Diecast #100: Elder Scrolls Online, Bloodborne, Life is Strange

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Apr 22, 2015

Filed under: Diecast 92 comments

For our one hundredth episode, we’ve recorded an extra-long Diecast. Here we have three solid hours of whining, arguing, cross-talk, confusion, stupidity, and also the occasional mention of videogames.

For the purpose of the comments, I’m breaking the show notes into three posts. Below are the show notes for the first hour. You’re free to discuss any part of the show you like, but my hope is that we can discuss hour #1 today, and then cover the next two hours on Thursday and Friday.

Direct link to this episode.

Hosts: Shamus, Josh, Chris, Rutskarn, Mumbles.

Show notes:

3:00 Elder Scrolls Online, Guild Wars 2, Final Fantasy Online, Kingdom Hearts

Rutskarn recently began playing Elder Scrolls Online. From there, we digress into all the various MMOs we’ve played over the last couple of years.

splash_eso.jpg

22:00 Bloodborne and Dark Souls

This discussion is a bit of a re-run. I blame Josh.


Link (YouTube)

There’s a really important difference in how people enjoy games, and Bloodborne seems to make that distinction really clear. I’d love to study this and figure out what different people are after.

42:00 Life is Strange

splash_lifeisstrange.jpg

Warning: Spoilers for end of Episode 2.

58:00 Shamus talks about his computer problems and Skyrim Mods.

splash_frostfall.jpg

I was playing Skyrim with hardcore permadeath, Frostfall, and Realistic Needs.

Also: Windows 8 is SO much nicer when it’s not linked to an MSN account. No stupid login. (Infuriating when you’re rebooting repeatedly to solve a problem.) No stupid Microsoft OneCloud. (What a dumb waste. And it always seemed to eat a little more CPU power than made sense for an application I NEVER USED.) My local user folder is now my proper user name and not Microsoft’s idiotic web-safe name, which formerly put all my Documents into something like myemail@domai_000.)

It was almost worth re-installing just to clean that mess up.

 


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92 thoughts on “Diecast #100: Elder Scrolls Online, Bloodborne, Life is Strange

  1. Merzendi says:

    Congratulations on Diecast #100! I can’t begin to imagine how it is for you guys, but it’s really quite surreal to see the show on such a landmark: it still feels like it’s a brand new podcast.

    Also, I assume no Spoiler Warning this week?

    1. Trix2000 says:

      I can’t help but think “Wait, weren’t we in the 20s a couple weeks ago…?”

      Congrats on the milestone! Here’s to 100 more.

      1. Nimas says:

        Congrats on 100! Also when I saw the length I was quite happy (something to listen to at work now :D)

    2. Cuthalion says:

      Congrats to the Diecast, one of my favorite podcasts!

  2. shiroax says:

    Gratz on 100! I was worried that dud exploded and took this weeks diecast with it.

  3. shiroax says:

    Josh’s joke link is messed up :(

    1. shiroax says:

      And I messed up my email again so I don’t have the icon that I like :(
      Can you make it that I have the icon that I like, Shamus?

    2. Muspel says:

      Or maybe that it, itself, the joke!

      1. Svick says:

        Then it’s a pretty elaborate joke, since the HTML actually is:

        <a href=”<a href=” http:=”” http://www.uesp.net=“” wiki=”” oblivion:mehrunes_dagon”=””>Josh</a>

  4. Majromax says:

    > Also: Windows 8 is SO much nicer when it's not linked to an MSN account.

    Is there a way to update to 8.1 without making that link?

    1. Humanoid says:

      Yes. I don’t think anything special is involved to do so.

      1. James says:

        Windows 10 is out soon and as its free i guess ill update to it, mostly because Win7 is slowly losing support.

        1. RTBones says:

          Unfortunately, Microsoft is intent on this ‘cloud first’ attitude. When 10 comes out, it will be as obtuse as ever trying to login locally – screen shots from the beta seem to bear this out. Cortana (should you choose to use her – allegedly you’ll be able to turn her off) will suck up every piece of data about you so she can help Microso…err, you. I am sure it will be equally difficult to turn off OneDrive. I’m also fairly sure that at least some of the pre-installed ‘apps’ from Microsoft will have advertisements in them, much like they do in 8. Add to all this, Microsoft is doing their darnedest to get rid of passwords.

          I’ll certainly be interested in watching 10 when it comes out – but I will likely NOT upgrade, at least not until the community has a chance to un-Microsoft it.

          EDIT: I should add – I realize 10 is in beta, and things may change at the final release.

          1. On the one hand, I love having everything stored locally and run locally. I use Photoshop every ding-dang day, but I’m sticking with versions that aren’t subscription based. I don’t want my apps, my OS, or anything dependent on my internet connection to run or subscription fees that make my applications feel like AOL.

            On the other, I can recall when MS introducing automatic updates and error reporting was being touted as evidence we’d all be Borg in about five years. It was “reporting back to the mothership” and so on, which was often then followed by recommendations of using an older version of the OS or an open-source OS because otherwise you’d become part of the collective. Now, even among open-source apps and OS’s, auto updates from the ‘net are the norm and nobody seems to bat an eye. In fact, I think we’d be far more dubious of any software that had no apparent method of online updating since bugs would become permanent (unless you or your online pals could fix them).

