Giant Bombcast 583: "Under the Top!"

I'm surprised no one remembered the huge mismanagement allegations against Dennis Dyack.

They're memorable to me because of the big to-do they sparked in one of LPer supergreatfriend's streams. They got mentioned in the chat in connection with the Shadow of the Eternals Kickstarter (which was ongoing at the time) and whether or not Dyack could be trusted to head up such a project anymore. The mod, who apparently wasn't familiar with the story and was not a paragon of stability, misinterpreted people taking issue with the accusations presented in Kotaku as taking issue with Kotaku itself, freaked out, and started banning those people as "GamerGaters" (which certainly no one there was).

No one else had this interpretation of events, of course, and the chat devolved into a mass of people trying to explain what was being discussed vs. the mod banning anyone who disagreed with their weird idea of what was going on. That was the biggest meltdown I've seen in a chat. Almost everyone in a fight, unintentionally, with one unreasonable person, who was trying their darnedest to get the chat down to just them.

Is there no video for this episode?

[edit] scratch that, just got a bit confused by the new layout and the fact that the link on the main page just said "listen now"

I've just been doing the weird thing of re-watching the old premium videos in order from the oldest these months. It's worth it.

I love how EA says the “old way doesn’t work anymore”! They haven’t used the “old way” since Dead Space 2! How would they know if it works or not?

Listening to Will explain the piece compatibility of VR equipment with each other makes me glad I never dumped any cash on it. The software would have to be revolutionary to justify dealing with such bullshit, and it ain't even close yet.

@benpack Dota Plus already gives you extra realtime information through the Plus Assistant if you pay for it. This is not a new development.

I don't know if it's a big deal that they tell players when to pull. Like that seems to fall in the same pay 2 learn corner as Dota Plus. Having information on screen that tells you if you're on track to have a decent net worth & cs score and which skills to level. Useful for newcomers, but veteran players will know when they're falling behind & which build they should go for. Similar case here: If you're somewhat serious about dota, you have learned the important timings by heart or looked at a timings map on the subreddit. If you're a newcomer, having that info on screen speeds up the process of learning those timings.

If you have a problem with the whole premise of dota plus and the advantages it gives, because it doesn't start everyone at the same level playing field i can see where you're coming from. But i don't understand why the inclusion of this visual information is suddenly pay 2 win while the previous information was deemed to not be pay 2 win by the community at large.

Hmm, today I learned Giant Bomb has a wiki page for Hoodie and lists the games in which hoodies appear in.

1:11:35 Brad should spend less time on reddit

The thing with Final Fantasy is that up till 14 every one of those is seen as the best one to someone. Like i have love for 8, which is seen as not a great one by the majority. I do have to say that i consistantly see people praising 6 & 10, with 8, 9 & 12 picking up steam as time goes on. 7 was the undeniable king back when i was a teen though. Seems like people are slowly cooling off on that game as time moves forward. Still a good game though.

They laugh off the idea of conversating with brands, but it's actually very effective. Look at Blizzard, where guys like David Kim & Dustin Browder (Starcraft 2) Ben Brode (Hearthstone) & Jeffrey Kaplan (Overwatch) have grown in popularity compared to most other online game developers because Blizzard wants those smaller teams to step forward to talk to the community. Seeing a likable person explain how & why they're changing the game and responding to the community's questions can take a lot of uncertainty & doom scenario's out of the realm of possibility. Which for EA will always end up in the most negative ways based on their reputation. That said, just packaging bullshit in a nice way won't do much. They have to create goodwill with the people and make 'letting the players have fun' the number 1 goal. There are plenty of people willing to stick up for companies like Bethesda, Rockstar or Ubisoft. The amount of gamers that have a similar positive feeling towards EA seems incredibly low. Relationship management is clearly needed there.

Jeff's gotta be seeing Modern Warfare 4, right? A lot of streamers are making their way to LA on Thursday.

@beefbearsupreme: I think it's judge's week for e3

This reminds me of a guy a few years back who had tried to get into the Final Fantasy series but never really took to any of the installments he tried and was looking on Tumblr for suggestions on the one he needed to give a shot. I forget which ones he tried and bounced off of, but 7 was definitely among them. He was inundated with suggestions from folks stumping for their favorite FF.

The one he really glommed onto ended up being *1*. Go figure.

I know this isn't what you guys want to hear, but maybe a short video on how to use the new dropdowns?

These first couple of weeks probably won't be representative of the new UI, so a video would hasten the transition. Especially since it is now, dropdown to Premium, dropdown to Download, but make sure to right-click and Save As the download select. I mention this as first impression is to usually left-click to choose a dropdown option, but you guys continue to do your thing.

Why isn't this one named "Veiny Shafts"?

I loved the bit with recorded Jeff. The cast clowning around in the beginning over Jeff and then eventually realizing they should probably be quiet. But getting bored and just watching their faces as they resign themselves to their fate of listening to 5 minutes of rage 2 talk. The impromptu Jeff animation was top notch also.

GLOW wrestling game!! Do it Netflix!!

