Featuring: Ammo, Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen
Tonight we start the show by letting you off the hook and explaining a reference that originally I was just going to make the show title without explaining. Bel has been playing an obsessive amount of Greedfall and it is the sort of experience that the deeper he gets into the game the more his opinion of it improves. Tam has been playing Elsinore a game where you recast Hamlet with the goal of trying to get Ophelia to survive. In many ways he says this is the game that he wished Return of the Obra Dinn had been. Bel talks about TemTem the not-Pokemon MMORPG which will likely give the storied franchise a run for its money because it is really well done. Kodra takes our advice and explores Into the Breach and has an “Oh Crap It’s 2 am, how did that happen” moment. Finally Bel is astonished that Theros Beyond Death brings back Underworld Dreams at Uncommon rarity.
Topics Discussed:
The Mighty Ferrite Bead
What it does do
What it cannot do
Greedfall
Improving Opinion
Games that Sucker Punch You
Elsinore
Obra Dinn with Better Story
TemTem
As close to a Pokemon MMORPG you can get without being sued
Featuring: Ammo, Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen
Tonight we start the show by letting you off the hook and explaining a reference that originally I was just going to make the show title without explaining. Bel has been playing an obsessive amount of Greedfall and it is the sort of experience that the deeper he gets into the game the more his opinion of it improves. Tam has been playing Elsinore a game where you recast Hamlet with the goal of trying to get Ophelia to survive. In many ways he says this is the game that he wished Return of the Obra Dinn had been. Bel talks about TemTem the not-Pokemon MMORPG which will likely give the storied franchise a run for its money because it is really well done. Kodra takes our advice and explores Into the Breach and has an “Oh Crap It’s 2 am, how did that happen” moment. Finally Bel is astonished that Theros Beyond Death brings back Underworld Dreams at Uncommon rarity.
Topics Discussed:
The Mighty Ferrite Bead
What it does do
What it cannot do
Greedfall
Improving Opinion
Games that Sucker Punch You
Elsinore
Obra Dinn with Better Story
TemTem
As close to a Pokemon MMORPG you can get without being sued
We are still in the process of releasing all of the original episodes of Bel Folks Stuff as I build up a vault full of brand new content. This show originally aired on December 4th of 2014.
For years Alternative Chat otherwise known as Alt was a fixture of the World of Warcraft community. Over the years since I recorded this episode I have lost touch with her as to the best of my knowledge she is no longer doing the game blogging thing. This is something that happens as folks move in one direction and others move in a different occasionally perpendicular direction. However this episode was extremely enjoyable to record as we sat down to talk about stuff and things with a sizable dose of Warcraft. If you are interested in the things Alt is doing these days you can find her on the Internet of Words blog or on twitter via @MoveablePress or @InternetofWords.
Most of the time when I am playing a video game it tends to track along a fairly predictable trajectory. After the core conflict has been established we generally follow a path that leads to its resolution without much deviation. Occasionally there are minor set backs but nothing really unexpected. Greedfall however managed to do something that few games do in that it caught me completely by surprise and threw some events out of left field that I was in no way planning for. There was a moment yesterday while playing where shit absolutely got real and I was forced to make some really hard decisions really rapidly without much time to mull them over. I am uncertain if I made the right decisions, but I appreciate that the game managed to catch me off guard like that.
Of note… predictability isn’t really something that bothers me much in as game. I actually sort of like moving forward checking off boxes as I go and reaching the conclusion that I see in front of me. I think this is why spoilers in general don’t bother me either, because so often I am sitting down and watching something and in my head I am predicting the next move or the character that is going to unexpectedly betray the on screen party. All of that said I am extremely pleasantly surprised when media manages to pull the wool over my eyes and shock me, and often times those experiences are much more memorable. Everyone remembers the first time they watched Seven, The Usual Suspects or The Sixth Sense if they managed to go into them without having the major spoilers revealed. The thing here though… is I think this shocking turn of events was caused by my own actions and I need to do some research to determine if I am in fact right about that.
I said yesterday how I tend to stick to playing the same handful of characters and ignoring the rest of the party. I think Greedfall is finally a game that is going to make me reconcile that sort of behavior with a vengeance. Now however I don’t really want to deviate from it because I am curious how deep this well goes. I’ve also noticed that at various points during the games I have failed quests that didn’t factor into my head as something that would be closing off to me by my actions. So I have this feeling that there are machinations going on behind the scenes in the decision tree that I am simply unaware of. While there are still some issues with Greedfall, the more I play it the more compelling I find it. I absolutely get why this made it onto the games of the year show.
Now since this is what my readers really want… some gratuitous pictures of Josie. She is such a sweetheart and this weekend we need to figure out how to start introducing her to the other cats. Kenzie has more or less stabilized and I have been trying to give Mollie and her the bulk of my attention. I spent about an hour in the office upstairs with Josie and they seemed to not mind at all. Kenzie returned to sitting on the box beside me while I played Greedfall immediately afterwards and didn’t act pissy about it… so I am guessing that is progress.
My wife has been getting the lion share of bonding time, and that is fine by me. She tends to follow me around anytime I am in the office so she absolutely knows who I am and that I am friendly. Right now I just think she wants constant attention after having come from a shelter environment. My hope is that we can start introducing her to the wider house and if I thought she would actually stay with us on the sofa we would do that. I would try and get Kenzie and Mollie to hang out with me on my side of the sectional and then wife could have Josie on the other side. Things with cats however never work out as planned… so we will see how everything shakes out.
