{"id":53015,"date":"2021-10-11T06:00:53","date_gmt":"2021-10-11T10:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=53015"},"modified":"2021-10-11T00:56:48","modified_gmt":"2021-10-11T04:56:48","slug":"diecast-358-the-good-the-bad-the-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=53015","title":{"rendered":"Diecast #358: The Good, The Bad, The Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I find it interesting that we got two different mailbag questions, both asking roughly the same thing. Both people asked for examples of &#8220;best&#8221; writing. Nobody asked for examples of &#8220;worst&#8221;. It&#8217;s always nice to have a chance to work against the idea that I&#8217;m a negative guy who complains about everything.<span class='snote' title='1'>We can do that tomorrow, when I do the &#8220;This Week I Played&#8221; post.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I thought of more examples of good writing after the show, but I don&#8217;t want to keep amending the list forever. I&#8217;m sure if I missed anything crucial you&#8217;ll tell me about it in the comments.<\/p>\n<p><br clear='all'><audio controls><source src='\/diecast\/diecast358.ogg' type='audio\/ogg'><source src='\/diecast\/diecast358.mp3' type='audio\/mpeg'>Your browser does not support the audio element.<\/audio><div><small><a href='\/diecast\/diecast358.mp3' download='diecast358.mp3'>Direct download<\/a> (MP3)<\/small><br\/><small><a href='\/diecast\/diecast358.ogg' download='diecast358.ogg'>Direct download<\/a> (ogg Vorbis)<\/small><br\/><small><a href='?cat=287&feed=rss2'>Podcast RSS feed.<\/a><\/small><\/div><br \/>\nHosts: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.peripheralarbor.com\/\">Paul<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/\">Shamus<\/a>. Episode edited by <a href=\"http:\/\/steamcommunity.com\/profiles\/76561198087035658\/\">Issac<\/a>.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/diecast\/diecast358.mp3\">Diecast358<\/a><\/p>\n<p><table class='nomargin' cellspacing='0' width='100%' cellpadding='0' align='center' border='0'><tr><td><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rcItEntVvm0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen class=\"embed\"><\/iframe><br\/><small><a href='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rcItEntVvm0'>Link (YouTube)<\/a><\/small><\/td><\/tr><\/table><br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n<strong>00:00 I am Iron Man<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As this post goes live I&#8217;ll be at the hospital again, getting another dose of iron delivered directly to my bloodstream. It&#8217;s going to be totally metal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>07:42 Dyson Sphere Program<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I wish I&#8217;d spent time with this game instead of <a href=\"?p=52060\">trying in vain to squeeze some fun out of (un)Satisfactory<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>09:26 New World<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/newworld_secret.jpg' width=100% alt='You can tell this is a secret fishing spot by the massive crowd. (It only renders the closest N people, so there&apos;s a lot more than you can see in this screenshot.)' title='You can tell this is a secret fishing spot by the massive crowd. (It only renders the closest N people, so there&apos;s a lot more than you can see in this screenshot.)'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>You can tell this is a secret fishing spot by the massive crowd. (It only renders the closest N people, so there&apos;s a lot more than you can see in this screenshot.)<\/div><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m playing on the Trapalanda server. (East coast.) How are things elsewhere? Is Fisherman&#8217;s Bend the Goldshire of New World?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll bet it isn&#8217;t. These folks take the game pretty seriously right now. Maybe once a bunch of people hit the level cap they&#8217;ll get bored and come to Fisherman&#8217;s Bend to dick around, but for now everyone is all business. Chat is currently filled with discussions of:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Leveling<\/li>\n<li>Gear<\/li>\n<li>Combat<\/li>\n<li>PvP<\/li>\n<li>Endless recriminations regarding the faction wars and why we (purple) aren&#8217;t winning.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>37:59 Signed copy of Mess Effect?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It helps if I do these in batches. Drop a comment if you think you&#8217;ll want a signed copy of <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3anEtvZ\">my book<\/a>. Once I figure out how much interest there is, I&#8217;ll order a few and we can get the process rolling.<\/p>\n<p><strong>39:05 Mailbag: Shang-Chi?