Bombin' the A.M. With Scoops and the Wolf: 07/18/2014

Has Vinny joined the show yet?

@bartok: Patrick said he won't join but might be a guest on rare occasion, maybe.

:/

@bartok DaVinny: Original Sinner

@chuck_: What? where? Unless they have some other podcast in mind for Vinny to be on that would be a HUGE blow to giant bomb to not have Vinny on any podcast.

Patrick: Just a quick tip for trading on Divinity. On the middle of the trading menu menu you can see a scale button, if you press it then it auto balances the transaction so you don't have to move money manually.

Yeah, I think everyone agrees with you. Hope they figure something out soon.

I would main Shitty Wizard if I could summon the will to play Dota.

Was chat not working this morning in the live stream? I don't know if that was the case, or if it was just me. This might not be the best place to pose this question though, in retrospect.

Edit: Well, they reference the chat working in the video, so I guess it was just me? That's weird.

Honestly I just can't stand hearing about Dota anymore....

YEAH

Im gonna say something probably unpopular...

but I think Dota is not really a videogame in the traditional sense. I actually think the e-sport thing kinda makes it different. I played it daily for a few years, and I think I used to enjoy it, but then I realised that it had all the components of sport that used to piss me off of real sports (mainly in the reaction of people when you start getting into real competitive territory), so I stopped, and haven't really looked back...

One very distinctive characteristic is that the audience for that game simply wants that game, with no important changes or evolutions (ok maybe some.. balance changes and new characters ), for ever. Like... soccer or football or an actual sport, where you really want the rules to remain the same... madness!

While most of the traditional gaming audience actually wants some form of evolution, they ( and by that I mean me ) grow a bit tired of a game being always the same. But the dota players are actually offended if they change their game in any way.

I also imagine that my Father ( who has nothing but contempt for videogames ) would kind of be interested in watching dota.

However... I don't know if it would be good for videogames as a whole... Mobas are kind of on their own space now.. detached from the flow of the industry in a way. Riot Games is like a parallel dimension with shitty anime ripoffs and questionable fanart aesthetics. it's success would likely only further the general prejudice about videogames being about points and kills and mechanics only fit for nerdlings.

Good on them though.. I guess.

I'm honestly perplexed by Patrick's confusion about Divinity.

I have never played a single cRPG in my life. Never played Baldur's Gate. Never played Fallout or any of those old games. I've only played JRPGs. Same is true with my buddy whom I'm playing with. We've only played JRPGs.

We have no problem with this game and never really found anything confusing. I literally have no idea what he is talking about when he talks about the systems being arcane or overly complex. These stats look like stats like in every other game I've played. You mouse hover over a stat and it explains exactly what it does. It's not like some arcane D&D bullshit where it says 2D7 roll or something. You have basic stuff like Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, and Vitality. Then you have special skill categories (like magic schools) and passive bonuses that you choose from every few levels. That's it.

As far as the location of NPCs, I kind of wonder if it's not that he's just looking at guides rather than justtaking in the world and learning to internalize it. The magic guy is above the Legionaire Headquarters because he works for the legionaire. The Witch who sells her good is a traveller from out of town so that's why she's in the inn. Then there is a general marketplace where people sell stuff and a big ass general store that sells everything.

I also don't see what's so hard of understanding that each character has their own set of skills and their own inventory. That takes like one sentence to understand.

I'm not trying to bust your chops man, I just don't get what's so confusing about it. If you had said the battles were hard, I'd totally get that. The battles ARE kind of hard, especially early on (and especially if you don't have a good early summons like the Spider summons). But the interface and inventory stuff? It's like no different than Xcom or Skyrim or any other game. This is really perplexing to me.

I agree 100% with the last two long posts. Well done both of you.

Here, here.

I can see that vibe coming off of DOTA. It's probably why I never got into MOBA's; they're just so repetitive and boring. At least shooters have different maps.

Haven't had the chance to play Divinity yet, but I can say I've never felt confused about these sorts of thing in any game. Could it be an age difference thing, being that I grew up with older titles that makes this sort of thing normal to me? Just a thought.

To Patrick, in regards to Divinity, I think a lot of the skills and inventory are separated between the characters to accommodate for the multi-player aspect of the game. You and your friend would control different characters and so you would have to be independent of each other to make it work.

I think Patrick is seriously over-blowing Divinity's "complexity"... I can understand a period of getting used to it's mechanics and how you do things, but he seems absolutely befuddled by the game. It's not that crazy. Pull it together, man!

Gotta echo the general confusion over Divinity here. A certain learning curve might be expected but I just can't quite wrap my head around finding so much about it to be overly complex or obtuse. Especially from someone who's gone pretty deep into Souls games.

I do really hope it clicks for you though, it's a great game and would be a great entry into the genre as a whole.

