I sometimes feel like I have the memory of a goldfish. People tell me about things from not long ago and they feel like they happened to a completely different person. Despite this I can still vividly remember one of my first days in the first grade. My teacher sat us all down and told us that we were going to learn about the most important rule of them all, the golden rule.
At the time I can remember thinking that if it is called the golden rule, it must be important. "Treat others how you would like to be treated," she told us. That's it, the most important rule boiled down to its most basic form. It is one of the very first things I was ever taught, I imagine that's the case for most of us, and yet we still struggle with it more than anything else.
As I say in the episode I've been wanting to talk about this issue for a while. Not because I want to push an agenda or be topical, but because there is little that gets me fired up more than when I feel like people are being done a disservice. In this case, they may be fictional, but I feel like the reactions to characters like Jaina and Sylvanas show an issue with how we perceive these characters.
This topic always seems to be controversial. Part of that I find shocking, but I can also understand it to some degree. People sometimes see these issues as limiting creative expression, removing our freedom of speech, and in general forms of censorship. After all if Blizzard isn't free to have a few orcs being ass-holes in an inn doesn't them limit them in some way?
There isn't an easy answer. People fighting for the issues one way or another will tell you there is. It's either poor taste and offensive or harmless. Like most things the truth is a little more in the middle. If Blizzard puts two orcs in an inn who will rank and rate a female NPC they are inviting criticism. Because no matter how you personally might feel about that, you just don't know how it makes others feel. Where the issue comes though is asking the question, "What purpose does this serve?"
That's the way you always have to approach things. If I want to make a character racist or sexist, that's OK. I can do that, but it should always be for a reason. If I'm doing it "just for fun" or because I think it'll be entertaining, then that does invite some criticism about me as the content creator. Ultimately these criticisms are not about censorship or limiting creative control, but about exposing inequality and asking, "why?"
AzerothRT on Twitter
E-Mail us at AzerothRoundTable@gmail.com
You can also catch Ben on:
Geektopia and Battle Pets
You can find me here and on my writing show Parallel Words.
Finally if you don't already please feel free to subscribe or give us a review on iTunes.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Sunday, September 22, 2013
ART Ep. 26: Jon's Polyjuice (feat. Ashanka)
Doing a podcast can be weird. Sometimes it almost feels like acting, except the role you play is yourself. When I started all this as the "Achievement guy" on Arcanum of Azeroth I pretty much just came in and was me. When that show split into two shows, one being live, and the other being pre-recorded I gained an appreciation for what podcasters do.
I'm not suggesting that we're fake. Odds are if you talked to me in my day to day you probably wouldn't notice a disparity in my personality or anything. It's more that when you are on a show, trying to offer opinions, ideas, feed off the co-hosts, and try to be entertaining all at once your personality gets turned up to 11. More specifically aspects of your personality.
We all have our roles to play I guess. Ben is our mild mannered host. There to guide us from point A to point B no matter how far off track we go. The guest is something of an X factor although it tends to be safe to say that they are playing the part of participant in the trip Ben is leading. Offering their own thoughts and ideas as we go. That leaves me as something of a wild card. Now I'm not saying that I am not this way by default, but when everyone is looking out the right side of the plane saying, "oooh," or "ahhh." Sometimes you need a guy to look out the left side of the plane and say, "I like it over there more." Typically this guy is considered the troublemaker of the group.
I guess that's the part that I find so odd. Looking back at what I think now is almost a year of doing this I don't think of myself as particularly bitter, angry, or overly opinionated. I tend to see myself as open. You ask me to be on a show about WoW and want my opinion on the game, well I'll tell you when I think it's great, I'll tell you when I think it's terrible, and I'll tell you what I'd do differently. I've never seen a reason to do otherwise.
This episode contains what I guess could almost be called a rant, but it really isn't. This episode has me telling you probably the most bare bones truth I feel about this game. It seems weird that everyone thought it was so out of character. Although to be fair I willingly played up that it might have been. It all boils down to this though. Ben and I have known each other for a really long time. We've been co-workers, friends, and now collaborators. I don't think either of us would continue to do this if we thought the other was putting on a show.
So I'm happy to be the voice of criticism (or reason) just as I'm sure he's happy to be our upbeat guide. They are roles we play, but it's also us, even if some parts show a little more than others. Just some food for thought the next time you think I'm too harsh or Ben too soft.