<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Dear Diecast<\/p>\n<p>Have you guys seen Shang-Chi? Or more specifically, did you guys go outside to the cinema to watch Shang-Chi? I admit that I&#8217;m miffed that Hollywood is rushing to pretend everything is back to the old normal while a new delta variant of the plague rages across the country, just to keep theaters open for their &#8220;prestige value&#8221; compared to home streaming.<\/p>\n<p>Love,<br \/>\nMule<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>45:54 Mailbag: Foreshadowing and Payoff<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Dear Diecast,<\/p>\n<p>in Final Fantasy VIII (that&#8217;s 8 for readers unfamiliar with Roman numerals), there are several ways to access the game&#8217;s lore. Aside from the obvious (NPC dialogues) there is also Squall&#8217;s PC in the Balamb Garden classroom. A number of lore entries can also be accessed through the in-game menu.<\/p>\n<p>Now one of those lore entries talks about how Guardian Forces (what summons are called in the game) have a detrimental effect on their users&#8217; memories. Later in the game this detail pays off in the plot by the main characters finding out that they have forgotten some important stuff.<\/p>\n<p>That plot point has been criticised for coming out of nowhere, which made me wonder: do you think that all foreshadowing of important plot points needs to be done in mandatory dialogue and\/or cutscenes, so players don&#8217;t get blind-sided?<\/p>\n<p>Vale,<br \/>\n-Tim<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>55:01 Mailbag: Good Writing?<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Hi guys,<\/p>\n<p>Shamus&#8217;s most recent article on writing in video game writing sparks an obvious question: What are a few of the games you both regard as the most well written titles out there? Furthermore, how many of those are relatively new, versus being &#8216;old classics&#8217;?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not trying to spark an old grognard argument there, mind you. :) All of my favorite game stories were classics for almost the entirety of the last decade, but these last few years smaller studios and indies have produced many tales that I&#8217;ve found to be truly exceptional.<\/p>\n<p>-JMobius<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And another one:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Dear Diecast,<\/p>\n<p>Last week you covered bad writing. What about good writing? What are your top 3 best written games? Not simply good, but the best by your own standards?<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Steve C<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>1:03:01 Mailbag: Annoying Messages<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Ok, so I was playing Elder Scrolls Online, ran into a quest where I get &#8220;You must gather your party before venturing forth,&#8221; and it was all I could do to not throw my mouse into the wall. Apparently, I have some unresolved issues with Baldur&#8217;s Gate and Icewind Dale. So, is there a type of game message (or a particular one)  that just drives you guys up the wall?<br \/>\nThanks,<br \/>\nMelfina (Mel-feen-ah) the Blue<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>On the show I said &#8220;Spawn more overlords&#8221; was the message I hated to see. But I think I should have picked &#8220;Whole article on the front page, boss.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>1:10:53 James Webb Telescope<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><table class='nomargin' cellspacing='0' width='100%' cellpadding='0' align='center' border='0'><tr><td><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4P8fKd0IVOs\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen class=\"embed\"><\/iframe><br\/><small><a href='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=4P8fKd0IVOs'>Link (YouTube)<\/a><\/small><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n<p>The James Webb telescope! Just two more months, and our astrophysicists will FINALLY have the tools they need to search for James Webb. <\/p>\n<p>Does he exist? What does he look like? Does he mind us looking at him? We&#8217;re finally going to have the answers to some really big questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I find it interesting that we got two different mailbag questions, both asking roughly the same thing. Both people asked for examples of &#8220;best&#8221; writing. Nobody asked for examples of &#8220;worst&#8221;. It&#8217;s always nice to have a chance to work against the idea that I&#8217;m a negative guy who complains about everything.We can do that [&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":[],"class_list":["post-53015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diecast-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53015","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=53015"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53029,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53015\/revisions\/53029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}