            I also have made use of Google Docs and other cloud-based apps. I still have Word 2007, and I don’t see any reason to change that, either. So… I dunno. It always seems to be a tug-of-war between the greedheads that want everyone to pay a fee for something forever and those who make stuff that takes advantage of this big ol’ internet we have. Maybe it’ll work, but a part of me is reminded of the old mainframe dummy terminals my parents used when they were in college. I’d hate to think we’re headed back to “owning” a VT-220 that becomes a paperweight when the ‘net connection is lost.*

            * though that would be a terrific argument for making at least a low-level internet connection a “free” public utility.

            1. RTBones says:

              I agree – I will not pay for subscription based software. In my view, software is a PRODUCT, not a SERVICE. If you feel the need to charge me a few more credits to have my own copy, so be it.

              In the end, I will watch the Windows 10 development – but I am not holding my breath. So far, I can see nothing I need, and far too much hassle to turn off the things I dont like or wont use.

          2. James says:

            i agree i will wait and wait and wait, the free upgrade has a 1 year time frame on it, ill let smarter people then me fix it before i actually upgrade.

  5. Hal says:

    I picked up Skyrim off Steam when it was on sale last year (I already had the base game on 360) just so I could play it modded. I tried to go hardcore; no permadeath, but I did use Frostfall, no fast travel, etc.

    It didn’t last, though. For some reason, Realistic Needs was not stable on my system, and the progressive nature of it was odd. It started with the “Needs” part randomly ceasing. Then, attempting to cook would cause the game to crash. Eventually, attempting to buy from innkeepers would cause the game to crash. I got tired of discovering new features of it that would cause crashes, so I just turned off Realistic Needs.

    Unfortunately, once that happened, I lost all interest in the hardcore playstyle. It didn’t help that I was taking my first play through the Dawnguard questline. (Seriously, they stick your quest hub in the extreme corner of the map, and then send you to every opposite corner of that stupid world. It’d take me months of play just to finish that stupid expansion!)

  6. hborrgg says:

    So what are your thoughts on cities: skylines now that the hype has had a little time to simmer down? A lot of people seem to be sort of upset since they’ve learned about the active agent limit and the fact that people traveling to and from work is largely cosmetic (there’s a mod that changes this now but in the vanilla game but in vanilla businesses will continue operating normally even if the workers are stuck in traffic or can’t get to work at all).

  7. Thomas says:

    Onedrive is even worse than you’d think. I started using it to back-up all of my files and twice it’s wiped a days work on my dissertation.

    If I save a file when my internet is dodgy, it stores it, uploads it to the cloud and _removes the offline version_. If you then try and open the document again before onedrive has had time to redownload it from the cloud, Word will complain that it’s got an online version and an offline version that are different. It will only show you the offline version and it tells you that you need to pick which one you want to keep, irrecoverably deleting the other version. Without even letting you see which one it is. Without saving a back-up of the other version anywhere.

    If you’re switching computers a lot whilst you work its impossible to keep track of whether the online or offline version is out of date, so you have to roll a dice and hope you’ve chosen to save the up to date version or have a days work deleted.

    And then to top it all off, my internet cut out when it was uploading or something and it _corrupted my save file_. Without an offline backup.

    Onedrive is my bane at the moment.

    1. Zagzag says:

      Does it not even show you the date and time the versions were last modified?

      That seems like pretty basic functionality if you’re going to have a choice.

      1. Thomas says:

        Nope. It literally says “We’re sorry someone updated the server copy and its not possible to upload your changes now. ‘Keep my version’ ‘Keep server version'”

        I can tell you that because it just happened to me now for a new file that I hadn’t even saved yet. So I have no idea whether either version actually exists or not.

    2. Zak McKracken says:

      My dissertation used Spideroak for online backup and synchronization, and Back in Time (on Linux) for local versioned backups every 15 minutes. Worked extremely well, cost nothing and is safe as far as I can tell.

      If you’re on Windows, I can recommend Duplicati instead of Back in Time. Duplicati is a little roundabout to use and there is other software with nominally the same functions which may be better but I haven’t tried any alternatives yet. I use it to make backups from the local machine to a NAS. It gives you the ability to go back to any version of your directory (or files from it) in the back-up, and it uses fairly little extra space to do so because it saves only differences.

      In the same way, Spideroak also keeps a history of versions (you can decide how often backups a re made and how many are kept). The syncing is sometimes a little slow but it worked well enough for me. As long as you don’t try to sync to a mobile device, it’s even very very secure. No unencrypted content leaves your PC — and neither do the encryption and decryption keys.

  8. Wide And Nerdy says:

    A correction. Movie Tony Stark is chaotic good. Comic book Tony Stark, whenever I’ve read him, tends to oscillate between neutral good and lawful good. Most typified by Civil War when he decided the best way to deal with the looming eventual superhuman registration was to get ahead of it and implement the system themselves so that it was done in a way that made sense.

    You can argue about his ethics, I certainly believe he was acting with the best of intention and trying to make it work. The books muddle things by being really inconsistent with the program he came up with (at least during the arc) but in the build up, Tony’s rationalization was that his connections on Capitol Hill had already been telling him that this was coming and after the Stanford Incident, he knew he couldn’t stop it.

