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A friend and I sat down and played Dark Souls with my bit of experience after bouncing off of it a few times (got to Gargoyles). Now he and I are addicted to that, as well Bonfireside Chat. I'm only listening after I've cleared an area, so have only heard the first three, but they're fantastic. The discussion with Zack from VGHD was great, because it went down a list point-by-point of everything I did on my first times through the Burg - including going every way except the right one from Firelink, complete with fighting the skeletons for about an hour having heard so much talk about the game's difficulty. Can't wait to play more so than I can keep listening. As a side note, my friend found Bonfireside Chat on his own after I recommended WOFF to him (as well as IT and VGHD) since he's just getting into podcasts. He listened to WOFF and heard about Bonfireside, and based on the discussions of the SA forums in the first few episodes he got on here as well. Zack, you were so enthusiastic on the episode about continuing with Dark Souls, but I don't remember if you ever discussed on VGHD if you completed the game, or eventually got sick of it? A lot of the navigation stuff seems pretty off-putting for you specifically since it's about recognizing and navigating 3D areas, and missing things like that ladder to get from the Drake Bridge down to the Burg bonfire could potentially create a lot of extra travel after deaths.
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Nov 10, 2014 03:26
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I got to the Capra Demon, and that's where I gave up.
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Nov 10, 2014 05:11
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zapjackson posted:I got to the Capra Demon, and that's where I gave up. You might need a bit of stamina to block two hounds hitting you at once but it's not that bad - Capra Demons are literally trash mobs farther in.
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Nov 10, 2014 05:14
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If Zack had kept up with it, we'd have tried to get him back on the show in addition to Riff. But alas...
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Nov 10, 2014 05:18
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I admit it took me a grip of times to get past Capra demon (I think my second or third character had an even worse time because I was trying to minimize leveling to avoid being invaded) but I've spent more retries fighting random garbage than that boss.  Maybe if it was a stick figure that told dick jokes he'd have stuck with??
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Nov 10, 2014 05:21
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No need to be a dick about video games yo.
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Nov 10, 2014 05:59
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zapjackson posted:I got to the Capra Demon, and that's where I gave up. 1. buy poop 2. throw poop over wall 3. dead capra (i did beat him legitimately, but who doesn't like throwing poop?) also: bonfireside chat is great
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Nov 10, 2014 10:52
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TetsuoTW posted:What's the tone like on Sirlin's podcast? I used to enjoy reading his pieces about game balance and whatnot, but he could be almost intolerably condescending about the idea that some people might value "having fun" over "winning all the time." I hadn't checked in on this thread in a few days and just saw this. Haven't actually checked out his podcast at all yet but it's really interesting how wildly views will vary between different communities. As someone who is relatively in touch with various fighting game communities, the thing that I actually like about David Sirlin is he's one of the tiny minority who is really willing to just say what everyone in the fighting game community thinks about people actually learning the games. On the other hand, his views on game balance and game design are fairly bizarre and much of why he's the butt of so many jokes among fighting game players. He likes guessing games way too much and is extremely confident about declaring how things are balanced and how things should work when he's often just wrong about things. He wrote a series of articles on his balance changes for SF2HDR which are often referred to as good reads to people who are outside the fighting game scene, but to those who know the game on a competitive level, his changes definitely changed a lot of things but didn't actually improve balance in any real way. On the other hand, his writing about playing to win is honestly one of the things in all the writing about games I respect the most from any author, though a lot of it does make him sound extremely socially awkward, which people also make fun of him for all the time. This is probably too many words about the guy without having actually listened to his new podcast. I just found the differing views very interesting.
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Nov 10, 2014 12:54
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I had no idea who David Sirlin was and listened to the podcast while cooking yesterday. This thread has definitely not let me down in the past. The tone is certainly authoritative, but I'm not sure if it's exactly a detriment to the podcast. He basically laid out some fallacies/common misconceptions and deconstructed them in the form of "Idea A seems like a good idea, but if you look past the surface it's a shallow idea that has a huge downside". I'm a big fan of people following the thesis -> evidence -> conclusion type of argument instead of relying on emotional appeals. He also talked about what people will associate as a game of skill and games that are solved versus have partial solutions.
