{"id":25842,"date":"2015-02-02T10:57:38","date_gmt":"2015-02-02T15:57:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=25842"},"modified":"2025-09-28T21:22:55","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T01:22:55","slug":"diecast-91-mailbag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=25842","title":{"rendered":"Diecast #91: Mailbag"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Another mailbag episode. I think we only covered about a third of the questions we had waiting for us. Note that I&#8217;ve wiped the board clean, so if your question wasn&#8217;t answered, then it&#8217;s now gone for good. Sorry.<\/p>\n<p>On an optimistic note, having a 1:3 chance that your question makes it onto the show is actually really good odds by the standards of this sort of thing.<\/p>\n<p><!--remove original podcast link<a href=\"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/diecast\/diecast91.mp3\">Direct link to this episode<\/a>.\n[diecast show=\"diecast91\"]--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/mega.nz\/embed\/foYAAaYK#dtK1GBfVG-A4XyWaHw4t5Ojn7Rsi4mTTlZGZh7Q5FuQ!1v1c\" width=\"711\" height=\"144\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mega.nz\/file\/foYAAaYK#dtK1GBfVG-A4XyWaHw4t5Ojn7Rsi4mTTlZGZh7Q5FuQ\">Download MP3 File<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/mega.nz\/file\/TgBknAyQ#cJwMcYsljW-OkL30kqohvPH5mNIgrQ1ryYo1WP-MDqM\">Download Ogg Vorbis File<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Hosts: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/\">Shamus<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/baldursgate.wikia.com\/wiki\/Drizzt_Do%27Urden\">Josh<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/Campster\">Chris<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chocolatehammer.org\/\">Rutskarn<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Show notes: <!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>3:00 First Impressions.<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Dear Diecast<\/p>\n<p>As a popular saying goes about first impressions mattering the most, I&#8217;d like to hear your guys&#8217; thoughts on coming back to a game after trying it out after disliking it at first.<\/p>\n<p>I recently finished a playthrough of The Witcher a couple years after I first tried it and found that it didn&#8217;t mesh with my loot hoarding playstyle at the time. I ended up enjoying it much more than I thought I would after breaking my packrat habits and leaving behind any &#8220;incinerators&#8221; (love to Josh!).<\/p>\n<p>Any personal thoughts or experiences on &#8220;second impressions&#8221;?<\/p>\n<p>Love you guys,<\/p>\n<p>Steven from the Midwest<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>25:00 LvlupExpo.<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Hello all,<\/p>\n<p>I was just re-listening to Diecast 81 about PAX when I heard Josh bemoaning a lack of video game conventions in his native Las Vegas. My folks moved near Vegas, and while I was making plans to visit them, I discovered that there is the LvlupExpo in May, which appears to be a gaming convention being held at the end of May. Would Josh known if this expo is worth a detour to the city? Or if this is the first time it is being hosted, would Josh have any recommendations for visiting that part of Las Vegas? It is being held at the Cashman Center.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for your time,<br \/>\nJessie<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>29:00 Livestreaming a tabletop game.<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Dear Rutskarn,<\/p>\n<p>A few Diecasts ago you said that the best way to get you to GM a<br \/>\nsession was just to hang around you for a few months until you were<br \/>\nsetting up a new group. The rest of the cast seemed disappointed that<br \/>\nyou hadn&#8217;t done anything with them.<\/p>\n<p>Is there any way you could do something livestreamed playing some kind<br \/>\nof RPG with the crew? It would be fun to watch.<\/p>\n<p>*Goes back to lurking*<\/p>\n<p>Peacehammer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>35:00 The Changing field of PC Games.<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Dear Diecast crew, the Spoiler oracles<\/p>\n<p>It looks like the US interest on PC games are waning every year, as they focus more and more on consoles. Meanwhile European (mostly German) and Russian developers not only are creating some great PC titles, both AAA and indies, it actually seems like it is the strongest gaming market over there.<\/p>\n<p>Considering Valve is barely a game developer anymore, do you think that Europe and Russia are going to overtake the PC market in the coming years?<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Your Brazilian fan, RCN<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>38:00 Graphic limitations as art style.<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Dear Diecast,<\/p>\n<p>With another potential graphic generation upon us, what do you think of how previous graphic limitations seem to have become full fledged art styles like 8 and 16 bit inspired, the occasional FMV, etc. Do you think early 2.5d and 3d graphics will get a similar treatment?<\/p>\n<p>In that vein, do you have games of that era with art you feel holds up today? The N64 Zelda game&#8217;s are abstract enough to feel the same to me, for instance.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for the thoughts.<\/p>\n<p>Jakale<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>58:00 Hair in character creators.<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Dear Diecast, seers of the Spoiler<\/p>\n<p>Nowadays games have pretty advanced character creators. The results might usually be minimum, but we have sliders for everything from nose bridges length to lip thickness.<\/p>\n<p>Hair, however, seems to still aways be a simple choice between several models. If you&#8217;re lucky, you can at least pick a variety of colors, but usually you&#8217;re limited to things like &#8220;mullet&#8221;, &#8220;ponytail&#8221;, &#8220;shaved&#8221; and &#8220;mohawk&#8221;. Why can&#8217;t hair have the same sliders as a face? Why can&#8217;t I have sliders for the length of my character&#8217;s hair, or at least the length of their ponytail? Or how shiny or opaque it is? Or how messy or tidy?<\/p>\n<p>I guess this question is mostly directed at Shamus, but it still drives me mad sometimes. And what&#8217;s up with Oblivion and facial hair anyway?<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Your Brazilian fan, RCN<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And then the show ends on a Witcher rant. For no reason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another mailbag episode. I think we only covered about a third of the questions we had waiting for us. Note that I&#8217;ve wiped the board clean, so if your question wasn&#8217;t answered, then it&#8217;s now gone for good. Sorry. On an optimistic note, having a 1:3 chance that your question makes it onto the show [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[287],"tags":[456,164,105],"class_list":["post-25842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diecast-2","tag-dragon-age","tag-saints-row","tag-witcher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25842"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59474,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25842\/revisions\/59474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}