  9. Wide And Nerdy says:

    A correction. Movie Tony Stark is chaotic good. Comic book Tony Stark, whenever I’ve read him, tends to oscillate between neutral good and lawful good. Most typified by Civil War when he decided the best way to deal with the looming eventual superhuman registration was to get ahead of it and implement the system themselves so that it was done in a way that made sense.

    You can argue about his ethics, I certainly believe he was acting with the best of intention and trying to make it work. The books muddle things by being really inconsistent with the program he came up with (at least during the arc) but in the build up, Tony’s rationalization was that his connections on Capitol Hill had already been telling him that this was coming and after the Stanford Incident, he knew he couldn’t stop it.

    I was about to say “why do people have a problem with the idea that on DAY FRICKIN ONE of Superman’s career as a superhero that he would fail to contain the damage?” But Shamus made a good case for the right way to show him failing at that. Honestly its the first time anyone has made that particular case. Its always just been fan ragey “Thats not who Superman is. That should never happen even if it doesn’t make sense.” And as a lifelong Superman fan, I like to see his boundaries tested. Comics have matured past the idea that everything just always works out.

    Besides, this is a hell of a lot better than the abusive New 52 jerk who strangles helpless foes with a smile on his face (I will never forgive that at least until DC issues an official apology for making such a tool of a character of New 52 guy).

    Scene lifted from the comic book launch story written by DC’s premiere writer/story editor Geoff Johns. Meant to be our introduction to this character. And note they had time to fix this scene before turning it into a cartoon.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_mXWjaxTxU

    (Ok, so he isn’t smiling and choking Batman at the same time but he is smug and abusive. He dangles Batman by the neck and says “Talk while you still can.” You wanna know why the Zod neck snapping didn’t bother me? Because it was a hell of a lot better than this. He was ruined and I was afraid movie Superman was going to be a lot worse.)

    See also when he says to Wonder Woman “You am strong. Me like” (The actual line isn’t really far off.) And that line “So, like, what are your powers brah?”

    Yeah . . . frankly in light of what New 52 gave us, its a miracle that we got the humble half decent Superman the movie provided.

  10. Wide And Nerdy says:

    The movie discussion and last weeks discussion got me thinking. Chris talked last week about how cynical we all are and I agree I’m ready for that to end.

    But that lead me to wonder: What if one of the reasons we’re getting so much recycled IP in movies is because we’re so cynical that we won’t accept anything new thats sincere even if we’re turned off by cynical movies and we’ll only let our guard down for these older things from before the cynicism that have their tropes grandfathered in?

    It lets us sort of excuse the enjoying of the cheesy stuff because its being faithful to the cheesy innocent source material and maybe they throw in a few knowing winks. Its like the creators can’t completely admit they still like this stuff in earnest and neither can the moviegoing audience. Its not something hardcore geeks have a problem with (the ones who were geeks back when that got you beat up, not that I have any problem with the ones who got on board once it started being kind of cool*).

    *Hey, when James Franco and Stephen Colbert have had two fights over which one was the biggest Tolkien nerd and both fights were based on things you could only know from reading the Silmarillion, yeah, geekdom has arrived.

    1. Recycled movies and IP aren’t to do with audience cynicism. It’s to do with the fact that studios are lazy and risk-averse.

      Why risk a hundred million dollars on a brand new sci-fi movie when you could just remake one your studio already has the rights to? Why invent a new whimsical world of magic and adventure when you can just do a sequel to the one your studio did a few years back? The idea is that by doing so, you have built-in audience recognition among older moviegoers who will make back your investment by buying tickets, but will drag their offspring to see said movie, investing the kids in the franchise for future reboots/sequels.

      1. Alex says:

        “Recycled movies and IP aren't to do with audience cynicism. It's to do with the fact that studios are lazy and risk-averse.”

        I think that might be because they are accountability-averse, not risk-averse. Everyone knows Terminator: Genisys is going to be shit, but nobody’s going to get fired for doing such an obviously stupid thing. At best, it’s because the people responsible can pretend that “moar Terminator!” was a good idea and it’s not their fault it didn’t pan out, and at worst audiences will actually make it profitable to produce such shlock.

      2. Wide And Nerdy says:

        I know that risk aversion is the primary reason. I was just wondering if maybe this plays a factor as well, like maybe this is part of the reason why recycled IP is the safer bet.

        1. I’d say it’s more genre-oriented than IP-oriented. I mean, a lot of media consumption is kind of like being a football fan. You might dig sports in general, but you love football and will choose even a game between two teams you’ve never heard of to watch rather than, say, watching a murder mystery movie. I’d say the same holds true for flavors of film and TV. I’d be far more likely to watch a sci-fi series than a new police procedural. I’m very open to new sci-fi offerings, though I can get sick of them if the quality decreases, and I might go with other things that are close to what I liked before (i.e. switching to “Supernatural” or “Agents of SHIELD” if I think “The 100” has lost its charm).

          So while superhero movies are popular, we’re going to see a crapload more of them, and the most likely candidates will be movies with heroes the public recognizes. Unfortunately, this makes it harder for someone with a new superhero to tell tales about to get the greenlight and funding for such a project, since that involves developing and paying for new IP. It also means more risk because the audiences might decide that while they still like superheroes, they won’t go for “Captain Cronut” or whoever.

          Science fiction movies seem to have more original concepts coming out of the woodwork, but I think that’s because they can still be good with lower budgets (though you still get things like Interstellar and Chappie). You also still get the same kind of IP recycling: Star Wars, Alien, Star Trek, etc.

