Cup of Jones - July 3, 2018

Right here. You submit questions for the next episode by leaving your question on the video version of the previous weeks episode. Just FYI sometimes Jones gathers the questions on a Monday, so it you might be too late for this week.

BeatenDownBrian

Newly pledged patron here, where does one submit questions for cup of jones?

Hey Jones, On the last episode of the podcast you guys talked talked about what an Undead Nightmare style DLC for RDR2 could look like, but I wanted to ask if in a post GTA Online world, do you even think we’ll get one? Personally, I’m kinda having a hard time seeing it, and feel like the focus will be mainly, if not entirely aimed at adding to the online. Although it’s hard to be mad about it, given how much they’ve added to GTA Online, we never did get that single player DLC for GTA V after all. (Feel free to skip this if you're running long, as it's not super important.)

BeatenDownBrian

50k Goal met, I recently felt cheated when it was clarified that the studio might not 100% happen if support doesn't stick at that level. I felt that I had to delete my pledge, Which made me think: How do you process the pressure of negative or constructive feedback from the community; while financially relying on our support? Its a tough balance. Do you meditate? Have a favorite show or music you listen to?

Business Question - Hey Jones. I just learned that Patreons can be set up to charge people up front. Have you guys looked into this at all? I feel like would be a step it in the right direction and may help to combat the massive fluctuations at the beginning/end of each month. I'll attach a link from Patreon Support here - <a href="https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360004151371-How-do-I-enable-charge-up-front-" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360004151371-How-do-I-enable-charge-up-front-</a>

Joetown

What so far this year is your favorite game this year and why? Mine is God of War. Also as an update I put my cat down this past Friday. His name was Biggs. I thank you for your words last week they helped a lot.

Please allow me to intervene, The writer that had the bad reaction to the community thinks (from her tweets) that her public twitter account is a private space. While she was talking about the game she should expect the fans to express their feedback and opinions which had nothing to do with forcing her or the other staff member to adhere to their opinions. The writer passive aggressive reaction wasn't justified or professional at all since the fan was respectful and actually said that in his opinion that the genre structure (MMORPG) itself is the issue not the writing. Anyway, this is why studios have PR manager to consult. Now she is escalating the situation with baseless claims that it's a gender problem but the truth is the other male writer who supported her aggressive behavior was also fired. Sad thing. but companies can't risk losing the player base they built because of unjustifiable individual behaviors. L&amp;R

Mr_Cid

Boop for safety reasons

Gustav Strömbom

Boop

Hi Jones Who among is the current roster of Allies is best prepared to take over Bloodworth's role when he decides to take on the job of President of Nintendo?

Hi Brandon. Felt I had to write a question this week after hearing about potential "2 or more allies present" streams at a new studio. My absolute favourite "more than 1 ally present" streams, excluding the tuesday night group streams, are without a doubt Hubers full playthrough of various horror games with Kyle present. And Bloodworths full playthrough of Earthbound (when you, the Brandon Jones, was present). I think it is pretty obvious why the Huber plays a horror game while Kyle watches streams are great, but just in case it isn't obvious. Kyle would have never experienced those games otherwise and we get to see Kyle experince them, there are of course more reasons but that is the main one for me. But the reason why I love the Earthbound streams at the garage studio is because you Brandon were there in the background. It seemed to me that you even enjoyed that working environment and Bloodworth most certainly enjoyed having you there to sometimes bounce stuff off of. Now of course having you or another ally be on the couch next to the one playing would have been preferable. But just having 1 more ally present in the same shot, sometimes interjecting or watching the game, during the stream raised those particular live broadcasts above a lot of other streams for me personally. It also helps when research breaks are needed. What do you, Brandon Jones, have to say about that and more importanly, did you enjoy it to the point we will be seeing more of that in the future? All 9 allies were of course considered when thinking about possible future streams with bonus working in the background participants, but you two (Jones &amp; Blood) were the example and the inspiration for this question in particular. Love &amp; Respect Gustav Strömbom aka Gurrzilla

Gustav Strömbom

A

Sekiro505

Hello!! I loved levels back at GT! Would you guys want to bring something like that back or something similar?