Silicon Knights was a far better developer than Gearbox. Borderlands was fine. I absolutely love, and look back fondly, on Legacy of Kain and Too Human. My controversial Too Human review where I was mistaken as the real Cliffy B because Giant Bomb told us to grab any user name we wanted when they started. Was a wild ride for a few days:

https://www.gamespot.com/too-human/user-reviews/2200-239625/

And an article apologizing about the mistake:

https://www.engadget.com/2008/09/01/cliffyb-defends-too-human-from-critics/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKlipsV9Ns2JJ2QCs9RIrHQMIQ9BcNC3fmN0L7D2ZnyNPFKXm-HglTezF-_Ez9Nj0NIa60h_NrATZ00XlaMhIUitHNIqTZqbKLwzNrFGmir88Czs8hy3rASd3WDRhUASnpSffd746hPEjRwoAeh39D00T-4WiP6upglm6z5sP6O3

Ahh, the good ol' days of young, scrappy Giant Bomb!

Many mobile Battle Royal games have some kind of battle pass and yes PUBG Mobile certainly has one.

The PC handheld thingy Brad mentioned is probably the GPD WIN. It's pretty nice and I use it all the time to play indie games and retro stuff on emulators. Currently I'm playing Wind Waker, Forager and Ace Attorney trilogy on it.

Edit: Hah, @brad you totally answered a Beastcast question! The one about hoodies.

@dryker

haha that's a great story!

But yeah, i agree with you. Silicon Knights was a very exciting developer. Honestly, i was way on the Brothers in Arms train, so it was dissapointing to see how Gearbox developed through the years.

If I had to pick a game that defined this console generation it would be Warframe. I know people who have played it this entire console generation. I only got into it ~6 months ago, and I can see things in it that I think other games were inspired by, both gameplay wise and monetization.

Heck, its also a game that from what I understand, was dependent on influencers for its first spike in popularity. Add the fact that they did what amounts to a crowd-funding drive, and that is basically this generation in a nutshell.

I know its a blindspot for you guys, but for a lot of people it looms large.

Can someone give me a heads up of this FF discussion is just "They're all bad past 4/6 for reasons that are DEFINITELY not just my nostalgia" again so that I can... Skip it.

WOOO! Will Smith!!! Love that guy. ^-^

Normal is definitely not the difficulty to play Rage 2 on if you want to not just dome people in the head with an AR all the time. Abilities become much more key on from Hard onward.

Same thing with the cooldowns. You're only limited to a long cooldown if you don't invest in your abilities at all. If you explore the world and invest into them things can get pretty wild. I still behind where Jeff is in the QL story wise. Yet with just 2 abilities (out of 4) Shatter and Slam; they are both now at base on 15 sec cooldowns with 2 uses on Shatter; that's an ability every 5 seconds already, that are infinitely useful on Hard compared to just trying to shoot a whole camp of armored guys that do more dmg to you, Shatter now has AoE and Slam now pulls in enemies to epicenter and has a way bigger area too. That's not counting your sprint dashes, or the constant use of Overdrive, which by the way has skills to further reduce ability cooldowns while in overdrive, exactly what Ben was asking for ^.^

I am basically always using something constantly to quickly clear groups of tougher enemies that otherwise would have taken like 10x longer just trying to shoot them one by one into their armor etc.

Haha, did Jeff quite literally phone in his complaints? If it's just a pre-recorded message and not part of any sort of discussion wouldn't it be better attached to a review or something rather than taking up space here?

It is sort of genius, now they can play this file every time the game comes up and it'll be the same as if Jeff was there, imagine the time saved :)

Everything they said about Rage 2 (outside of the open world) sounds like them describing DOOM 2016.

Brad: Play Spelunky again. Yama must die!

Listen, I love me some Ghostbusters 2 but it is not better that Busters 1. Will Smith couldn't be more wrong. Also as a kid 2 was way more terrifying than GB1.

There's no need for a 5 minute ad on the premium version, you can let premium users know there's a sale going on with a quick 10 second mention not a full on ad slot. My subscription was set to renew tomorrow and I just cancelled it because I'm sick of these ads.

Yay, Brad's back!

*how* are they confused about apex loot boxes? yes, you can buy the loot boxes with real money, just like every single other loot box ever.

So I looked it up and Will was actually 100% right about pants it turns out.

Rage 2 is incredibly fun on hard and nightmare difficulties.

lol okay my guy, peace ✌️ ?

As an immediate alternative, some GLOW characters are definitely available on the custom character creations roster on Steam for Fire Pro Wrestling!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=974728692

@skinnersweet:

I usually just hit the fast forward button. Not hard my duder. Also for someone who was about to renew, wouldn't it be nice to not pay as much? There are better things to get mad about. Especially on the world wide web but do what you gotta do I guess.

Listening to the email section now and Jason mentioned he kept his left thumb on the N64 stick for Wrestlemania 2000. The stick was actually relegated to taunts, the secret automatic kick out, and was used for finishers in combination with strong grapple.