          1. guy says:

            I would point out that I had literally never heard of Guardians of the Galaxy before the movie came out and it still sold like crazy. Likewise Big Hero Six. It is clearly entirely possible for fairly unknown IPs to do quite well.

            1. Wide And Nerdy says:

              Yeah but as has been noted many places, they took that risk in the safest way possible. Marvel has been kicking tail, so I’m sure they could get money from papa Disney anytime they wanted.

              So its like “Its Marvel, you like Marvel. Its funny, its got space and action, its got a wise cracking talking animal (or at least the trailers make it look like thats his thing.) Its ragtag misfits.”

              Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it. I don’t think the humor holds up on repeat viewings, but I laughed the first time even if the jokes mostly felt like stuff I’d seen before. It just felt like they were really nervous about the risk they were taking and so dusted off every well worn trick they could find to make sure it worked. (Favorite moment: Groot slamming guys all over the place then turning back with the childlike “I did good right” face. )

  11. IFS says:

    On the subject of Chris’s experience with Bloodborne I have to say I’ve reached a similar point with the high level chalice dungeons. Most of the main game bosses with two exceptions were pretty fun in my opinion, those two exceptions being the same sort of thing where its just a pain to deal with them. The high level chalice dungeons meanwhile, particularly the Defiled dungeon, every boss is like that, or they’re a miniboss with extra health and super easy (fortunately the chalice dungeons are completely optional, though I do want to find the secret boss at the bottom of them). I can definitely understand that feeling of the boss being an obnoxious wall to interesting progress, although I didn’t have that feeling nearly as often in Dark Souls 1 or 2. As for the catharsis factor of killing a boss I started a second playthrough with a new character recently and I’ve found that there is something to be said for coming back and having those bosses that were previously a pain become something you understand and can move past (somewhat easily), which is a weird sort of delayed catharsis for those bosses that weren’t fun to beat on the previous playthrough. Bloodborne is still at its best when its giving you interesting and complex areas to explore and I think if the summoning worked better that would be a good solution to when you hit a boss that’s a pain, as is the best thing can be to just look for another place to explore. I have had some luck cooping with people on my friend’s list using passwords, but it can still take an annoyingly long time to connect.

    Also that elevator should be functional in both directions once you’ve used it once, if its not then that’s a bug. If it is bugged then that sucks because the route along it to Gascoigne’s boss arena is probably the best blood vial grinding route imo, there are three bridge trolls and a pig along it, each of which usually drop 2 or more blood vials, and the flaming boulder clears the bridge guys who sometimes drop other items.

    As for where I personally stand on the game I think it’s fantastic, though I prefer Dark Souls (mostly just the mythic fantasy aesthetic appeals to me more than the lovecraftian/gothic horror, though it could also be some nostalgia, and a preference for the somewhat slower gameplay).

    At any rate hope you enjoy Bloodborne Chris, don’t let those bosses get you too down.

    1. The elevator bug was a known issue and has been fixed in patch 1.03: http://www.jp.playstation.com/op/bloodborne/news/2015/04/103.html

      1. IFS says:

        Ah I was not aware that that was a known bug, good to know that it’s been fixed!

  12. Jokerman says:

    Wow…episode 100 already, truly loved everyone of them, thanks guys.

    1. Jokerman says:

      Why are all my comments being put up for moderation?

      1. Mine are, too. I’m using Google Chrome, if that’s any help. It’s been really flaky lately. If I leave a session up for too long, sites like this one require several refreshes before the page actually loads, and when it does, every comment I leave requires moderation. I’ve no idea what’s causing it, but I’m about ready to go back to Firefox, even though it causes me no end of memory leaks whenever it encounters Flash.

      2. Daemian Lucifer says:

        Because spam filter detects no archer in your system.

        Seriously though,the spam filter is just being an ass and Shamoose has no clue why.

        1. guy says:

          As a guy who is currently taking a course in AI, my guess is a poorly designed reward function for the learning system. In theory, the system should get “points” for methods that flag spam (probably by seeing how the method categorizes stuff Shamus manually flagged) and lose them for false positives. Then it picks the set of checks with the best score. It’s been giving a high and increasing rate of false positives, which probably means the false positive penalty is too small for our ratio of real comments to spam.

          I also have a possible explanation for why it’s seemingly at random. Apparently, most spam filters run on naive Bayesian models, which take a bunch of factors as input and basically assume that they’re unrelated. So it doesn’t necessarily understand that a comment is likely to be spam if it’s short, blandly positive, and contains a link, it understands that a short comment is likely to be spam, a positive comment is likely to be spam, and a comment with a link is likely to be spam. In theory, it should also know that a comment without a link is highly unlikely to be spam, but either it doesn’t assign that probability properly or the threshold for flagging spam is too low.

          Come to think of it, it’s possible that Shamus doing content moderation also feeds into the spam filter, and that’s confusing it. If it’s running naive Bayesian, it won’t understand that they’re separate categories and just throw all the features in the same bin. That would be easy enough to fix by running two different copies of the filter and tossing each category in a different one.

          1. Shamus says:

            In the current case, the filter radically changed behavior overnight. I got up one morning and half of all valid comments were put in moderation.