Sekiro505

Hey Jones, call this a personal question that may call for some editorial rigour. I've no doubt you're familiar with the recent happenings to do with the Guild Wars 2 developer ArenaNet. For those hearing about it for the first time through this comment, the long story short is that one of their narrative staff responded brusquely on Twitter to some pretty condescending remarks about her area of expertise. Fans on Reddit and the like were outraged, and ArenaNet not only decided that she had disrespected them, but made her redundant for it, along with another member of staff that defended her reaction. However better that exchange could have gone - and for the record, I 100% sympathise with the ex-employees' response in this situation - the idea that a career in the game industry can be shot down by refusing to indulge every whim of the employer's userbase, no matter how ignorant or unhelpful, is deeply troubling. Of course user feedback matters, but respect has to go both ways, and there's a difference between responding to an artist's work or philosophy and dismissing it entirely, particularly where social media and a vengeful internet mob is concerned. You could also point at toxic fan responses to The Last Jedi as an example of this, and you yourself may be navigating the issue on some level within Easy Allies. How do you feel about ArenaNet's actions, and what should the rest of the industry be doing to toe the line between fan demand and creator's intent? Thanks, Dominic

DaleBastion

Oof, great answer to my question last week. Only question I have now is: How perfect is that gaelic opera opening to Metal Gear Solid? And the track by Harry-Gregson Williams in MGS2?

I hope you're doing well today

Hi Jones! I have a show idea, not asking you to consider it or anything, it is just a fantasy. But I can't think of a name, so do you think you can think of one? My show idea would be that Kyle, Jones, Ben, and Damiani all sit down together and each of them bring a single question/comment from their own shows, and ask each other the question.

Parasitepaladin

Having grown up with consoles, I never really got into crpg's but it's a genre that ever since I got a dedicated PC I've wanted to get into. I tried getting into older games like Baldur's Gate and the complexity kind of drove me away, more recenty I played both Divinity Original Sin AND Divinity Original Sin 2, stopped both after about 8-10 hours and never really felt a reason to go back. Finally, I recently picked up Tyranny after doing a lot of research into the Obsidian crpg's, and it's finally got me hooked. That's a lot of lead in, but (QUESTION:) What's a genre that you've wanted to get into for a long time but never found the right game to pull you in? Or, if you've finally found that game, what is it?

Nora Parón

Hey! So one thing I’ve noticed throughout the two and a half years of the podcast is a lack of “traditional podcast” sponsors (Blue Apron, Audible, Dollar Shave, Stamps.Com, etc.). Would this be something that you’d be open to if they reached out to you or is more “corporate” sponsors something you want to avoid to keep with the crowdfunded feel of the company?

Jordan Ney

Random question this week. Have you heard the song "Easy Livin" by Uriah Heap? It's become my unofficial theme for a certain special event coming up soon.

Kate Bishop

Hi Brandon! This week can you tell us about Damiani? How did you meet? What was your first opinion of him? What was your relationship like at GameTrailers and how it changed since EZA began? Thanks!

MaxVSTheGames

Hello from France Mr Jones !!! This is a follow up comment about podcast 117 audio beeing very low, I'm sure you remember. This is just to let you know that podcast 118 audio is perfect in terms of volume !!! You fixed it !!! I checked on all my devices and I can hear you all loud and clear without having to put headphones in or maxing out my TV volume !! Thank you so much!! Love &amp; Respect

tahitianwarrior

Hi Jones! I wanted to talk about Community Showcase. After talking with a friend recently, I realized that Community Showcase is kind of biased toward certain kinds of work. Or, I suppose more accurately it kind of just prohibits works that involve writing. Due to the word limit, writing works 1) have to be pretty short, which is limiting, and 2) if they aren’t short enough, the introduction to the piece gets cut out, which is often the most important part. I completely understand why you have a word limit for comments, but I feel like while that makes sense for people who are just writing in to give opinions, etc., it’s a little unfair to people who want to fan “Art” in the form of writing. Not everyone can draw, or sing, etc. and if writing is your main talent, the community showcase kind of bars you from, well…showcasing that talent. My best friend submitted writing to the showcase and while it was great, the introduction from their piece was cut out, which sucked because it stated the reason for the piece and why they submitted it (since the piece was inspired by them seeing friends at the year 2 anniversary). I don’t know if I have solutions for this, but I figured it was something I should bring up, since it’s a common thread in fan spaces for writing to be less valued than art because it takes more time to consume, which is unfair to the writers. Love and Respect, Casey

Hey Jones I like Brad and Ultima Brad. What do you love about him/them?

