can’t touch with the mod tools, so it’s obviously been limited in various ways before release to the public.

        2. Lanthanide says:

          I think the developers are using something different / more direct / more powerful / more easy to make mistakes with.

          A classic case was Starcraft 2. I have it on (pretty) good authority that the Starcraft 2 map developer was thrown together by interns in the last few months before release.

          The developers just edited all the xml by hand / had XML tools that they used during development.

          So what they ended up with was an editor that technically could let you modify pretty much everything in the game, but it was clumsy and difficult to use. Because their focus was making on a technically complete map editor in time for release(because they claimed SC2 would come out with one), but not actually making one that was easily usable.

    2. How does it compare to previous Bethsoft modding tools? I ask because I’ve never heard them described as “simple” or “easy to use.” About the only thing I recall seeing being praised for saving time was a module that did most of the lip-sync for you on-the-fly, allowing tweaking later.

      Also, is it quest contingencies that are the biggest pain? They’ve always been difficult as well, in that you have to plan how they unravel (i.e. if you don’t have object X, this NPC dialog won’t trigger, but if you have object X but the NPC hasn’t given you the quest yet, they’ll think you stole it and become hostile, etc.). I haven’t seen many quest mods yet, and I figured that was due to not all of the DLC being out coupled with that being the most hairy kind of mod to create.

  6. overpoweredginger says:

    I found it amusing that Campster’s video was posted the same day as sexbad’s take on the game. Even more amusing is that they’re really the only two people criticizing the skatepark design in comparison to the sprawl of the originals.

    I still don’t have a machine good enough to run D4, but if I ever get the chance I’ll jump on it. I tend to enjoy skateparks more than sprawls, and tinkering with weapon upgrades is my jam.

    1. Incunabulum says:

      You Sugarfree’d the link.

  7. Traiden says:

    Could you have a recording light you could turn on near your work space for when you are capturing footage as a visual indicator of work being done? If you are working from home having an office space with a clear indicator for other members of the household to not be as rambunctious would be something you might have to invest in.

    1. Echo Tango says:

      Yup, a light would do the trick. Or as pointed out below, an office/room with a door that can be shut during “I’m working, please don’t interrupt” time.

  8. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Wait,what do you mean “in the future when corporations own everything”?Thats the present.

    1. John says:

      No, some things are still owned by unincorporated businesses, governments, non-business organizations, and individuals–all of which are morally superior to corporations. You see, unincorporated businesses, governments, non-business organizations, and individuals are owned by, composed of, and run by people, unlike corporations which are . . . um, wait a minute . . . bad. Yes, bad. Everyone knows that. No need for further discussion.

      1. Incunabulum says:

        I think you mean KKKorporations!

  9. Warclam says:

    Even as I write this I know it’s futile, but it must be said, because I’m weird like that: “Route” is only pronounced “rowt” when it’s being used as a verb, like routing an army, or a router. When it’s used as a noun, meaning path, it’s pronounced “root”.

    I love the slip of “Soviet Capitalism”. I’m imagining a game with a thinly fictionalized version of the cold war, but with a capitalist USSR (USCR?) and a communism West.

    1. Phill says:

      I don’t think you can make absolute statements like that ;)

      In the UK, ‘router’ is pronounced rooter in my experience, ‘route’ is always pronounced ‘root’, and ‘rout’ is pronounced ‘rowt’. And there are consequently two verbs spelled the same way, one derived from route, one from rout: routing an army, as in driving it from the field in panic, derives from rout and is pronounced ‘rowting’, and arguably you could talk about routing an army (as in finding a route for it to travel along) using route as a verb, which would be pronounced ‘rooting’. Two participles with different pronunciations but the same spelling. And you can argue whether using ‘route’ as a transitive verb is grammatically correct or not.

      In the US I’ve only ever heard either being pronounced ‘rowt’, but that’s because it really sticks out to me as being weird (so its possible I’ve just not noticed the times it isn’t pronounced that way). Certainly in football (NFL-style) they talk about receivers running ‘rowts’ which is route-as-a-noun. I’ve *never* actually noticed an American pronouncing route (noun) the British way.