Regarding motorcycle license: If you have a driver's license, there's a section that says the class of vehicles you are licensed for, usually coded with a single letter. If you get a motorcycle or truck license, you just get an updated license with those classes added to it, not separate licenses. And yes you can get a driver's license with just motorcycle class on it, which looks the same as any other driver's license, just with only the motorcycle class on it.

I am a very stereotypical nerd that most people would never think rides a motorcycle to look at me. I had early-mid-life crisis at 30 (as in, boy I really need some interests outside of video games) and learned how to ride as a result. That was several years ago now and I am super, super glad I did it. Go on at least one big motorcycle trip a year now. I strongly recommend to anyone with even an inkling of interest to at least take a motorcycle riding class. Don't think that you can't do it.

It can be dangerous; but so is skiing, or climbing, or kayaking, or any number of outdoor activities. A lot of the danger of motorcycling can be mitigated by being responsible, aware, and riding defensively. I do think it was for the best that I picked it up later in life though; as a teenager or young 20s...not sure I could be trusted to be responsible and might have really hurt myself.

lol jeffs image search animation was funny as hell, well played.

A mere $2.9166 monthly right now to hear weekly about Mussolini's granddaughter. Earnings calls. The ESA's "advocacy" (lolol). Ragey worlds on Normal. Industry hijinks. E3 apartment hunting. VR hardware compatibility matrices. Game code stashed in the walls. Staff medicals. And the occasional game review! I'm in. Be in with me.

ps スケートIV. Strap it on.

Was Ben unaware of the previous time Giant Bomb talked about EA's Instagram being full of Skate 4 demands? It's a legendary Bombcast segment.

Giant Bombcast - 02/23/16 - "#skate4"

Surprised they didn't cover the Projared drama. I get why though. The situation is a lot muddier and nefarious than the drama around that IGN guy, Palmer Luckey or Randy Pitchford.

Jeff's pretty spot on with Rage 2. It's exceedingly mediocre in most categories, but still somehow manages to be really fun to play. I'm 15 hours and not sure how long I'll enjoy upgrading all my guns/powers, but so far I want to keep firing it up. Here's a quick rundown of more items on that subject (bullet and numbered lists aren't working so I'm putting custom list separators):

- Story is immediately forgettable. Make project Dagger or whatever.

- I was COMPLETELY mistaken on the tone of the game. I thought it'd match the Andrew WK trailer with how goofy the clips were, but those were pretty much ALL of the goofiness in the game... aside from the two guys playing Slapass behind the swamp capital. I'm surprised by how seriously all of the characters take the story.

- The moment-to-moment gameplay feels really good. You usually have a new power queue'd up or a gun with a non-empty clip to switch into. It gets even better when you actually find the upgrade trees for your powers (I thought those just had the base level upgrades! They have whole dang trees!)

- Nothing feels absurdly grindy yet. I still like clearing bandit dens because I usually have a new gun or power to try out and the fights involving big mutants give me a reminder that there's a dedicated dodge button in the game.

- The skill trees for the projects that gives you passives, your powers, and your weapons are all littered with great upgrades that I always want more of. That's a good sign. A bad skill tree makes me look at it and find like one or two things to max out then get bored, but there's a lot to put on your wish list here.

- I can't believe this next point. I can't ACTUALLY believe this next point. The driving feels awful, especially motorcycles. After creating absurdly fun and great feeling car combat for Mad Max I thought this was the one thing they'd knock out of the park immediately but no it's pretty poor. Motorcycles feel laggy when adjusting turns of, cars feel way too weighty, and the hover crafts have wide turns with unreliable flight. This makes me dread the upcoming convoy battles.

- Graphics are rather pretty and it's generally easy to find out where I can climb with the pink paint. I like the pink in the explosions, too. Nice touch.

- You'll hate finding that last storage chest / datapad in each area so here's my advice: don't stress about 100%-ing each area until you get the perk that creates sonar pings when you're chests / datapads. Helps massively in cleaning up areas.

It's fun to play but I don't think I'll remember this in a few months.

@lonelyspacepanda: why would they care about a random youtuber? they're not talking about him because they likely don't even know about it, because it's boring schoolyard level drama, not because it's "muddy". randy pitchford and palmer luckey are/were leading companies in the industry and are relevant to discussion.

@larmer: let out a heavy sigh as ben acted like the skate 4 meme hasn't been going strong on all ea social media for years.

I love the email regarding jackets and coats and everyone on the podcast was lost. Very clear indication that they do not listen to the beastcast.

Here's my quick hot takes from this week's episode:

• -All Lootboxes are awful and predatory, regardless of what the ESRB claims; kind of wish the guys would shit on this more
• -OPM Season 2 is fine, Ben be crazy
• -Brad said something nice about a Final Fantasy game made after 1994, on a GB podcast, and wasn't shot
• -That sigh after "Firewatch with me": A++

Lol the hoodie question leaking to the Bombcast from the Beastcast

Oh yea, those 2 adds you had to listen to to make people aware. Also this 5min add was so much better than last week's. Will added so much to it i forgot it was an add and just laughed my ass off halfway. "yea let's pretend i was not in the meeting when this thing was coming together" was just amazing.