Easy Allies Podcast #137 - 11/7/18

Why did no one tell Kyle to get rid of this styrofoam pallet???

Regarding the Siege review bombing, as a person who got into the game in February 2016 (3 months after launch) and been playing ever since (~600 hours played), I wanted to add more context to the discussion. The game had a lot of problems appear this year driven by just decisions Ubisoft made, and this censorship thing is just the last straw for a lot of people. The new Operators added this year, are not stll balanced, even the Pro Scene doesn't like some Operators and has openly been saying they want the characters reworked/changed. Ubisoft removed the standard edition of the game from sale Twice now (claiming it was a mistake), forcing people to get the Starter Edition which is a big grind fest and from which you can't upgrade to a normal edition, or be forced to spend the full $60.00 for an almost 3 year old game. The game includes so many monetization schemes it might as well be in the Guiness World Records book for it. There are two in game currencies but you can't outright buy stuff just for money, there are lootboxes which can only be bought with a currency that you grind out by playing, but there are event specific lootboxes that can only be bought during the event only by paying real money. A lot of players thought Ubisoft are not really self-aware when they're ready to remove the Gambling decorations in a map, but will not remove the gambling you can do in-game after many outcries on social media. Matchmaking is still iffy, letting players of wildly different ranks get matched together, Ranked is still shown as Beta in game (almost a 3 year old game) and has the same problems with matchmaking as well. Ubi previously responded within 24 hours of a big outcry on reddit to a problem (incidentally it was this year, when the standard edition was removed the first time, paid only lootboxes were introduced). Right now the outcry is bigger about the censorship, but Ubisoft have yet to respond. Instead they just release teasers for the new Operators and map. A lot of players are taking this badly feeling Ubi are trying to brush this off and forget about it. Sorry for the long post, just wanted to give more context. Thanks for doing the podcast :)

Vova SparksV

That mobile game Jones was referring to was Dungeon Hunter: Alliance. :D

drd7of14

Ian's point about allowing foreign markets to influence our media is good; I can see certain eastern countries's mistreatment of LGBTQ+ citizens as an example. On the other hand I feel like the R6 review-bombing is another manifestation of gamer entitlement. All they did was reskin some environments, right? I'm sure there's a more productive use of your anger! And yeah, Jazz was 16-bit; I don't think it made it to the NES. Great pod as always folks. L&R

wuggles

I feel like Brad is trying to remember Bucky O' Hare and not Jazz Jackrabbit.

Raven Perez

Immediately searched youtube.com/teenagersforever... it was... anticlimactic.

Jack Cullen

Small correction: China is a second world country. The distinction between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd has to do with each country's alignment during the cold war. 1st world country: aligned with the west(USA), 2nd world country: aligned with the East(USSR), and 3rd world country: not aligned. 3rd world country is currently misused to describe a poor or underdeveloped country. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World</a>

There are three editions of Red Dead. Standard, Special (with SP content) and Ultimate (SP and MP content), and then a $100 collector box which is just collectibles, allowing customers to make their own bundles instead of having to get all or none.

GS Ball Explanation: In an interview with Masamitsu Hidaka in 2008, it was explained that the GS Ball was originally going to contain a Celebi that was to be the star of a large arc of the Johto saga. However, it was decided that Celebi would be the star of the fourth movie, so the story arc was viewed as redundant and shelved.

It's Huber and Brad dude. They are such goofballs while also being able to talk serious, perks of being best friends I suppose.

Correction: The Getaway did have health, regenerating health! In a very not obvious mechanic, you had to let your character lean against a wall and he would heal.

Daniel Dada

Jones, I was the "guy in the car" who was doing yard work when you talked about Return Fire. My buddy and I loved playing that game but on 3DO. It played Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries. it was an amazing game. I appreciate you bringing it up!

TravelingSnowman

The Red Tailed Hawk is the bird call you guys are looking for.

The bald eagle thing blew my mind.