            This makes me suspect that the culprit is Akismet, the main spam filter used by WordPress blogs. Akismet talks to a server so blogs can aggregate their learning. Only a radical change on the server side can explain the sudden change in behavior, since I haven’t made any changes locally.

  13. Zagzag says:

    Ruts! The Elder Scrolls Online does have a roleplaying community. It’s not as active as it once was, and apparently getting instances of maps where you can find roleplay can be tricky, but it’s definitely out there.

    From what you’ve said previously I get the impression that organised roleplay in a videogame isn’t really your thing, but you can find more info here.

  14. HeroOfHyla says:

    Yeah, Final Fantasy XIV is super fun. I will say that the dungeons definitely get more regimented once you get to the super hard combat. Early level stuff lets you be flexible because people are still learning. Older hard content lets you be flexible because you’re crazy overgeared for it right now. “Current” content is a lot tougher, and generally requires a more set strategy. However, someone inevitably does it wrong, and all the fun comes from making up for big mistakes. You should have seen the World of Darkness (latest 24-person raid) run I did today, half the party was new so it was super hectic.

    Also, for best results find a fun and laid back Free Company to join. http://i.imgur.com/ps1CJee.jpg

  15. Wide And Nerdy says:

    Whats the confusion about a TV computer (as opposed to the office computer hooked up to a monitor I assume)? Its a TV with a computer hooked up to it. I have my desktop computer hooked up to my TV. I gather its still not a common thing to do.

  16. Ilseroth says:

    Just so you know Mumbles. there was a Felix the Cat game. way back on the NES
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNv9-beLNGU

    going to go back to listening now :)

    1. Mumbles says:

      When I was a kid, I had this game I was addicted to where you could make cartoons with Felix the Cat in it? Idk what it’s called but I loooved it.

  17. Re: Teen talk in media dialog.

    Most of the time, they talk like everyone else around them, when they’re not feeling pressured to put on a performance for peers/friends. This kind of dialog is usually only limited by their education/exposure to references. A teenager can still be “dumb,” “smart,” or other general categories an adult would be. The difficult part here is in selecting the language (i.e. a teenage geek would be less likely to make a “will it run Crysis” joke these days). I find writers often think “limited experience” is the same as “limited intelligence.” Then they try to insert loads of slang they don’t get, as if people use slang for half their word utterances. One particularly awful example of this is the dialog for Superboy in the “Death And Rebirth of Superman” comics. Its cringe-worthy, if you want to go find it. Keep a count of how many times he says “fresh” in ways that sound like a 60-year-old dude is writing the script.

    When around their social group, speech patterns can vary wildly. Perhaps the best dialog examples I’ve ever heard was in rural areas when eating in restaurants. These were teenagers who didn’t have a lot of actual exposure to things like people who were into gangsta rap from going to live shows, or who hadn’t been to places with strong cultural effects on language (like California). It’s hard to keep a straight face, but hearing a table full of teens at Arby’s filtering pop culture through the few places they could get it (most likely TV and YouTube) was almost like hearing a bunch of Vulcans trying to behave like the humans they’d seen on that documentary series, “Seinfeld.”

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      “Most of the time, they talk like everyone else around them, when they're not feeling pressured to put on a performance for peers/friends. ”

      But thats the thing,most of the time they are around others of their age,hence all the slangs will filter into every teen in the group.You dont even have to try to impress everyone in order to start talking in complete riddles.

  18. Superman v. Batman is DC saying WE WANT BILLIONS OF AVENGERS DOLLARS, TOO!

    They missed out with the Nolan trilogy. It was built to be self-contained while Marvel was building up a larger world. When it was over, it had gotten goofy (I’m sorry, but Bane was ridiculous, and Bale’s voice was just awful) and wasn’t a world-building exercise like the Iron Man movies.

    Then they missed out with Superman. He’s one of the few heroes who can hold a stand-alone movie without needing a larger universe. He can take care of himself if the government (or whoever) tries to capture him, and he could be a decent herald for some kind of “age of heroes.” Instead, they took a cue from Superman Returns being a remake of Donner’s Superman I and decided to reboot Donner’s Superman II, but with a higher body count and Superman killing someone. I wish they’d sat the people behind Man of Steel down and forced them to watch the Superman animated series at the very least.

    The only other option I can think might work for DC is just to go full on Astro City: Superheroes are out there, they’re common, you see them, you’re pretty much aware of who the big ones are, and here are stories about them and the people around them. Of course, I’d rather have a TV series based on Astro City instead, but I’m not in charge…

    1. Groboclown says:

      I’m really pumped to see Daredevil vs. Superman. It should be great.

      1. 4th DImension says:

        Ummm, what? They are not even published by the same company let alone are they in the same universe. DD is in MCU.

        OR I’m probably not getting the joke.

  19. Corpital says:

    I’ve been getting back into Skyrim as well recently, after Mumbles proposed playing a fist only monk without graverobbing on Twitter. Can also only use Dragon Shouts, no other magic.

    Playing as a Kahjit, Brother Scratchett, on his way to enlightenment(with the help of every piece of Moonsugar and Skooma that can be found). The only problem until now was the notorious troll on the way to the Greybeards thanks to only normal clothes and a bit of fur armor, because Frostfall’s installed. It’s fun, so thanks Mambles.