Kola Aina

Reaction Shots is the second Friday of the month. Fiasconauts is the last Friday of the month. The Q&amp;A is the last Saturday for patrons, but doesn't go public until a week later. The Community Showcase is the first Thursday of the month. Top 10s don't have a set time just yet, but seems like the third week of the month is the only one that doesn't have a monthly show so far. So maybe we can time it for that to work. -Bloodworth

Easy Allies

Hi Brandon! I'm really enjoying And For That Reason so far and I think the concept of having seasonal shows is great. Do you guys already have plans for what comes after AFTR and will it follow immediately after that or will we have to wait a little longer?

Dennis M.

Howdy, Brandon! With Octopath Traveler coming up over the horizon, I extend to you one of the most frequent topics that comes up in discussion around it. Do you feel that game's visual style lends itself perfectly to a Final Fantasy VI remake? Does anything short of a high budget production matching what VII is receiving make the endeavour unappealing? Or would you rather they never bother trying? Square Enix is an odd entity lately, and the non-mobile remake snub on FFV and FFVI has always had me thinking "What if?" Octopath presents an interesting remake scenario wherein FFVI retains most of its existing visual identity while leaving room for a lot of other production bumps such as voice acting and orchestral re-arrangements. P.S. Just to help further draw a parallel between Octopath and FFVI, Octopath's producer said in an interview at Japan Expo that they view their game as a spiritual successor to FFVI in regards to game mechanic evolution. Friday's previews have pulled back fan expectations since then, but it's interesting to see that fans aren't the only ones making comparisons between the two.

Kirbu

Hi Brandon! Most of your monthly shows (Fiasconauts, Q&amp;A, Community Showcase and now Top 10) are released basically in the same week. Isn't it better to space them out evenly over the month?

Alexander Zyryanov

Hello Blood, Hoeg, Otoshi, Chat and Jones! I'd like to know how you budget game purchases, if you don't get a review copy. Let's say you want to review a game. Let's say you want to stream a game. Let's say you just want to play a game, and will maybe or maybe not talk about it on Frame Trap. How do you manage those purchases, may they be physical (from retail or eBay) or on online shops like Steam or the PlayStation Store. Does every Allie have a certain budget each month? Do you have to ask for permission, if the costs will be covered? Or can anybody just buy whatever they are interested in, and Easy Allies will pay for it, because you never know when it might could be used for or talked about at Easy Allies? When does an Allie have to pay for a game out of their own pocket? To be clear: I don't have any stance on this whatsoever. I just imagine that you guys worked out some guidelines on this, and I would like to hear about this potential background process. PS: Blood should sit next to you at some point. Your chemistry is great, and his input valuable.

Snowcone Guy

You got me I love that Sophie dog now

Hi Jones, Thanks for answering my question about the Hall of Greats last week! I want to propose another suggestion based on your response. Last week, you mentioned the possibility of letting the presenting ally stop anyone from asking questions when time is low, which is kind of a difficult rule to enforce. With that in mind, how about designating a specific point in time where, for the reminder of the 5 minutes, no more questions can be asked, and the presenter is given that remaining time to conclude their answer to the last question asked. For example. at the '30 seconds remaining' point, the timer says "No more questions," and the presenter has 30 seconds to finish addressing the current question before they are cut off. This alleviates the problem brought up last week, and also keeps the same 5 minute hard cutoff, but does so in a well-defined, easily enforceable way. Thoughts? L&amp;R, Nick

Hey, I‘m a software developer for applications iOS/macOS/Web and could develop you a custom tool for organizing your questions for Cup of Jones. Features could be: - Automatic created Timestamps (as long as you don‘t cut segments out of the stream) - Full Screen presentation on your computer like you did before going live - Online Form to enter questions so you don‘t have to copy them from the patreon into the tool - Searching and linking if you already answered a question - Login with Patreon-Credentials to just grant patreons of EasyAllies access I would be very happy to build a custom solution to make this possible without a higher workload for you. Contact me via Twitter (@Stefan51278) if you like that idea :) Stefan PS: Love and Respect! 50K 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

Stefan Bien

Probably has to do with the fact sponsors get their ad/name read on some of the shows, so having too many ads to read would be detrimental to the flow of the podcast/frametrap.