Minamik

Correction: For Steam User Reviews, you cannot assign a numerical score. You simply say "Recommended" or "Not Recommended," which correlate to a blue thumb up or a red thumb down. You can write in the text box a number score if you want, but that isn't required. Steam then shows on the game's store page what percentage of users recommended the game, and based on that percentage will categorize it into Overwhelmingly positive - Very Positive - Positive - Mostly Positive - Mixed - Mostly Negative - Negative - Very Negative - Overwhelmingly Negative. All the Positive categories show up in blue, the Negative categories in red, and Mixed is the "gross yellow." Opinion: I think the steam review system is perfect for what it is intended to be; it provides an outlet for everyone to share their opinion. Of course not everyone who plays the game is able to make a critical review that should be held to the same standard as game journalists. But user reviews can show you what the general population thought of the game, and if you want to know more, many people write several paragraphs of their opinions in the review. Critic reviews only reflect what a very small percentage of people who played the game thought, and there is a certain value to knowing what your "Average Joe" experienced before you buy a product. I think that the binary nature of the steam review (either Recommended or Not Recommended) is what makes review bombing possible. It is much easier to give a game a thumbs down than to give it a 4/10 (for example) and many people are then inclined to do so. If there is enough outrage about the game, it's easy for people to pile on the thumbs down, which will eventually cause the overall percentage to drop. However, any knowledgeable consumer that is truly interested in the game can read through each of those user reviews and form an opinion on their own. Therefore, I believe that "review bombing" is acceptable because it gets the attention of the developers/publishers and warns potential buyers about the current state of the game, but any potential buyer that is truly interested in the game will still do enough research to find out if the game is really for them or not.

Nice catch on Wooper, Kyle. I had my correction locked and loaded! Also I found the GameLoft shade to be amusing. I went to a panel of theirs way back in the day and I remember them talking about how much fun they have with licensed games and coming up with unique ideas. Kind of a bummer that no one ever sees that passion and just writes them off as a scummy mobile developer. But I'll be the first to admit, I've never played a game of theirs and enjoyed the experience.

Nimbus

I have listened to every Easy Allies podcast and really liked them all, but there was just something about this one that elevated it above all the rest so I felt the need to comment. It was absolutely fantastic, loads of interesting discussions where everyone brought loads of insight and their own take. So glad Ian speaks up because he always has a brilliant counterpoint to whatever anyone else is saying, really livens it up. Can't wait for next weeks!

Olie

Correction/clarification: China WAS among 'second world countries' until it broke with the Soviet Union and was later more closely aligned with the 'bloc-free' countries for most of the cold war. The different 'worlds' later on kind of got to denote different levels of "development', then mainly differentiating between first and third world. Best to avoid this terminology altogether cause it ranks countries along a really crude conception of what 'development' is about. If one really wants to lump countries together in these types categories, maybe consider China an 'emerging economy' or 'newly industrialized country'. Judging by internationally agreed upon standards (OECD DAC), China actually still has to be considered a 'developing country' (in terms of GDP per capita). All of the labels of course fail to adequately capture the huge differences between urban and rural China, east/south east and west China, etc. If 'second world' is supposed to denote countries with a socialist planned economy, today's China definitely doesn't belong in that category: self described as socialist market economy / analytically probably something along the lines of a market economy with high importance of state-owned enterprises and strong industrial policy.

Not exactly a correction - but yes in movies bald eagles are redubbed over with red tailed hawks because hawks have that powerful shriek.

I live on a small island in Canada (Prince Edward Island, pop = 150 000) and I bought DQXI, I wouldn't have thought so, but based on those sales figures I wonder if I'm the ONLY one who bought it here.

Derrick DesRoches

I just wanted to swipe that lil white piece of debris that was on top of kyles hair then entire show. Fantastic sode. The Brad RE4 Leon cosplay was on point.

Jeffrey Tessar

Kyle letting everyone know he “bought into the collective consciousness” as he calls it lol

Soul

Love those 2 hour Easy Allies podcasts! It's cool you don't fluff out the show on quieter news weeks, but I'm always down for as much podcast as you can make! Thanks Allies, great work as always! L&amp;R

Mumble Mumbleton

This is good insight and might not be addressed here. Maybe post this on Cup of Jones or send a tweet or email to Jones as well.

GW Fawkes

Correction, It's no longer October despite what the copy on the screen says during podcast half time Thank you

Sean Dupree

They don't change games that have been out for years to cater to the US market, they release a US version of the game at launch, not the same thing at all.

Robert A Iglehart

Correction - The mobile game from NetEase that appears to be the guts of what Diablo Immortal is "Endless of God". "Crusaders of Light" doesn't look like or play like, what we were shown of Diablo Immortal.

Mitchell Collier

Can I be honest about the Patreon numbers for a second? I think people might be getting slightly annoyed with how long the studio search is taking. I've personally leased 3 different commercial spaces for various business, and this has been the process: 1.) Go online and find a space. All commercial real estate is listed on Craigslist or Loopnet nowadays. They'll have the price and size and most other relevant information. 2.) Call the listing agent. The listing agent is in charge of the key to the building so you can ask them to look at the space and it's this person who you make an offer to. 3.) Make an offer. If your credit is good, you'll hear back in less than a week with a yes, if not, you'll probably have to pay first and last month's rent as a deposit, but they'll still likely counter or accept your offer based on Patreon numbers. I've never heard of anyone using a real-estate agent for a commercial property.. It really doesn't make sense, you can just ask the listing agent for relevant information and if you're running a business you should know exactly what's necessary in the space. Literally every listing agent I spoke to was able to meet at the property with the key that day within a few hours. A big pitfall to avoid is to make sure that the AC unit works or a new one is included in the lease, those things are expensive. The listing will use terms such as "NNN" which are referring to what utilities are included. A large space like yours probably won't have anything included, but you can just Google the terms to know what's going on.