  20. ChristopherT says:

    About Life is Strange
    “No one talks like that.” As said in the diecast, some people do. And, what does it matter? No one talks like Buffy Summers and her friends did, nor like Angel and his, no one said Frakk until some Frelling show started using it, now it’s some sort of geeky word tossed about on TV shows. It’s a form of style. It’s okay not to like it, but I think people keep trying to prove it’s bad rather than they just don’t like it.

    Personally I’m enjoying the game. It has a few downsides, lip synching, an odd stiff animation or two, an occasional bug, but I find it charming. There was this character in episode 2, a fisherman outside of the diner, and the way he talked reminded me so much of the ship captain from the Longest Journey, made me smile, I wanted to ask him if he knew any sea shanties.

    As to the end of episode 2. and the cake. I understand it as Mumble’s said, the game would just confirm and respond to whatever selection and then you’d make the next. But I found it kinda worked for me, it felt a little more real that way to me. It wasn’t just “No, don’t eat cake, you’ll gain weight!” and then they decide not to eat cake, instead they were like “you’re right, I’m watching my figure, cake is bad. NO! Cake is awesome and it tastes great! I’m eating the cake!”, because of course they would want to eat cake, at least that’s how I took it, or tricked myself into seeing it. It’s not entirely reasonable, but are people generally reasonable in that sort of situation?

    1. Mumbles says:

      If we ever do a Spoiler Warning on this game this is exactly how I’m going to talk about the scene lmao.

  21. Neko says:

    Woo! \o/ Congratulations on 100 dies cast! I’d better do some walking and catch up with #99 today…

  22. Phrozenflame500 says:

    On the “Life is Strange” dialogue:

    I’m still reletively young enough to know that teens in my area definitely don’t speak the way Life is Strange portrays them as speaking. That being said, even if it’s a West-coast regional thing, it still feels a bit forced.

    I think it’s a combination of the “30-year-olds writing teens” thing Chris mentioned, but I actually think the voice actors are more at fault here. They are really bad at spontaneous emotion and come off pretty unconvincing to me. Since most of the slang comes out when the characters are excited it feels less like natural slang and more like a voice actor trying desperately to emulate natural slang. I think this is what most people pick up on when they critisize the dialog, not necessarily a poor script, but poor delivery exacerbated by unfamiliar material.

    That being said, I still really like the game. I respect it actually making an attempt to make your choices matter, and the time-mechanic ads an extra layer of complexicity to the dialogue system.

  23. hborrgg says:

    I assume “TV computer” means a computer hooked up to your wide screen TV in the family room or wherever. It’s the next logical step once you stop using your TV to watch television.

    1. Wide And Nerdy says:

      I posted the same thing above.

      This morning, I suspect that this batch of Homestar Runner fans was tickled by “TV Computer” because it made them think of Videlectrix’s “Video Computer TV Game” with “Good Graphics.”

  24. DeadlyDark says:

    I think JJ Abrams quite good in what he does, directing I mean. from what I saw, Alias was good, I like his direction on his movies. Into Darkness’s problems is from the script and Abrams wasn’t screenwriter here (and I am not sure that he has much influence on the writing process), and even here there are some really good moments in the beginning. But aside of theat, pacing and action, actor works are all good. And I watched STID in theater twice which I normally don’t do. So I am quite optimistic with ep7, especially if script will be good (saide from tossing aside EU, but at least it’s honest decision).

    Not so much hopefullness with BvS. Too much unearned pathos and nothing interesting so far. I like Zack Snyder’s visual style, but WB kills it. It wasn’t very interesting visually in MoS, and I’m afreaid, same story with BvS. Well, at least Aquaman looks cool.

    1. Groboclown says:

      My biggest issue with the Abrams films I’ve seen is that they seem to rely on nostalgia to drive the narrative, rather than a real story.

      1. DeadlyDark says:

        Partially agree… Especially with the last third of the STID with very direct quotes. That was embarrassing I can’t deny it.

  25. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Im a batman fan,and I thought that trailer was awful.Except for the steel chinguard.

    1. Groboclown says:

      Arg! The DKR suit. He put on that suit in DKR in order to intentionally lose. Yes, it allowed him to go fisticuffs for more than a little with sups, but still.

  26. RTBones says:

    Wait, 100 episodes? Really?

    Inconceivable!

    Congrats!

    1. MichaelGC says:

      Well actually there’ve been 102 episodes; it’s just that this one is called “Diecast #100.” (Bioshock Infinite and GDC both got unnumbered episodes.)

      ♪ ♫ Where have aaaaall
      ♬ The pedants gone?…

  27. Wooji says:

    When it comes to 7zip vs zip or rar Tomshardware have a rather nice and long comparisens
    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/winrar-winzip-7-zip-magicrar,3436-7.html

    At a quick look its closer to a 20-30% better compression rate and also a 20-50% faster compression.

    Since winrar can handle 7zip I never even thought about the fact that it is a “wierd” format.

  28. Daemian Lucifer says:

    I would totally play mein kampf match 3 video game.Heck,anything you make as a match 3 video game will be played by tons of people.

  29. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Nice foreshadowing you guys have there with “Shamus you are captain america” and then later he goes “I get it,thats a simpsons reference”.

  30. Thomas says:

    As far as cake eating goes, when they ask the trivia question that’s probably one of the coolest moments in gaming.