AzerothRT on Twitter
E-Mail us at AzerothRoundTable@gmail.com
You can also catch Ben on:
Geektopia and Battle Pets
You can find me here and on my writing show Parallel Words.
Finally if you don't already please feel free to subscribe or give us a review on iTunes.
I'm not suggesting that we're fake. Odds are if you talked to me in my day to day you probably wouldn't notice a disparity in my personality or anything. It's more that when you are on a show, trying to offer opinions, ideas, feed off the co-hosts, and try to be entertaining all at once your personality gets turned up to 11. More specifically aspects of your personality.
We all have our roles to play I guess. Ben is our mild mannered host. There to guide us from point A to point B no matter how far off track we go. The guest is something of an X factor although it tends to be safe to say that they are playing the part of participant in the trip Ben is leading. Offering their own thoughts and ideas as we go. That leaves me as something of a wild card. Now I'm not saying that I am not this way by default, but when everyone is looking out the right side of the plane saying, "oooh," or "ahhh." Sometimes you need a guy to look out the left side of the plane and say, "I like it over there more." Typically this guy is considered the troublemaker of the group.
I guess that's the part that I find so odd. Looking back at what I think now is almost a year of doing this I don't think of myself as particularly bitter, angry, or overly opinionated. I tend to see myself as open. You ask me to be on a show about WoW and want my opinion on the game, well I'll tell you when I think it's great, I'll tell you when I think it's terrible, and I'll tell you what I'd do differently. I've never seen a reason to do otherwise.
This episode contains what I guess could almost be called a rant, but it really isn't. This episode has me telling you probably the most bare bones truth I feel about this game. It seems weird that everyone thought it was so out of character. Although to be fair I willingly played up that it might have been. It all boils down to this though. Ben and I have known each other for a really long time. We've been co-workers, friends, and now collaborators. I don't think either of us would continue to do this if we thought the other was putting on a show.
So I'm happy to be the voice of criticism (or reason) just as I'm sure he's happy to be our upbeat guide. They are roles we play, but it's also us, even if some parts show a little more than others. Just some food for thought the next time you think I'm too harsh or Ben too soft.
AzerothRT on Twitter
E-Mail us at AzerothRoundTable@gmail.com
You can also catch Ben on:
Geektopia and Battle Pets
You can find me here and on my writing show Parallel Words.
Finally if you don't already please feel free to subscribe or give us a review on iTunes.
Sunday, September 15, 2013
ART Ep. 25: Bane Bloodhoof vs. Batman
Welcome to our episode 25 super grand spectacular! OK, not really, more or less this is just a normal show sans a guest. I guess that means we're actually being less interesting for our 25th. Still we are keeping with the grand tradition of talking about patches right after they come out, but this time we've actually played a lot of it before recording.
AzerothRT on Twitter
E-Mail us at AzerothRoundTable@gmail.com
You can also catch Ben on:
Geektopia and Battle Pets
You can find me here and on my writing show Parallel Words.
Finally if you don't already please feel free to subscribe or give us a review on iTunes.
I'm loving 5.4 which is somewhat surprising because it's probably the patch I was the least excited for. Maybe that's because I didn't did the last two patches, but this one offered a lot. As I say in the show Timeless Isle, might be my favorite thing added in a patch, maybe even ever. I'm really digging that place. Flex raiding feels awesome and the perfect level of difficulty for what I want in raiding.
Overall it has gotten me from playing other MMO's to logging in on a near daily basis. Which makes me happy, I'm sure makes Blizzard happy, and it means I have stuff to talk about besides Hearthstone.
AzerothRT on Twitter
E-Mail us at AzerothRoundTable@gmail.com
You can also catch Ben on:
Geektopia and Battle Pets
You can find me here and on my writing show Parallel Words.
Finally if you don't already please feel free to subscribe or give us a review on iTunes.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
ART Ep. 24: Would you like your episode super sized? (feat. Tetsemi)
I hope you like hearing us yammer, because yammer we do this week. This week's "super sized" episode clocks in at just over two hours. We kinda knew it was going to be though. Tetsemi had a small novel of notes added to our show notes and the several hour long discussion we had that inspired the topic. These were all good indicators that maybe we'd run a bit long. All that said we haven't actually had complaints about the show being too long and a select few have pushed us for longer, so maybe all this preamble is for nothing.