Robert A Iglehart

Wait, changing games for the US market is ok even though it will affect European markets almost always, but changing games for the Chinese market even though it will affect the US market is wrong? Isnt that textbook double standard? Also: "Its tricky because it hurts game companies, and we want to support game companies because we love games." This preferctly defines the problem with games media attitude. If you honestly love games you support great games not companies. If a company does great games and doesnt screw up it doesnt need apologists.

erni

This has since been corrected. The 3DS Virtual Console release of Gold/Silver/Crystal in all regions gives you the GS Ball after you enter the Hall of Fame. It’s used to spawn a level 30 Celebi which you can then capture.

Erunion

Listening on headphones and didn't hear it on my end.

Raven Perez

There's a distinct low electronic hum in the audio this episode (I'm about 20 minutes in so far). I love the conversation so far and want to keep listening, but the experience on headphones definitely makes it difficult. Is it just me hearing that?

Luveen Rupchand Wadhwani

All high off cough syrup perhaps. :P

Christian Thomas

This might have been the best podcast episode of all time, great topics and energy.

Robert A Iglehart

Correction: China is a 2nd world country.

Robert A Iglehart

Box Peak needs the Delta Rune Avengers Assemble treatment.

Cash

On the topic of the censoring of R6:Siege one of the reasons why they'd make these changes globally is for the competitve scene. Having Asian teams use one version of a map and everyone else use to another version would create issues when it comes to things like the Pro Leagaue or other big tournaments. If it's more than just graphical changes then this would mean teams would have unfair advantages (e.g. lines of sight if objects were removed). And I think this is what differs it from single player games being different in different regions. Other online multiplayer games that don't have a competitve scene, like Uncharted multiplayer or GTA: Online will only match you up with people in your region so if there are differences it wont have any effect on your experience.

Not a correction or anything, but a bit of an elabouration on the part where you guys discuss review bombing. For steam in particular you guys keep seeming to refer to Steam as having some sort of point based metric system. There is not. A "steam review" is as follows: "I recommend this game, and here is why" or "I don't recommend this game, here is why". I find this is why steam review bombs work so well, as it isnt just the babies on metacritic that just go "the gaem had long load times 0/10 hurr" since you don't get to give a number unless you put a number in your explanation. For steam reviews you see a number of things. 1: you see HOW LONG the person played the game. 2: You can only post reviews for games YOU OWN. 3. A review can be edited and changed depending. Sometimes when you get a "negative review" it is under certain pretenses, that would also have the revewer change their "not recommended" to a "recommended" if the player feels satisfied with the developer's handling or future fixes of the problem. All and all, I am not a fan of review bombing in general, but I DO VERY MUCH find STEAM review bombs both helpful and quite well done. If i want to know if a PC game is broken or unoptimized, it WILL be in the user reviews. Those review bombs for poor working port jobs have saved my ass a few times.

Gump The Great

Correction: Togepi evolved and was released by Misty in “A Togepi Mirage!” It was an egg for 4 episodes and Togepi for 269! And technically the GS ball was in Gold and Silver, but the event never happened in North America. It only happened in the Japanese version of Crystal.