      1. The Rocketeer says:

        In my experience, it’s practically interchangeable in America; it’s not even a matter of regions, but personal preference. Although, one instance in which you’ll always see the noun “route” pronounced as “root” is when talking about numbered thoroughfares, eg, “Route 66.”

        1. Warclam says:

          This is all very interesting! I didn’t realize it was so different across different dialects of English. I’m Canadian, and our English is in many ways a blend of American English and… English English. Sometimes, as here, it ends up kinda being both at the same time. And actually verb-route and rout being pronounced the same way is probably highly variable even here.

          I’m still probably going to hear it as wrong, but at least now I know I’m wrong about it being wrong. Sorta. Or at least not right.

        2. Wide And Nerdy â„¢ says:

          My experience too. I hear rowt more I think but nobody here would be confused if you said “root.”

          I think mass media has blended dialects somewhat.

      2. Shamus says:

        If it wasn’t for the internet, I’d have no idea this was even a debate.

        Around here (Northeast US, near Pittsburgh) I can pinpoint where the pronunciation changed. The most important road around here is Rt. 8, which goes between my town and Pittsburgh.

        My grandparents and great-grandparents all called it “rewt eight”. My parents (baby boomers) called it “rowt eight”, often slightly compressed, to the point where it was almost a single word, like “rowtate”. (Not quite, though. There is still a very slight pause in there.)

        So I grew up thinking that “rewt” was the archaic way of saying it. Even now, when I hear someone say “I have to finish my delivery rewt”, it sounds anachronistic, like an old-timey newsboy selling papers in New York during the Great Depression.

        HOWEVER!

        “Route 66” is always pronounced “Rewt 66”, probably because of the song. “Rowt 66” sounds… goofy.

        A router is a thing that gives a route to network traffic, and I’ve always heard it pronounced “rowter”. Regardless of age or national origin, I’ve never once heard “rewter”, which sounds hilarious.

        1. Hector says:

          I’ve always heard English people say “rewter” instead of “rowter,” but that’s not necessarily universal.

          1. I don’t think that’d work in America, thanks to the old west phrase “Rootin’ Tootin’,” among others.

            I always hear it pronounced “root” when talking about highways and “rowt” when it comes to just about everything else, like networking equipment.

        2. Lanthanide says:

          I work in a networking company, in New Zealand.

          Here, anyone who’s been at the company long enough, pronounces it “rowter” and talks about network “rowts”, ie the American pronunciation.

          In everyday life, I seldom have the need for the word ‘route’, but would likely pronounce it ‘rowt’ – but everyone would understand me if I used that term. Before working here, I would have said ‘rewt’.

          Occasionally non-technical in NZ talk about their “ADSL rewter” at home, and it does sound stupid.

          1. Humanoid says:

            Well as any fule kno, when translating English to New Zealandish, you take the subset of vowels A, E, I, U and substitute each with the next one in the sequence.

        3. Mephane says:

          In Germany, everyone pronounces router like “rooter”. Until this comment thread, I didn’t even know there are two different, competing pronunciations. :)

        4. Sijov says:

          Rewter is especially rare to hear in New Zealand and Australia because of the common vernacular being of ‘rooting’ meaning (rough) sex.

          Rowter is usually used because otherwise it sounds a bit dirty.

          1. Mike S. says:

            American folksinger Christine Lavin has a song with a line (playing off one in the baseball standard “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”): “Root, root, root… root, root, root for both teams!” She recounts that she got some very odd reactions to that line in Australia. Eventually someone took pity on her and gently explained that it meant “to express love in a physical way”.

      3. Grudgeal says:

        Just be careful about generalist terms like ‘in the UK’. The UK has a vast array of accents, and a bloke (or a lady) from London and a bloke/lady from Blackpool would say ‘router’ very differently.

    2. Tizzy says:

      I guess you can “route” an army as well. But yeah, the verb that is pronounced rowt is definitely spelled “rout”.

