On this week’s show, Carlo, Ben, Bree, and Justin get utterly, grimly serious about April Fools Day in MMOs, examine the devastating ramifications of Ascent: Infinite Realm’s revamp, give keen insight into new features coming to RuneScape and Elder Scrolls Online, and duke it out over the shortest playable races.
It’s the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you’d like to send in your own letter to the show, use the “Tips” button in the top-right corner of the site to do so.
Listen to the show right now:
Show notes:
- Intro
- Adventures in MMOs: Guild Wars 2, LOTRO, Sims 4, Elder Scrolls Online, World of Warships, Animal Crossing, Black Desert, SWG, City of Heroes
- News: April Fools landed in a humorless world
- News: Ascent Infinite Realm is retooled into Elyon
- News: WoW Classic works on server queue problems
- News: RuneScape’s Archaeology skill and Elder Scrolls Online’s antiquities system
- News: Legends of Aria’s $20 DLC
- Mailbag: Shortie races
- Mailbag: China, gaming, and WHO
- Outro
Other info:
- Download Episode 266
- Podcast theme: “Archaeology Theme” from RuneScape
- Your show hosts: Justin, Ben, Carlo, and Bree
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I couldn’t get through this podcast because the voice quality on some of the speakers was really bad. Really recommend investing in better microphones for something like this.
“The Who” is a 1960s rock band, “The W.H.O.” is the World Health Organization. [I think this is the first time I’ve heard the organization’s acronym pronounced as a word]
Just getting to the podcast so its probably way too late to comment and hope anyone sees it, but I just feel compelled to comment on the WHO issue. WHO is a tremendously important organ of the UN that helps insure developing countries get access to health services they need. It is particularly important to women in the developing world to help them get access to reproductive medical assistance. This is not to say WHO does not make mistakes or never comes out on the wrong side of issues. However, it felt…wrong… to accuse WHO of making a political decision around the gaming disorder issue. ALL health policies are political decisions. If you are willing to say that, I could accept your position. There are many brown and black bodies buried in the United States and all over the world because of political decisions that the US government’s made on health policies over the years. I can help you find examples if you need them. Just look at the recent French statement to test vaccine trials for Covoid-19 in Africa so Europeans do not have to be jeopardized by testing an unproven medication on them.
Of course the real issue as you mentioned is cause and effect. Any one who has an addictive personality can become addicted to anything, including games. If a family has a child that is addicted to games, that is what they look to as the source of the addiction. There is disagreement among scholars on the causes of addiction. Some of that disagreement is also political. I agree that the issue is complicated, but politics always affects medical policy, so in that way WHO is no different from any other entity or from the leadership of many countries, including our own.
I think we are basically in agreement? :)
Whenever addiction is mentioned I think about the Rat Park experiment in the late 70s, which reinforces your point about addiction behaviours as a response to a psychologically harmful environment:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park
Good rant on W.H.O, Bree. Though I will point out that W.H.O. is a part of the U.N. and fall under the United Nations Sustainable Development Group. I’ve got all sorts of issues with them at times due to the influences on them that then go on to negatively impact everyone. The whole gaming disorder and how that was presented is a great example that you went into.
Hah yeah, we recorded this on Monday too and Trump picked that same night to scapegoat WHO for his failures and I was like DAMMIT. I mean, WHO did screw this up. But Trump screwed up a million times worse, and the deflection just looks so pathetic on his part. I don’t want anyone who made bad calls on COVID-19 to get a pass.
Strongly agree. Honestly and quite bluntly I feel that there have been criminal levels of bad calls made in our country during this. Breaks my heart and pisses me off.
Crowfall has some unique playable races that I haven’t seen done before such as the guinea pig-like race. When I went to look up the races on their page, I had that race in mind, but I didn’t remember how many more there were, including other unique races such as an elk-like race.
So…Chua?
Yup, that’s another good example. Not something you often see.
Ratongas and Gibberlings in Allods too.
Here is Wowpedia page for height:
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Height
I never seen anything like Gibberlings in any game, and you have to name the 3 of them! they are the reason to try Allods.
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st Edition, Fiend Folio back in 1981 was the first time I saw mention of a race known as “Gibberlings”. They were a lot of fun as a GM for me to toss at players.
Picture from The Fiend Folio.
AHHH NOT CUTE NOT CUTE!!:P
Lol! Yeah, I’d make them make a sound as they’d came down the tunnel before you’d see them. A gibbering sound, repeatedly… drove the players nuts!
They look like little me’s
lol! 🙂
There’s a lot of reasons to try Allods, but none of them are good enough, sadly.