Luke Sandstrom

I posted this comment as a reply originally but it looks like it may have been deleted. Apologies if it's duplicated. Quick correction and some additional history/context about China. Historically speaking First, Second, and Third World refers to bloc alliances following WWII. "First World" countries were countries allies and affiliated with the United States and were mostly western democracies. "Second World" countries were allied with the Soviet bloc. "Third World" countries were not allied with either major power. As such, China would historically be a Second World country. However, as time has gone on and the USSR was dissolved, the terminology has been used to describe the relative economic strength of a country in the global market (First World is rich; Third World is poor). This is mostly because the First World countries grew following WWII (and 'won' the Cold War), the Second World countries were of political or economic importance but not as predominant following the separation of the USSR, and most Third World countries were not affiliated with either bloc because they were of little economic value (and many continue to be relatively minor players in the global market). From this standpoint, where does China fit in? In many ways, China has the best and worst aspects of both First and Third World countries. The east is economically and politically rich with a large proportion of Han Chinese (ethnic majority within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)). The eastern coast also received a lot of western influences due to colonization by western countries. A good example is Qingdao, which contains China's second largest brewery and a German town, because it was flooded by German colonizers during the early-20th century. During the early-to-mid 1980s, China also implemented a number of economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping to accelerate economic growth. This included the creation of 'special economic zones' where were exempt from certain CCP policies and adopted much more capitalist markets. This includes Shanghai, which is the largest city in China. Contrast all this with the western-most provinces of Xinjiang and Xizang/Tibet. Xinjiang is notorious for its labor and 'reeducation' camps, particularly during the Cultural Revolution. Xinjiang also has a large number of minority groups, which are frequently given different rules from Han Chinese, or are persecuted for things like practicing Islam. Meanwhile Xizang/Tibet is a contentious region in-and-of-itself, with the CCP displacing the Dalai Lama, declaring a new one, and integrating the region into the country. Last time I was in China we were not allowed into Tibet due to a recent string of protests by Buddhist monks via self-immolation. These are two specific examples but a large section of western China has historically been poor farmers and starvation is a real problem. In conclusion, while China is historically Second World, in the modern context it is extremely difficult to categorize. It is a major political player with some of the richest people on earth, while simultaneously being a country with extreme poverty and select persecution. It is a country with an obesity problem and a history of mass-starvations. Honestly, it's probably too big to categorize as one entity, but this is my best attempt to do so. *Note that this all based on my experiences living in China and studying there 5+ years ago. I'm going to do some fact checking later and make edits to any mistakes but I'm 95% confident in what's written above. Please feel free to correct me in a reply if I made any errors. L&amp;R

Speaking of Black Panther / Hollywood choosing to shoot on certain locations that Ian talked about - my impression has been that certain cities give lots of incentives to have a major movie like the MCU movies be shot in their city. For the case of Busan in Black Panther, according to this report, Disney got a $2.3M rebate from the Korean Film Council for shooting it there. <a href="https://tinyurl.com/ybry4ugz" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/ybry4ugz</a> In regards to the decision to cast Chinese actors or make changes to scenes for the Chinese market. There's a cap on the Chinese market on how many foreign movies can be shown in the country, and it is a huge market. It's described really well in this Vox video - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R-FQTY4KJk" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R-FQTY4KJk</a>In any case - it is all driven by money (China is the 2nd largest movie market and Korea the 3rd). P.S. Wooper is from Gen 2 not Gen 3 :) P.P.S. Misty's Togepi evolves to Togetic then leaves Misty. <a href="https://www.serebii.net/anime/epiguide/houen/321.shtml" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.serebii.net/anime/epiguide/houen/321.shtml</a> P.P.P.S. According to Bulbapedia - apparently the GS ball was supposed to have Celebi in it, but the 4th movie was decided to center around Celebi and they had to quietly forget about it. <a href="https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/GS_Ball" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/GS_Ball</a> Also according to the article, there was an event for Pokemon Crystal where you got a Celebi in a GS ball.

Kevin

"Who's Mike?" LOL That killed me #Spoilers

D-Up Gaming

With R6 Seige its about the censorship, not about the map changing. Why should our media be changed to better fit a communist regime who activily surpresses and imprisons people of all religions and many ethnic groups.

Tom Smith

Different Zach here, who plays Siege daily and since launch. I consider my self apart of the Siege community, I watch Pro League, I watch R6 Youtubers, I visit the sub Reddit. Personally i'm not that bothered by these changes, but the community is livid, and i completely understand all of it. The announcements of these changes are at a tricky time, on the heels of the upcoming Season 4 and after a disappointing Season 3 plagued with bugs (some game breaking), with in some peoples opinion lackluster or broken new operators, and a concerning dip in player counts (according to Steams stats). Along with Brandon I agree there has to be a better way. But what is that way?. This is an act of direct action. Ubisoft knows the changes are unwelcome. You cant scroll through the sub reddit without a post or all recent Youtube videos slamming the changes.

Yeees Return fire haha. I never know the title of that game, thanks Jones.

Tom Smith

Speaking of $100 editions that don't have the game in it, EA sold a Nomad remote-controlled car for Mass Effect: Andromeda for $100, presented it as the Collector's Edition, and didn't have the game included with that car (similar to RDR2, that example coming per the Corrections segment). As a ME fan, I really wanted to get the CE before I found out about that. :(

jif52

My friend is pissed that they announced a mobile Diablo. If he was more into social media he would probably be posting hate. He also didn't get that Diablo 4 wasn't going to be at blizzcon from the Blizzard posts. He also didn't realize that they are making it from all the hiring they have been doing and that post telling everyone to wait. He can't seem to read between the lines lol There is no Blizzard only Activision. Do you think Activision pushed Blizzard to make a mobile game? Huber doesn't seem to realize that even if the devs love something the publisher can easily forced things like microtransactions.

Chris H