      1. Warclam says:

        So it is, my bad. I’m only used to hearing it apparently. “Route” is also a verb though in the sense of giving it a route, and in my dialect it’s also “rowt” when a verb.

        1. Rayen says:

          English is stupid

          1. People think this until they learn other languages and have to ask questions like “okay, why are forks male”.

            Pronunciation aside, the different spellings mean different things:

            “route” refers to a path or way and can be a noun (this is the correct route) or a verb (I will route around the traffic jam).
            “rout” means to force to flee and can also be a verb (I will rout the enemy) or a noun (the defeat turned into a rout)

            1. I gave up on learning French when I learned how many tenses and genders the language had. There’s just some stuff that’s nigh impossible to learn without just immersing oneself in it, learning the peculiarities in a way that reminds me of learning how to sing with what stats out sounding like an oddball key with a strange rhythm.

              1. Mephane says:

                Fun fact: languages that have genus for nouns and articles don’t even agree with each other. In French, the sun is male (“le soleil”), in German it is female (“die Sonne”); the moon is female in French (“la lune”), but male in German (“der Mond”). And then German is completely inconsistent with itself, too. Not only does the genus of nouns almost never follow any logical pattern, the third, neutral gender also disrupts things that almost would have had a logical pattern otherwise.

                A house is neutral. But a table and a chair are male. A door is female. The floor is male, but walls and ceiling are female, windows are neutral. It’s completely nuts. Even stuff that starts seemingly logical ends up crazy: a child is neutral, a boy is male, a girl is neutral*.

                *Albeit linguistically, there is a kind of twisted logic to that. “Der Junge” (“the boy”) is an adjective (“jung” = “young”) turned into a noun in the male declination. Theoretically and technically grammatically correct, one could use “die Junge” to refer to a girl, but this hasn’t been historically established for some reason**, and you would get confused stares if you ever used this when talking to a native German speaker. Instead, the word for girl was derived by the diminutive form of “die Maid” (“the maid”) – “das Mädchen”. And all diminutive forms in German are automatically and without exception neutral***.

                **It is still used when you leave out a previously used noun by referring to an individual out of a group, in the same way you would say “the young one” in English. Note however that in this case, the spelling changes to non-capitalized here , as it is now an adjective and not a noun.

                ***Even for things for which the non-diminutive form doesn’t actually exist. A good example are the words for rabbit and squirrel, “das Kaninchen”, “das Eichhà¶rnchen”. There is no “Kanin” or “Eichhorn”; at least not any more. Apparently at one point centuries ago these animals were called like that, until for some reason people started using the diminutive form instead until it became established as the only form.

                1. Warclam says:

                  No Kanin or Eichhorn? Well, we can fix that. new cryptids: giant bunnies and giant squirrels, both native to the Black Forest.

                  1. Mephane says:

                    Giant rabbits do exist, but not in the wild. And they are not called “Kanin”, but “Riesenkaninchen” (= literally “giant rabbit”).

                    https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riesenkaninchen

              2. ehlijen says:

                Isn’t the problem that French has one fewer gender than English and thus everything that’s neutral in English needs to be shoved into one of the remaining two?

                Also, I wasn’t aware that French had that many more tenses than English does?

                The real killer for any language, though, is of course irregular verbs, and French, German, English and Latin are all equally guilty of having too many of those. Other languages probably too, but those are the ones I’ve studied.

            2. Nidokoenig says:

              Because outside of humans, genders are just object classes, they’re what gives objects their pronouns. Someone can say “What’s that doing there?” and you can guess what it is because only half or a third of the possibilities agree with the gendered version of “that”. It adds redundancy to the language, which you need for sending messages by yelling over long distances and other lossy but vital methods. English just has redundancy in different places. There are other ways to handle pronouns, sign languages usually have a few hundred descriptors (the long thing, the fat thing, the round thing, etc) and an ability to place an arbitrary sign as a pronoun for a specific concept for short-term use, but spoken language doesn’t need that complex a system because flapping your gums is less tiring than flapping your arms.

          2. Bloodsquirrel says:

            Might have something to do with it being an awful hack of about 100 differently languages imposed on top of its Germanic roots.