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Nov 10, 2014 16:04
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I also enjoyed Sirlin's first podcast. These weren't earth shattering revelations, but a really good discussion on some common traps a lot if games seem to fall into. I'm not a fighting game guy, but the topics are broadly applicable, and the fighting game specific stuff was explained in a way I could understand. If your interested in design, probably worth a listen, otherwise not. I wish I disagreed with something he said, because me just saying yep doesn't spark any discussion.
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Nov 10, 2014 16:40
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Dr Suntory posted:1. buy poop how the hell do you know where across the wall to throw it? It takes me 10-20 firebombs to take out the first dog (and then I go in melee them, it's weird how that one move is a great equalizer)
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Nov 10, 2014 18:14
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coyo7e posted:Get a 90+% blocking shield, hold it up as you pass through the gate, then run past the garbage up the stairs, and across the arch. Firebomb as needed. The capra demon is pretty unique for souls bosses. There are a lot of bosses in Demon's and Dark 1 that sprint at you in the beginning, but not many where you walk through the fog door right into a life and death moment.
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Nov 10, 2014 18:36
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I asked not too long ago about edited podcasts and "A Life Well Wasted" and "Unlimited Hyperbole" were the only ones that really fit. Both are excellent and exactly what I was looking for, but both are discontinued. Is that really the extent of the pile for gaming podcasts? I'd kill for a "99% Invisible" style podcast that talked only about games. I recognize editing things down takes a lot of work, but I only listen to podcasts when I can focus on them (cooking, gym, biking, walking, etc) and can't handle unconstrained blather.
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Nov 10, 2014 19:50
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double nine posted:how the hell do you know where across the wall to throw it? It takes me 10-20 firebombs to take out the first dog (and then I go in melee them, it's weird how that one move is a great equalizer) I think as long as it gets over the wall the poison-(or toxic-) cloud is big enough to infect Capra. I've only done it once, but I used about 30 dung pies, half of which splattered on the outside wall. Also I needed some blooming moss, because handling poo poo poions you... and then, when Capra finally died, the fog door opened and one dog came jumping out...almost killed me.
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Nov 10, 2014 20:06
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Randallteal posted:The capra demon is pretty unique for souls bosses. There are a lot of bosses in Demon's and Dark 1 that sprint at you in the beginning, but not many where you walk through the fog door right into a life and death moment. This is the reason I don't blame anyone for bouncing off of Capra. Those first 5-10 seconds are so dicey that he feels completely non-Tips-n-Tricks-able. It can feel like no amount of helpful hints will get you through it. You either grind it out and hope for a lucky break, or decide that Dark Souls isn't for you.
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Nov 10, 2014 20:28
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Capra Demon was easy.
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Nov 10, 2014 20:34
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And with that the cycle of video game advice is complete
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Nov 10, 2014 20:48
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Song For The Deaf posted:This is the reason I don't blame anyone for bouncing off of Capra. Those first 5-10 seconds are so dicey that he feels completely non-Tips-n-Tricks-able. It can feel like no amount of helpful hints will get you through it. You either grind it out and hope for a lucky break, or decide that Dark Souls isn't for you. Once you know what to expect, Capra isn't an issue (I've never bothered bombing the dogs through the gate,) except for the rare times when the dogs manage to box you in at the dog door before you can get moving, or when you panic and run to the right and get stuck in the archways and eat poo poo to capra.
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Nov 10, 2014 20:54
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coyo7e posted:If that was true then no-death runthroughs would be far, far tougher. I can generally get through all the way past the gaping dragon without dying, well over 90% of the time My personal best was also getting through Queelag and stuff as well, although I tend to die a lot in the swamp. I think he meant that it's dicey to a new player, since there's very little time to process what the gently caress is going on and then its YOU DIED and back to the bonfire. It's a big roadblock to a new player, and a pretty simple boss to anyone with experience at the game.
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Nov 10, 2014 20:55
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I guess the difference being that some new players keep trying the same thing and failing and get frustrated, while others change up their tactics or gear to deal with it. Trying the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity - aka losing your cool and getting frustrated in a game.
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Nov 10, 2014 20:56
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It took me a few days to get around to this, but after the most recent WOFF I bought the original Resident Evil from the PSN since I want to have more context when the REMake comes out on Steam (I've only beaten 4, and played a little bit of 2). Just got past the first snake fight, and I'm liking it so far. It definitely feels like an old PS1 game, but the game is generally simple enough that it's still very playable. Also I'm playing on beginner because I'm a giant baby who can't deal with scarcity as a game mechanic. Now I too can feel the love of Barry and Barry's Beard.