I actually really loved this discussion. It was a lot of fun, but I also feel like it really touched on how dramatically an "old and tired" system could be updated and changed to alter the overall gameplay experience.
We also touch on player housing, in what will clearly need to be a future topic.
So that about covers it for this week, we'll be back next week with just Ben and myself to talk about 5.4 and celebrate 25 episodes.
AzerothRT on Twitter
E-Mail us at AzerothRoundTable@gmail.com
You can also catch Ben on:
Geektopia and Battle Pets
You can find me here and on my writing show Parallel Words.
Finally if you don't already please feel free to subscribe or give us a review on iTunes.
I actually really loved this discussion. It was a lot of fun, but I also feel like it really touched on how dramatically an "old and tired" system could be updated and changed to alter the overall gameplay experience.
We also touch on player housing, in what will clearly need to be a future topic.
So that about covers it for this week, we'll be back next week with just Ben and myself to talk about 5.4 and celebrate 25 episodes.
AzerothRT on Twitter
E-Mail us at AzerothRoundTable@gmail.com
You can also catch Ben on:
Geektopia and Battle Pets
You can find me here and on my writing show Parallel Words.
Finally if you don't already please feel free to subscribe or give us a review on iTunes.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Sometimes it's about the small things...
I recently went on a bit of a tangent about how I'm worried the next WoW expansion is going to feel "watered down" compared to previous Blizzard expansions. From Ben and Ghemit it certainly felt like I was the only one with this fear and so after the show released I posted an acknowledgment that maybe I should have given Blizzard the benefit of the doubt. It tends to be a good practice really. I've only ever felt "let down" by one expansion and even then I spent almost, if not the entire expansion cycle as a subscriber.
However these doubts and concerns are back in full force again today. MMO Champion recently posted another summary of topics discussed by a developer roundtable from Gamescom. The original posting was from Vanion. Below are the relevant links.
Vanion - Original Article
MMO Champion - Summary
So why does this concern me? Going off of just the summary of topics alone we see Blizzard use "time would be better spent" (or some variation of it), talk of a feature being pushed back, cancelled, or facing an unknown future around eleven times.
That's a lot. However it is not exclusive to this interview, you hear it a lot. Why is this one of the most common answers that come from Blizzard interviews? Simple, it's our fault. We keep asking them about player housing, new racials, dance studios, new hero classes, new races, spectator modes, holidays, transmog options, soloing old dungeons, lore, offline features, trade skill improvements, cinematics, the list goes on and on.
If we could all just stop talking about that stuff, we'd be able to get much more interesting interviews from Blizzard. Will there be new quests and questing zones? Can we expect new raids? Will there be new bosses to fight? See, isn't that a better set of questions? Not really.
This is my problem folks. Blizzard is focused on giving us new zones, new quests, new items, new bosses, and new levels. That's all really good. I would be out of my mind to tell you it isn't, that is the backbone that makes up the game. However it is a backbone that takes time and effort. While Blizzard ramps up getting more and more of that stuff the list of other things we'd like to see grows and continues to be pushed aside.
If the only thing you care about are new raids then Blizzard is making a game that scratches your itch, but they continue to say they want to be more than that. Yes player housing and dance studios are silly little features. Expanding new hair styles to the barber shop is too. Giving players a new way to spend a holiday in WoW is very easy to cross off the list of important things, and Blizzard already showed us how important they think pre-expansion events are.
If it isn't really important though, why do people keep asking about it? Why is you have to give the "time better spent" response over and over again? It's because new content should always come first, it should always be the top priority, but at some point Blizzard you need to remember that WoW is about having fun and sometimes doing something stupid or seemingly unimportant, leads to the most fun you can have in game.
-Jon
Remember I've been playing since vanilla, I host a podcast on this topic, and consider myself a total Blizzard fanboy. However being a fanboy doesn't mean that no wrong can ever be spoken about a thing. I write because I care, I criticize because I care, and I want WoW to be the best game it can possibly be. Ultimately it falls on Blizzard to make the hard calls, they are far better at it than me, but like anyone else out there, it's ok to have and to voice that opinion. If you agree, disagree, or just want to debate with me you can reach me at Revendawn@gmail.com
However these doubts and concerns are back in full force again today. MMO Champion recently posted another summary of topics discussed by a developer roundtable from Gamescom. The original posting was from Vanion. Below are the relevant links.