            It’d be nice if we could just clean up the alphabet and make it properly phonetic.

            1. Hector says:

              Phonetic according to whom, though? That’s always the big problem, and you’d have the same issue immediately, because it would not be phonetic for millions upon millions. And phonetic spelling for 2000 is by no means guaranteed to be phonetic in 2100, which means you end up with no useful spelling rules at all.

              It would also kill much of the coded meaning behind the written word, because it carries the derivation within the letters themselves. This is one way that readers after learn new words; they may not not automatically know the meaning, but because they see the roots inherent in the word, it becomes clear in context.

              1. Lachlan the Mad says:

                And on top of that, it forces everyone to learn two completely different spelling systems if they want to read pre-phonetic-alphabet texts. You can’t just redo the spelling of every book and website overnight.

                1. Hector says:

                  Deleted by user. Unnecessary historical verbiage.

                  Or, if you like Final Fantasy Tactics, it was Delita’d by the User.

                2. Echo Tango says:

                  Not overnight, no, but if all the books were in digital format, it would be a lot easier. Death to dead-tree format!

              2. silver Harloe says:

                “And phonetic spelling for 2000 is by no means guaranteed to be phonetic in 2100, which means you end up with no useful spelling rules at all.”

                This is so true that is has *already happened*. A lot of things we think are spelled stupidly now were spelled phonetically when first codified in a dictionary.
                Then again, for a while before dictionaries, everyone spelled everything phonetically, and people from different regions would spell the same word differently.

              3. 4th Dimension says:

                This argument does not work for me. I can see the point of your second argument of sudden changes to the way a language is written are impossible in the current world, but this particular argument makes no sense.

                I write and speak Serbian as my first language, and Serbian uses a completly phonetic way of spelling things. And unlike what you seem to be suggesting we do not set in stone how a word is written. You are taught a letter for each of the possible sounds and then you simply write down what you hear. There are some rules but these mostly cover a SMALL set of exceptions (really small) and are there so that grammar and word formation makes sense.
                And as the language changes you of course have some pushback from the literaly circles about “not properly using the language” but there is nothing in the alphabet stopping you from writing down the new word forms in their new forms, and over time those new forms become the norm.
                So no there would need to pass a LOOOOONG time untill your phonetic alphabet becomes even slightly obsolete. And the thing that will make is slightly obsolete if new sounds appear in language that have no corresponding letters. But that is simple to solve. Add new letters.
                Hell I can “write” English using our letters. It won’t capture the full sound of some of the words since you pronounce some sounds differently and have some that we don’t have (like a), but it would still be intelligible.

                As for the “loosing” the roots of the words. If a word has a root in another word it should sound like the other word with bits attached to it. So it’s phonetic form will still be similar to the phonetic form of the root.

                1. Echo Tango says:

                  “Add new letters.”
                  This right here is the correct solution. Don’t just mangle what the letters mean or mess with spelling – add new letters to indicate the new sounds you need.

  10. Vermander says:

    I don’t know as much about pro wrestling as Mumbles, but I’d say it’s probably it’s treated as more of an “art” in places like Mexico and Japan where there’s a long and storied cultural tradition behind it. Which is not to say there aren’t goofy, weird wrestling federations in both those countries.

  11. James Porter says:

    So I feel a bit like a conspiracy theorist, but from at least the opening, it sounds like Mirrors Edge’s story is more of a take that to the corporate structure of EA. I am mainly going off of the opening cutscene on this, but here me out.

    So the scene is basically setting up giving Faith a “second chance”. Whenever this shows up in a reboot or sequel I like seeing that as a literal meta line. If we start from that premise, we can see that Faith’s second chance isn’t that much of a chance at all. She has a limited time to find a job or she presumably will lose some freedom of choice again. The security guard talks about how he wouldn’t even want to give her that chance.

    Now Mirrors Edge Catalyst didn’t seem to get much press. A lot of people online(including me) expressed, “wait, its already out?”. And I do want to say its a stretch, but it does match up with the idea the EA isn’t only kind of giving this game a chance.

