On this week’s show, Bree and Justin discuss Microsoft’s $7.5 billion acquisition of Bethesda, the frequent death of Echo of Soul, Fallout 76’s busy week, Conan Exile’s first expansion, Phantasy Star Online 2’s next patch, and how marketers use the fear of missing out to influence us.
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: World of Warcraft, Star Wars Galaxies
- News: Microsoft acquires Bethesda and ZeniMax
- News: Fallout 76 releases One Wasteland update, rearranges road map
- News: Conan Exiles breaks out Isle of Siptah expansion
- News: Elder Scrolls Online’s last DLC of 2020 is coming this November
- News: Echo of Soul dies (again)
- News: Phantasy Star Online 2’s Episode 5 is coming September 30th
- News: Final Fantasy XVI is announced
- News: Crowfall talks about going back to earlier MMO evolutionary branches
- Mailbag: FOMO marketing tactics
- Outro
Other info:
- Download Episode 289
- Podcast theme: “Ever Upwards” from FFXIV
- Your show hosts: Justin and Bree
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Bree, I’ve taken another point of view on the whole Crowfall development. Sadly to me, it feels more like they’re throwing pasta at the wall and seeing what sticks. It feels like they’ve got no unified grand design and I find it extremely worrisome. Apologizes for being a downer on that but it’s what I’m seeing, a type of desperation on their part.
Also, FOMO, YES!!!! I hate, hate how game developers and other companies abuse that to sell things. Makes me just want to walk away as well.
The only group most likely to miss out for sure going for is PlayStation, PC (or al least Windows side of computing) will be serviced alongside Xbox going forward unless their plan suddenly changes again which I don’t think it will at this point.
Switch seems all over the place in terms of what Xbox thinks of them, but PC will still see Elder Scrolls and the such.
Some thoughts on Fallout 76. I started a new character for this patch to see how it goes for new folks and it’s a mixed bag.
It’s certainly harder and you will need to spend more time gathering materials for ammo and repairs. Mobs take more effort to kill, more ammo and hit harder. If you go in like you might have done prior to the patch then you will have a hard time.
If you adapt to the new stuff and take your time it’s doable. The plus side is that when you kill things you will get more xp and level a bit quicker. This in turn means you will be able to fill out your perk cards quicker than before which helps a lot. Perks are a bit more important now and you might have to rethink what you do with them now.
It certainly still needs work and there are some rough spots in terms of weapon damage compared to mob health at various stages. The devs have acknowledged this and said they are looking at balancing, hopefully sooner than later.
On the whole I find things more satisfying and for the most part like the patch. YMMV depending on what you want from your games.
I usually let these things go but blergh… Justin!
https://www.google.ca/search?q=calliope+pronounce&ie=UTF-8
But I agree, Fetch10 will never happen!
Oh I have a quota of mispronouncing at least seven things every day!
Just means you’re a prolific reader! :D
The word calliope always makes me think of that Bruce Springsteen song “Blinded By the Light”, which Manfred Mann first popularized. I think that song on AM radio helped me nail down pronouncing calliope.
Madman drummers bummers
Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat
In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps
His way into his hat
With a boulder on my shoulder, feelin’ kinda older
I tripped the merry-go-round
With this very unpleasin’, sneezin’ and wheezin’
The calliope crashed to the ground
LOL! That’s awesome. I’d never seen it. Love the whole slaughtering of the lyric “revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night”. Soo much awesome in that skit. lol
Also reminds me of the whole “24 Dresses” movie and their slaughtering of the lyrics of “Bennie and the Jets”. hehe.
Hehe… Canadians! My flatmates and I actually saw that when it aired on the CBC some afternoon back in like 1990 or whenever that was recorded on the potato. Needless to say, forevermore we were wrapped up like a loofa by the foreman in the night!
But now I want to hear Justin (and/or Bree!) sing the lyrics…
lol! Oh man, I’d love to hear Justin and Bree sing those lyrics! LOL
As a Game Pass subscriber and also a big ESO fan, I welcome my new overlords. Hopefully we’ll get ESO Plus as a perk in Game Pass Ultimate eventually. More seriously, I do think Microsoft will treat Bethesda right. Joining Xbox Game Studios seems to have been great for inXile and Obsidian, the former of which is now leaping from crowdfunded cult RPGs into AAA. Obsidian has two major projects in the works in Avowed and Josh Sawyer’s unannounced project. We’ll see though!
As for icky tactics in MMOs: I really hate loot boxes that drop in-game. Any time I go back to LotRO, I immediately filter them out.
This is one of things i don’t like about WoW, removing content and rewards, and i don’t like it when some people call it “prestige” and some people are hardcore against bringing back old content and rewards, they think it devalue their “achievements” and rewards.
Some players did not play the game back then, or played it but could not get something because of RNG, some people are busy with not much time to play, when people bring this up they say “well, tough luck” and that’s it.
Some items are rare because Blizzard changed a raid or dungeon and removed the old rewards, there is no “prestige” in that, and Blizzard added many of them in Black Market Auction House which put these rewards out of reach to most players, only players with a lot of gold can afford to buy them.
Micro-Holidays and major events in WoW come every year, some of them like Trial of Style 😁 comes few times a year, the pre-patchs is one of these events that never come back, and the rewards for them are removed.
Just days ago i found that there was transmog item in BFA pre-patch and there is no way to get it, i played the pre-patch with many alts to gear them up, the item never dropped.
Yep thanks for reminding me to stay away from WoW.
Wow Justin you had to bring up Conan Chop Chop, now look you made Bree sad again lol Monster! :P
I actually forgot about that. I don’t know how, I was looking forward to that too.
I guess we’ve entered “the taunts are the only thing that keeps it relevant” territory.