Vanion - Original Article
MMO Champion - Summary
So why does this concern me? Going off of just the summary of topics alone we see Blizzard use "time would be better spent" (or some variation of it), talk of a feature being pushed back, cancelled, or facing an unknown future around eleven times.
That's a lot. However it is not exclusive to this interview, you hear it a lot. Why is this one of the most common answers that come from Blizzard interviews? Simple, it's our fault. We keep asking them about player housing, new racials, dance studios, new hero classes, new races, spectator modes, holidays, transmog options, soloing old dungeons, lore, offline features, trade skill improvements, cinematics, the list goes on and on.
If we could all just stop talking about that stuff, we'd be able to get much more interesting interviews from Blizzard. Will there be new quests and questing zones? Can we expect new raids? Will there be new bosses to fight? See, isn't that a better set of questions? Not really.
This is my problem folks. Blizzard is focused on giving us new zones, new quests, new items, new bosses, and new levels. That's all really good. I would be out of my mind to tell you it isn't, that is the backbone that makes up the game. However it is a backbone that takes time and effort. While Blizzard ramps up getting more and more of that stuff the list of other things we'd like to see grows and continues to be pushed aside.
If the only thing you care about are new raids then Blizzard is making a game that scratches your itch, but they continue to say they want to be more than that. Yes player housing and dance studios are silly little features. Expanding new hair styles to the barber shop is too. Giving players a new way to spend a holiday in WoW is very easy to cross off the list of important things, and Blizzard already showed us how important they think pre-expansion events are.
If it isn't really important though, why do people keep asking about it? Why is you have to give the "time better spent" response over and over again? It's because new content should always come first, it should always be the top priority, but at some point Blizzard you need to remember that WoW is about having fun and sometimes doing something stupid or seemingly unimportant, leads to the most fun you can have in game.
-Jon
Remember I've been playing since vanilla, I host a podcast on this topic, and consider myself a total Blizzard fanboy. However being a fanboy doesn't mean that no wrong can ever be spoken about a thing. I write because I care, I criticize because I care, and I want WoW to be the best game it can possibly be. Ultimately it falls on Blizzard to make the hard calls, they are far better at it than me, but like anyone else out there, it's ok to have and to voice that opinion. If you agree, disagree, or just want to debate with me you can reach me at Revendawn@gmail.com
ART Ep. 23: She turned me into a cow... (feat. Ghemit)
Hi everyone, Jon here.
This week we bring you what I'm sure will be another episode where people accuse me of being too negative or hard on Blizzard and personally I just want to tell you all that I think you are probably right. That's right, I think you are totally right if you got that impression off this week's episode.
While listening to the episode again I think I didn't do a very fair job of giving them the benefit of the doubt, which after four expansions I think they've probably earned. I still feel worried that this fast turn around time will ultimately lead to a lesser expansion, but it is a bit silly to get riled up this early.
All that said it's only one of a few topics we came up with this show and ultimately I think we had a lot of fun. I hope you all enjoy the episode and we'll see you next week.
AzerothRT on Twitter
E-Mail us at AzerothRoundTable@gmail.com
You can also catch Ben on:
Geektopia and Battle Pets
You can find me here and on my writing show Parallel Words.
Finally if you don't already please feel free to subscribe or give us a review on iTunes.
This week we bring you what I'm sure will be another episode where people accuse me of being too negative or hard on Blizzard and personally I just want to tell you all that I think you are probably right. That's right, I think you are totally right if you got that impression off this week's episode.
While listening to the episode again I think I didn't do a very fair job of giving them the benefit of the doubt, which after four expansions I think they've probably earned. I still feel worried that this fast turn around time will ultimately lead to a lesser expansion, but it is a bit silly to get riled up this early.
All that said it's only one of a few topics we came up with this show and ultimately I think we had a lot of fun. I hope you all enjoy the episode and we'll see you next week.
AzerothRT on Twitter
E-Mail us at AzerothRoundTable@gmail.com
You can also catch Ben on:
Geektopia and Battle Pets
You can find me here and on my writing show Parallel Words.
Finally if you don't already please feel free to subscribe or give us a review on iTunes.
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