    I don’t have the money to go get new game stuff right now, and I only have seen the opening cutscene, but this was my immediate first impression. I do probably want to get the game at some point, since I am a big fan of the original and want this to be a game franchise. I’d be curious if that this reading hold up even a little.

    (plus I imagine its a good catch all for weird design choices)

    1. Sunshine says:

      Like the game developers working for the Templars in Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag?

  12. krellen says:

    I played the first demo level of DOOM, and I already figured out the back story: the previous Doom titles are the back story. It seemed pretty obvious to me that the DOOM Marine was the protagonist from Doom/Doom 2, who’d been dug up when Earth decided to re-tap into hell energies again.

    So he wants to kill demons because that’s what he does. That’s what he’s always done. That’s what he’ll always do.

    I mean, sure, maybe they did something else later, but that’s what I got out of the first level.

    1. Jarenth says:

      No, you’re basically bang-on.

    2. James says:

      He also hates anyone involved in doing stupid demon hell shit.

    3. Lanthanide says:

      No, that’s not the back story at all.

      Doom 2016 appears to be an actual reboot, eg in this universe, Doom 1, Doom 2, Doom 3 and Doom 64 did not happen (nor the terribad movie).

      The existing continuity appears to be:
      Doom 3, Doom 1, Doom 2, Doom 64
      Doom 2016

  13. SlothfulCobra says:

    I don’t think socializing in online games is a thing anymore. The people who know eachother all use their own little teamchat, and nobody just talks with strangers, especially in Dotas.

    That’s basically why I stopped playing online only games, since without the random socialization, it’s just playing with people who are usually better than you except for the odd chance that they’ll go off and do something that has nothing to do with the game, and then the servers will be dead in a year or two anyways.

    1. Lachlan the Mad says:

      Overwatch deliberately kills teamchat if you’re using the group system. If you’re grouped, you can only talk to your group, not the rest of your team.

      1. Ninety-Three says:

        That sounds like a terrible idea in a team shooter. How are you supposed to coordinate?

        1. Echo Tango says:

          ^ this

      2. morpork says:

        Not strictly true. It does default to group chat, but you can tab to team or all at will. (unless it’s different for voice? Never used voice chat in my gaming)

        1. Mephane says:

          Yepp, there are no restrictions, and it allows slash-commands to easily switch between channels just like it does in wow:

          /p = party (your manually formed group)
          /t = team (everyone on your side within the match)
          /m = match (everyone in the match, i.e. both teams)

          I don’t know about voice chat though, because I don’t use voice chat with random strangers, and for known people, someone usually has a TS3 server anyway.

    2. Fizban says:

      Aside from Left 4 Dead /L4D2 years ago, TF2 is the only online game I play (and not that often), doing so on the pub servers. Maybe 1/2 or 2/3 of the time if I keep talking eventually someone else will come along with a mic and join me in actually using it, but that doesn’t guarantee conversation will go anywhere. I would imagine that clan servers have more talking, but then I don’t know how active those are since I stick to pubs. “Common sense” seems to indicate that all the multiplayer team shooter players are playing Overwatch right now.

      I feel like the reason no one mic chats is just because so few people are, or pay attention. Someone actually tried to votekick me the other day for no discernible reason other than that I was talking (so I left them to lose horribly and went elsewhere), some people are actively hostile. Between all the literal children, raging assholes, non-english native speakers, 90% of people just being flat mute, and no immediate feedback that any of those people are listening when the one mic person speaks, those that actually do have mics just stop bothering. There are also those in their own teamspeaking groups, but that still feels like a fairly small fraction.

      So be the change I guess. Keep talking, calling game shots and commenting on cool names and icons and maybe you’ll draw someone out.

      1. IFS says:

        Don’t forget to upvote people at the end of a match (I’ve heard this increases the chance you’ll get matched up with them again, though I can’t confirm this) and send friend requests to people you’d like to play with again (you can also mark players so that the game won’t match you up with them again, though I forget how).