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Nov 11, 2014 00:12
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So far my strategy has been to try bosses multiple times to get a strategy, then either grind it out (if I manage to make promising progress) or just say gently caress it and summon someone (if, like Capra, I feel no more prepared after five times). The first time I beat Capra was actually as a phantom, because it was my first attempt to summon and I thought I was requesting rather than offering help. Afterwards I summoned someone and we beat him again, which made the fight seem trivial with two people. Don't think that's me downplaying the difficulty of that fight, either. I still think it's a motherfucker to solo. As was mentioned by Gary and Kole, half the difficulty comes from the arena and the dogs, not just Capra.
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Nov 11, 2014 00:23
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Yeah, I try to phantom in every new area in Dark Souls now.
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Nov 11, 2014 00:24
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O&S were way, way bigger hurdles for me personally than Capra, who I got through (solo) in under half a dozen attempts spanning ~20 minutes. That's not to say Capra was easy, but I too feel the challenge was in the arena at least as much as Capra himself. I can easily see how people might bounce off of him if they managed to keep dying without making key observations, or because they unwittingly thought that whatever tactic that would have worked was in fact the wrong way to go because their first couple attempts with it were failures due to poor execution or simple happenstance.
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Nov 11, 2014 00:25
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Bouchacha posted:I asked not too long ago about edited podcasts and "A Life Well Wasted" and "Unlimited Hyperbole" were the only ones that really fit. Both are excellent and exactly what I was looking for, but both are discontinued. Is that really the extent of the pile for gaming podcasts? I'd kill for a "99% Invisible" style podcast that talked only about games. I recognize editing things down takes a lot of work, but I only listen to podcasts when I can focus on them (cooking, gym, biking, walking, etc) and can't handle unconstrained blather. Pretty much. People do podcasts because they're easy and cheap and don't require much discipline, and you can potentially get away with being as self-indulgent as you like.
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Nov 11, 2014 00:27
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PaletteSwappedNinja posted:Pretty much. People do podcasts because they're easy and cheap and don't require much discipline, and you can potentially get away with being as self-indulgent as you like.
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Nov 11, 2014 00:29
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Helter Skelter posted:O&S were way, way bigger hurdles for me personally than Capra, who I got through (solo) in under half a dozen attempts spanning ~20 minutes. That's not to say Capra was easy, but I too feel the challenge was in the arena at least as much as Capra himself. I can easily see how people might bounce off of him if they managed to keep dying without making key observations, or because they unwittingly thought that whatever tactic that would have worked was in fact the wrong way to go because their first couple attempts with it were failures due to poor execution or simple happenstance. Different bosses in Dark Souls affect people in different ways. We talked about it on the show but Kole banged his head on The Duke's Dear Freja forever and I second tried it. I can't tell you how many times the 4 Kings took me the first time through. And Manus, criminy.
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Nov 11, 2014 00:45
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Twitch posted:It took me a few days to get around to this, but after the most recent WOFF I bought the original Resident Evil from the PSN since I want to have more context when the REMake comes out on Steam (I've only beaten 4, and played a little bit of 2). Just got past the first snake fight, and I'm liking it so far. It definitely feels like an old PS1 game, but the game is generally simple enough that it's still very playable. Also I'm playing on beginner because I'm a giant baby who can't deal with scarcity as a game mechanic. The 32-bit era (somewhat rightfully) gets crapped on but good game design is universal. You look at the best games of the era and they all understand their limitations then you look at the roughest and they try to cram in too much. As much as I like Silent Hill I still think RE1 is a better designed game.
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Nov 11, 2014 00:56
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Bouchacha posted:I asked not too long ago about edited podcasts and "A Life Well Wasted" and "Unlimited Hyperbole" were the only ones that really fit. Both are excellent and exactly what I was looking for, but both are discontinued. Is that really the extent of the pile for gaming podcasts? I'd kill for a "99% Invisible" style podcast that talked only about games. I recognize editing things down takes a lot of work, but I only listen to podcasts when I can focus on them (cooking, gym, biking, walking, etc) and can't handle unconstrained blather. I doubt there's money available to do this, at least regularly, in games. 99% Invisible is a pretty small team for an NPR-style podcast, and even they do a fundraiser for a 5-6 digit number of dollars each year, to pay full and part time salaries for a team of more than one person. A Life Well Wasted seems like it was too life destroying to be sustainable, but I don't really know the story behind it. If my job was just "make podcasts," it's something I would love to try and put together, but even then the thought of it is terrifying -- if you can't afford to pay at least one dedicated person to work on producing and editing JUST those episodes as their full time job (and not spending that time, say, in the studio recording/editing/posting hours of conversational casts that would also be required to pay the bills), I don't know how you bank enough content to have it actually work. It brings me back around to, I don't know if that money exists in the Gaming Podcasting space. 