    They establish this pattern of answering random trivia questions for small little missions and then they give the time rewinding powers so that if you get it wrong you can always go back and try again. So you get used to just trying all the options and seeing what you got right.

    And then suddenly they make a trivia question really really matter, and its based off some half glimpsed photo that you might have seen whilst in someones bedroom. _And then they remove your ability to rewind time_

    It was stressful as, I was completely on edge and it was hard for me to even select an option.

  31. Core says:

    The reason why some claim to find Souls games not hugely difficult is just that half the skills that the series relies on are also required in the majority of J-action games. In BB, you have parry that functions somewhat like MGS:Rs, the dodging feels a little Bayonetta, etc, it’s not malice it’s that Souls belongs to a genre some folks out there are fans of. Reading animations and exhibiting some situational awareness really isn’t that difficult when you’ve been doing it for like ten years in different games…

    To me, the appeal is mastery though, you get through the game once, learn it and on subsequent characters, the bosses are turned into punching bags for rather satisfying payback and suddenly instead of a game about learning by pain it just becomes a fast paced action title.

  32. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Suggestion:You should really have audio cues for spoilers.I listened to this waaaaay before I read the post(6 hours before,more or less),and Im sure Im not the only one.Spoilers dont bother me,but maybe someone will sometimes be bothered by them.

    1. MichaelGC says:

      A short prefatory audio clip of Rhuts Khan singin’ Cotton Eye Joe should ensure no one ever hears any spoilers ever again…

      1. Ledel says:

        Are you kidding? That is way too awesome. If they used that audio cue then by the time spoils were spilled nobody would be able to find the skip forward button.

  33. Benjamin Hilton says:

    Watching the SBH video for Bloodborne and seeing where it goes story-wise and thematically just made me sad…

    See I’m Like Shamus in that this type of punishing game never felt good for me. (and no that won’t change no matter how much to tell me it will)

    But…

    The pseudo Victorian era, the quasi steampunk weapons, the Lovecraft…this is literally EVERYTHING I’VE EVER WANTED IN A TRIPLE A GAME….but it’s not made for me…it’s made in a way that will never let me enjoy it…

    can, can I just have a difficulty slider? please? I want to like you. No?

    I…

    I just feel so robbed.

    1. Talby says:

      You can – summon for co-op. It makes clearing bosses much easier depending on the skill of your partner.

    2. Robyrt says:

      Sadly, Bloodborne doesn’t have a lot of the “easy mode” cheese tactics that previous games had. You can, however, sidestep a lot of the timing required just by using the axe’s transformed charge attack, which spins 360 degrees and knocks everyone down. Even bosses get staggered, so it’s pretty safe just to walk backwards a couple steps to recover your stamina, dodge one attack, then spin attack, repeat x20.

  34. Psy says:

    7zip is used because it is open source, free and has faster (un)compression for the compression rate.

  35. Daemian Lucifer says:

    About the “teens not talking like this”,if you ever interacted with teens from another group during your teen years you should know that each one has their own in group slang.Teens from just different parts of a city have different slangs,let alone from different cities,or worse from different states/countries.So unless you live in the exact city of that game and say “no one talks like that”,you have no clue what you are talking about.

  36. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Damn you guys,half the things I want to talk about are in the third part of the cast,and now I have to wait for a couple of days or feel guilty about derailing the topic.*grumblegrumble*

    Though I have this one more thing to add:
    I was like those guys from life is strange before it was popular.

  37. Magistrate says:

    I for one would be so up for long diecasts. You guys talking is exactly the right amount of distraction to listen to while working without needing to concentrate TOO much, and the more of that the better.

  38. TMC_Sherpa says:

    I know this is from hour 3 so I guess I’m cheating but….

    Peazip. It’ll open dang near anything.

  39. BeardedDork says:

    I find the fan dichotomy between Dardevil and Batman value Superman maddening. I personally like Daredevil, I don’t love it I like it. It is a bit overly dark for my tastes. I say this and the rebuttal I usually get is that it’s like the Frank Miller run. The same people who respond with that then turn around and say a Superman story shouldn’t be as dark as Batman vs Superman looks. To which I point out that it’s based on the Frank Miller story. If DC were doing the same “fun” style movies that Marvel was doing they would be accused of band wagon jumping, when they follow one of the only formulas that has worked for them they are accused of being stuck in the past.

  40. Nyctef says:

    I really LOVE Life is Strange. Incidentally, I identify mostly with Max herself – I was totally that shy dork who never really got on with people. I’m super-excited to see what happens next.

    Also, the music is amazing, both the real songs and the OST that they made for it. I could chill out and listen to the soundtrack on loop all day.

  41. Cybron says:

    Ouch, the Mumbles callout re:Spiderman alignment comment. Wasn’t trying to nitpick or anything.

  42. Alchemist64 says:

    Gosh, that brief part about KH in the beginning makes me really want to discuss/hear a discussion about the plot/story/characters/writing of the Kingdom Hearts series with the Diecast. Sadly, my full thoughts would probably turn this comment into a multi-page essay. I’ll say this about the whole “darkness-no there’s two darkness, etc.” Mumbles mentioned: I believe the writers for the series post-KHI just retcon the story to fit both whatever explanation-no-one-wants they are trying to tell each game, and fit the character-moments/emotional-beats the story largely serves. The writing decisions for some of the confusing stuff in this game, such as everything with Ansem make more sense this way.