        I play a lot of support so I’ve taken to trying to call shots in the text chat, telling people to group up or switch characters and usually when the team listens it does better (support has an advantage here in that they can see teammates hp through walls and so easily monitor the team’s positioning, though you can turn this on for other characters as well). Plus once you start talking and calling shots it encourages other people to do so, just be careful that you set the right tone with what you say, salt isn’t fun for anyone.

        1. Doomcat says:

          There is actually an option hidden in menus to deactivate the whole “Only chat with your group” thing as well. Just wanted to point that out ^.^’

  14. Rayen says:

    When I think artsy wrestling I think of a lot of the weird and silly stipulation matches back in the late nineties.
    Then again there’s the Ricochet vs Will Osprey match that the wrestling world has been buzzing about. Some have said it was more of a dance than a wrestling match and could be viewed as “artsy.”

  15. Jarlek says:

    Watch Dogs 2: Watch Dogger. This is way funnier than it should be.

  16. RE: getting your family to let you work at home, the best advice I’ve ever heard for this is to get an office/workspace with a door you can close, then explain to them that when the door is shut you expect them to respect that and not interrupt you unless it’s a genuine emergency along the lines of “someone is bleeding or on fire”.

  17. Ninety-Three says:

    So Shamus, now that Good Robot has been out for a while, any chance you’ll do some kind of retrospective/post-mortem?

  18. Echo Tango says:

    Man, Overwatch just sounds like it’s got tonnes of reasons I don’t ever want to play it. Competitive highlight like League of Legends so everyone is pressured to be a jerk, no dedicated servers where you can hang out with buddies, just as complicated as LoL so I can’t easily learn it like TF2… :S

    1. morpork says:

      In Overwatch, you don’t need to buy items or combine them with a bazillion recipes. So there’s that. It reminds me a lot of the (simpler) counter strike days, except with less waiting (while dead), less deaths, and more fun to be had for people with slow connections and bad aim. ( a lot of artillery classes with slow projectiles )

    2. Ninety-Three says:

      Overwatch actually feels geared to avoid the spirit of competition. They do the play of the game thing, but they conspiciously avoid showing any kind of scoreboard for other players, you don’t get to know who’s got a low K/D ratio. At the end of each game they hand out awards for a bunch of random things which include “player who did the most healing” “handed out the most buffs”, etc, in a way that seems clearly engineered to produce an “Everyone’s a winner” vibe. Personally I found the whole thing a bit patronizing.

      And it’s far from LoL complicated, it’s got a fifth the heroes and no items or skill points to customize builds. 21 heroes times multiple abilities is still a lot, but it’s small enough that it feels remotely reasonable to actually learn it all.

      1. Mephane says:

        This.

        It seems to be a common misconception, but Overwatch is not a MOBA, and is not even “MOBA-like”, and has no “MOBA elements”. Overwatch is, in its essense, the original* Team Fortress 2 with more classes and better graphics.

        *Original as in before it got crafting and an item market and loot boxes.

        P.S.: Whether you are into the game or not, playing it or just watching it as a bystander, this “honest trailer” is hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oozuU1LI6XM

        1. JakeyKakey says:

          Depends on how you define ‘MOBA elements’ I guess.

          I’d argue with how much emphasis there is on positioning, crowd control abilities, hero counters, synergising various skills and the teamwork-based back and forth, Overwatch draws far more from MOBA spirit & mentality than it does from TF2.

          Yeah the game’s still almost entirely shooty-shooty, but as far as game philosophies go, TF2 is far more of a pure straight up shooter while Overwatch’s existing design is more than capable of of hypothetically being remade as a top-view LoL/DotA-esque MOBA.

          1. IFS says:

            Counterpoint: Positioning (use of cover, managing firing angles, etc) and crowd control abilities (prefire/suppression fire and grenades) have always been important to shooters and are hardly a MOBA thing. Use of synergistic abilities and the variety of classes is more MOBA-like than TF2, though TF2 still had some of that in combos like Medic+Heavy, and having unique powers for different classes is hardly something new to shooters either. Halo has had it with armor abilities for a while, Destiny has 3 classes each with 3 subclasses that all have different blends of abilities, and I’m sure people who have played more shooters than me could come up with other examples.