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Nov 11, 2014 01:47
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It probably doesn't help that only a small subset probably even want a heavily produced podcast. Uncut streams and podcasts off-the-cuff are the norm and popular and not really interested in hard hitting journalism
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Nov 11, 2014 02:21
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Yeah that all makes sense, and I don't envy podcasters' jobs. But I'm grateful regardless for the ones that forge ahead because my downtime has gotten to be so enjoyable in recent years. The two examples I cited were the only ones that seemed to have tried in the gaming sphere and they put out a commendable product. Despite that however, it didn't seem to be enough to warrant a continuation.
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Nov 11, 2014 03:12
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ImPureAwesome posted:It probably doesn't help that only a small subset probably even want a heavily produced podcast. Uncut streams and podcasts off-the-cuff are the norm and popular and not really interested in hard hitting journalism I think 99% Invisible/This American Life/Radiolab style podcasts are a lot closer to the audio versions of magazine features than they are to hard hitting journalism. It's more "here is some time I spent with this person or fact or history that I was interested in... now let me tell you/show you about it," than it is some sort of news fact bomb. But I know what you mean -- all of those styles are far away from off the cuff quick impressions & reactions found on most podcasts.
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Nov 11, 2014 03:47
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Hardcore History is a 3 hour long podcast that usually has 3 episodes or so on a topic and they come out every couple months based on how much production and research that needs to go into them. That dude also has a production staff and does his stuff on his own free time. There is also some trickle content effect to drum up a subscription for his stuff which is more shows and a bit earlier. I think that just goes to subsidize the staff he has on hand. Overly produced audio content has a home but it's super niche, not profitable, time consuming, and ultimately requires incredibly broad timelines for specific topics like how futurists didn't predict future war machines but rather their literately popularity called them into existence through their influential ideas and how this affected WWII warfare compared to WWI trench wars. Video games are too young and shallow of a medium to paint on that kind of canvas.
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Nov 11, 2014 04:43
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HOTLANTA
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Captain Internet posted:Video games are too young and shallow of a medium to paint on that kind of canvas.
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Nov 11, 2014 05:00
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You could probably make a documentary based off the last 20-25 years of design and how patterns and trends emerge. I mean, the biggest innovation in FPS these days are reusing ideas from 20 years ago (the whole mobility stuff in Titanfall and Advanced Warfare) and the response is like the whole genre got reinvigorated or something.
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Nov 11, 2014 05:25
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I think people are severely overstating the amount of time and effort required to make something of a higher quality than the average gaming podcast.
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Nov 11, 2014 05:34
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PaletteSwappedNinja posted:I think people are severely overstating the amount of time and effort required to make something of a higher quality than the average gaming podcast.
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Nov 11, 2014 05:37
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TetsuoTW posted:You mean like at least one dude who is actually involved in making a podcast? Yeah, what does he know? I'm not saying it doesn't take effort or skill to make a good podcast, I'm saying the vast majority of gaming podcasts are made by people with no skill or talent and no game plan beyond "lets talk about stuff I guess?" even though they have nothing interesting to say. There's nowhere to go but up, really.
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Nov 11, 2014 05:47
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PaletteSwappedNinja posted:I'm not saying it doesn't take effort or skill to make a good podcast, I'm saying the vast majority of gaming podcasts are made by people with no skill or talent and no game plan beyond "lets talk about stuff I guess?" even though they have nothing interesting to say. There's nowhere to go but up, really.
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Nov 11, 2014 05:54
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My kingdom for a well edited retrospective podcast. Breaking down what works and what doesn't, comparing it to games of the time. Something deeper than just "I played this, here are my thoughts." I'd listen to that. Is there really no audience for that?
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Nov 11, 2014 06:00
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