    1. Phantos says:

      The best way to play Kingdom Hearts is to just ignore as much of the “plot” as possible.

      That way madness lies.

  43. Steve C says:

    I was one of the people running Guild Wars 2 dungeons with you. I continued playing a for a few months more after you quit. What I discovered later was the combination effects of “finishers”. They are the stuff like if you put down a ring of fire it does damage direct but another player can come by and shoot arrows over it and they become flaming arrows. Or someone else can cast a blast spell in it and players will suddenly get a bonus to all their stats in addition to the regular effect. All these were called finishers and there were a lot of them (36 total combinations) and they were *exponentially* more powerful.

    I think the developers for Guild Wars thought people would be using them all the time in dungeons and balanced around that. Except people didn’t know that as it was never ever taught in game. Something like Dark Souls uses the first boss to show you can jump onto an enemy from a ledge above for massive damage. Nothing like that existed in Guild Wars. You needed multiple players working in concert to figure finishers out. But multiple players would fill the screen with unicorn puke of spell effects that obscured any useful information.

    It made me think of Shamus’ praise for Arkham Asylum- a deep combat system that rewards mastery of the system and expertise. The big difference is that in Guild Wars there was not enough feedback to teach players how to play. Imagine Arkham Asylum combat with no combo counter, no description of abilities and no summaries of how well you did. Would you still like it? That was the fatal flaw in the Guild Wars dungeons- solo play didn’t teach it and group play prevented learning it organically.

  44. Mumbles, you don’t even need to fight Shamus. You throw a cat in his face and you’re risking his life.

    Also, yer less like the Avengers and more like the After Hours crew.

  45. Phantos says:

    Man, I had the exact opposite reaction as Superbunnyhop did when I found out about the shameless Cthulu mythos C+P job in Bloodborne. I actually felt the world of that game became smaller, less detailed and less interesting when it decided:

    “Aliens.”

    Whatever mystery and depth the game might have had was washed away with that one word. The Dark Souls games have answers to the questions they raise, even if they’re not obvious at first. But I feel like Bloodborne tips its’ hand so early and so desperately, and doesn’t balance that with any decent, memorable characterization that it comes off feeling half-assed.

    There’s no buildup to anything, and there’s no pay-off. All it has is a flimsy excuse to go over here and kill more monsters. I get that the game has a stiffy for dream-logic, but I feel like that and the Cthulu stuff was just a lazy excuse to not make a real story, with characters or an arc, or anything emotional or psychological at stake.

  46. Sam says:

    Coming back to this after finally getting around to getting an opportunity to play Life Is Strange, I could not get through the second episode. I love episodic gaming so far. But I could not stand any one. Being a 19 year old I couldn’t find any connections with the characters aside from Warren. Not even in the vein of being the “Nice Guy” who sees himself as being passed up despite his best efforts. But really just being a nerdy guy with very niche interests.

    The bad guys were so cartoonishly dickish that I couldn’t find any motivation to really object to them. All the background characters are so hipster in design, and I can’t stand hipsters. Then even when I tried making efforts I couldn’t find enjoyment in having to deal with and play diplomat to so many annoying, trite, cliche, cartoonishly two dimensional characters.

    Max was actually too much of a blank state non-entity for me. Too much mopey noncommittal dialogue and internal monlogues without any real emotion killed my attachment to her.

    But finally, my real deal breaker, was that early moment in the diner when you get one of those non reversible “important decisions”. By this point I had already figured out “Hey, judging how her story involves these clearly bad things and matches with the story from Chloe I think she got tricked into this bad thing”. If Max is supposed to be our Character Insert then she should have also figured this out. So when I answer Kate’s phone I was expecting better results than what actually went down.

    From my standpoint, there was no reason for this to become a binary mutually exclusive thing. Again, I had already figured out what was going on with Kate, so I saw the reasonable choice as letting the dangerously unstable girl know that she’s not being “abandoned” over a phone call so I can help another friend deal with a bad situation where she’s become clearly depressed and extremely stressed.
    Instead Chloe gets pissy while Max, and by extension I, the player, are forced into a ridiculous damned if I do, damned if I don’t where we/I have to focus on and dote all our attention on one or the other. Otherwise if we/I don’t we/I are giving a little here to one and a little there to the other and trying to give half-measures that would end with getting the worst result from both.
    And I really don’t feel like that made any sense in-universe if Max is supposed to be having my thoughts and reasoning for her actions.
    And if it can’t make any sense in it’s own universe that just destroys any of the verisimilitude or immersion that is so much more important for this style of game than almost any other genre.

    Sorry for the post necromancy.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Instead Chloe gets pissy while Max, and by extension I, the player, are forced into a ridiculous damned if I do, damned if I don't where we/I have to focus on and dote all our attention on one or the other. Otherwise if we/I don't we/I are giving a little here to one and a little there to the other and trying to give half-measures that would end with getting the worst result from both.

      Thats not true.In fact,focusing all your attention to just one of them is what leads to the worst result,while doing it half and half ends up giving a better result.Rarely does a single of these choices influence something completely,and its rather a mix of all your actions towards a person that is calculated.

      1. Sam says:

        Oh, is that what happens? Granted, that makes complete sense in a real life way. Like I said, it felt artificial and gamey like they just wanted to put a binary choice. I quit the game right at that point and didn’t look back I’ll admit.

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