Yeah seriously, Divinity is not a particularly complicated game. It can be a hard game but that's a different thing. I don't know what Patrick is going on about.

Guys don't be scared by Patrick's over-exaggeration of Divinity's complexity, the game is not really that complicated. From what I can tell, most of his issues come from not really understanding some of the very basic systems that would make his life easier. An example would be what someone has already mentioned about being able to automatically make any barter trade be of equal value(in gold) by just hitting the scale button on the trading screen. Also keep in mind that you can trade items from your inventory for other items instead of using gold, which is the reason for the game not automatically completing all transactions with your gold in hand. That being said, I hope Patrick can get over these hurdles and completely enjoy this amazing game.

So a week on and grumpy Alex´s Wolf among us review is still not here :D

Why would there be an embargo on OlliOlli when it's already out on Vita and Jeff did a few personal Twitch videos about it? Guess what, embargo? It's good. Jeff liked it.

Also, @patrickklepek still needs to put up that MP3 of "Coming Out of Our Shells"

Does it say in any of those guides for Divinity that you should just read the manual? Because that would solve half of Patrick's problems right there.

Just keep on going Scoops, it's not as hard as you make it out to be! If you are the dancing wizard you claim to be, some stat screens shouldn't be that scary.

@mr_creeper The variety in dota comes from it's 100 or so heroes, in a way the game is the map and I'm not sure adding another thing to balance around would be worth it.

@patrickklepek I'm not sure why people say that you need to play X hours of Dota to be "good", it's no different from any other video game and that sort of rhetoric only serve to intimidate new players. The matchmaking system should place you with others of the same skill level, despite what some flaming moron will undoubtedly tell you.

Holy slideshow, Batman.

I feel like Patrick following a guide for divinity is hurting him more then it's helping. You are getting told what to do, without figuring out the why and how it fits together. The best piece of advice I can give is ditch the guides, read the manual, the rest you can figure out. Don't be afraid, you're a smart dude!

(we also have some general tips on the forums if you're really struggling in fights)

Especially talking about the Darksouls gargoyle moment. You are waiting for that satisfying moment. Would that moment have come if you read a guide on how to beat them? What build, gear and skills to use? There are quite a few interesting and trying bosses in Divinity: OS, and figuring out how to beat them was quite enjoyable for me. Wouldn't want you to miss out :P

I'm glad that email wasn't just completely incomprehensible to me as a non-native English speaker.

I normally enjoy actually watching Bombin' the A.M. but the last few have been unwatchable. Sound isn't syncing up and the video is choppy. I don't believe it's my internet connection. But having it on the in the background on a minimized window is still good.

I don't think you guys appreciate how awesome it is that Doom's going back to the high-speed ultraviolence of Doom 1 and 2. It is fully awesome. It is pretty much the best way Doom could possibly exist in our modern age.

I mean, how long has it been since games have been that crazy? Games these days are all "shoot this guy while aiming down the sights from across the road" or "stab this guy with a knife and he falls over."

KIDS STUFF

...

(If you want to get an idea how crazy a reinterpretation of old-school Doom has the potential to be, check out Brutal Doom.)

@chuck_ said:

Aren't Vinny and Alex working from the same office? If not ignore all this.

I'm not one of those hate Patrick guys, in fact I think he is a great addition and I love his articles and interviews, but it seems like a horrible mistake to not add Vinny to the mix. I think he is that little something that will make Bombin' the A.M. on par with the Bombcast. I'm really bummed out that literally my favorite member of the Giant Bomb crew has been absent from podcasting especially when he has the perfect opportunity to join this one.

Finally Powerbombcast is forthcoming! I was like 2 days away from just PMing Alex and saying "I need my Powerbombcast fix right now! I'm getting the shakes. You can't do this to me Navarro! What did I ever do to you?" Anyway thanks for the morning show and keep up the great work. Meow.

I don't get the complaints about the combat being really hard.. I didn't die once in the first eight hours of the game and i'm not exactly the biggest crpg nut.. Also the shop keeper thing i also don't get.. i just traded with every person i found that seemed like he could have shit :P

There were actually two Fatal Frame games on the Wii. Fatal Frame 4 which is the one that was never released in English (except for a fan patch) and that most people agree isn't that good. But there was also a remake of Fatal Frame 2 that was released in Europe called "Project Zero 2: Wii Edition" which is considered to be a quality title.

@sydlanel: Why would you vastly alter the game? That's like saying you want an enormous change to Super Mario Bros. just because you've played it too much or something. Just play another game. I don't really understand this.

And yeah Divinity's UI is hilarious at times, other than that it's fine for me, coming from someone who would probably never touch D&D.

After Patrick's last tweet on Divinity clicking for him I just want to chant:

"One of us, one of us, one of us!"

I am sure that's true and that, in it's current state, fans of the game are happy with it as is. It's just not something for me.

Anyone not have this show up on the RSS feed?