            To me the things that really set MOBAs apart as a genre, aside from the wide variety of characters and abilities, are mechanics like managing a bunch of minions, mid battle leveling, and the map structured around Lanes and Overwatch doesn’t really have that (you could argue the side paths count as Lanes, but that’s about it).

      2. Daniel says:

        I don’t think the post game awards are intended to produce an “Everyone’s a Winner” vibe, but instead a “Every Class of Hero Matters” vibe.

        Playing support is not glamorous in the way that the other classes are. Giving the players who do the side stuff some recognition too is welcome (at least to me).

        1. IFS says:

          Yeah you might not get POTG much as Mercy or Lucio but you will very often get a card for people to upvote at the end of a match. Plus you’ll win a lot more than a team with no supports would, which is its own reward.

  19. Mikey says:

    “Episode edited by Rachel.”

    That’s odd. Is she back to editing, or was this just a case of copy-pasting the wrong template?

    1. Shamus says:

      Yep. She’s back as the editor.

  20. Joe says:

    On working from home. On a writing podcast, the hosts talked about a sign, either on the door or beside the computer. Stuff like writing, other work, not working. Maybe it’s worth a try.

    1. Xeorm says:

      May also be good that if you have some sort of schedule, to post that schedule. Lets people know when you’re available and when you’re busy.

      Plus, encourage asynchronous communication when you’re working, like email or texting. Less interruptions so that you can keep going with what you’re doing.

  21. Christopher says:

    “Christopher” and variations on it are so common for people born around the early nineties. My name is actually Kristoffer, I just figured it’s easier to pronounce “Christopher” for you native English speakers. I’m not secretly Chris, I’m secretly Kriss.

    Thanks for answering my question, Mumbles! : D

  22. Neil W says:

    Working from home: charge them money for interruptions. I mean, not really. But, yes really. Give them an invoice.

    (Of course this tends to escalate until everyone in the house owes everyone else a couple of grand, but it might make the point in an amusing way)

  23. Doomcat says:

    My two cents on Overwatch versus TF2: It DOES feel like TF3, but instead of being an actual transition of TF2’s elements into another game, it’s more of a…complete overhaul, keeping much of the same elements, while changing the core.

    TF2, at it’s core, is competitive, they even have competitive leagues, though those are more community-based then integrated into the game itself. TF2 as a game doesn’t care how you do, as long as you’re having fun. It has mechanics that can be used competitively, or can be manipulated into fun little situations that just…happen (Spies come to mind, and Mumble’s spy ‘love’ mentioned a few podcasts back :P)

    Overwatch, meanwhile, is a competitive game both at it’s core, and at almost every tier of play. The game doesn’t display your stats to the entire game, And I LOVE that, the only thing they give you is gold/silver/bronze medals for how you’re doing compared to your team, you can say ‘I got the gold for killing people, even if I only have the bronze for actually dealing damage.’

    But herein lies the crux: Even if the entire playerbase can’t see your score and points, the game is always displaying them for YOU. The game keeps tracks of every action you do, how many games you’ve won, what character’s you’ve played, how much you’ve dealt damage, healing you’ve done, or how many times you’ve died. And it displays them on a profile you can look at (And your friends as well, on the overwatch site.)

    Combined with the lack of dedicated servers, Overwatch CAN have moments where the players have some communion, but they’re few and far compared to the game wanting you to compete and -win-. Overwatch as an experience compared to TF2, is like the difference between going to a pool, or going to a swimming competition.

    One has you playing games, maybe trying to be the best at it and win against the other people in the pool, while the other is more structured, and EXPECTS you to be doing your best to win in the pool. Both can be very fun, and I actually do really like both games. But they are both, VERY different experiences.

    QUICK EDIT, AND A TL/DR: Overwatch feels like the competitive TF2 scene might’ve felt, and that’s something I’ve always been somewhat interested in, but it is, intrinsically very different.

  24. BeamSplashX says:

    wait, was one of the olive garden clan members Auntie Pasta? she’s a friend of mine!

    can’t say i was expecting to hear about that

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