Térence Caron

Why is there a limit to how many sponsors there are for podcasts? If someone wants to give $500 or more to sponsor you guys, it's weird to me that there needs to be an open slot in order for that to happen. I do remember at one point there were 11 people at the $500 tier, what changed?

Evan Charles Teague

I’m just curious if you’ve watched Friend Code lately? If not, I recommend checking out the latest episode. Just personally, I think ever since Damiani introduced the new format, which integrates questions more frequently and naturally, I think it has really helped to improve the flow of the podcast. I can understand why people would want all the news in one place, but I gotta say I like the way the handle it now. Wouldn’t really like to have news repeated on both too often.

BeatenDownBrian

There are rewards for Twitch subscribers - you don't get ads before streams, you have badges, emotes, and access to a subscriber-only chat room when active. -Bloodworth

Easy Allies

Jones, excuse my ignorance but is there anyway to reward people for being a twitch subscriber in addition to a Patron donor. I like I'm sure many other gives you my twitch prime sub every month, and have no problem doing it in addition to my Patron pledge. I just thought maybe people would be more incentivised to give you at least their twitch prime sub every month if they knew about it or had a reward for doing so.

strawhatninja

Just wanted to thank you for answering my comment on the news show Brandon, it wasn't really a question in fact but glad you read it ! :)

Térence Caron

Brandon, do you ever worry that the 50k goal is always just out of reach as it is essentially the ceiling of Patreon rewards, in other words the final thing you have to offer at face value. I know you mentioned there are other goals you and the allies discussed possibly adding once a studio was locked into place. Perhaps a lot of these goals are dependant upon the layout and infrastructure of the studio itself, but if just one or two of these goals were not, and therefore could be added as 55k or 60k goals etc, do you think it would be easier to reach that 50k mark as you would get extra support from both new and old patrons that may not be heavily invested in the idea of a studio per se, but would love to help you reach that 55k or 60k goal, whatever it may be. Thanks from Ireland - Jason Presents. (P.S - Loved the camping segment as I was lucky enough to visit California back in 2012 and Yosemite Park is the most beautiful place I have probably ever been too...)

Jason Presents

My favorite series from Easy Allies is Brandon Plays Pokemon. I know that it's incredibly difficult for you and Kyle to do another series with Kyle having less free time due to his work with Box Peek, but can we expect a future series for either the "Let's Go" games coming out soon or for the unnamed Pokemon Switch game coming out next year? I realize that Brandon Plays Pokemon seemed like something Kyle was incredibly passionate about doing and that doing another series just for the sake of continuing it may not be something he would be into. However it would be good to know if there are any thoughts or intentions of pursuing the series' continuation. For me if there were plans for doing Brandon Plays Pokemon Switch 2019 I would be more hyped for that than E3 2019. Also a series where you play Pokemon: Gold and/or Silver or even Crystal would be amazing too. Or any mainline Pokemon games.

I don't know if Kyle's in that Final Bosman headspace anymore but... this dude ain't wrong.

keithbungle

You want to be at 50k+? Simply add to the 50k goal that Final Bosman will return. That should do it.

The 'other' console podcasts came up again so I have a serious pitch for you to give to Ian and Huber. Genesis 5. The Sega Genesis podcast where they take 5 minutes to discuss 1 Genesis game and their memories. Added as a sting to Huber Syndrome, EZ update or recorded after Reaction Shots and cut into its own mini-sode would be so cool. From the kids who didnt have a SNES.

Steven Beaumont

Hey Jones! I’ve activity kept up with you guys since the GT days, been a twitch sub for a long time, and now I’ve finally taken the plunge to becoming a patron too! I believe this is where questions go, soooo... With Box Peek well underway, and the 50k goal being in reach (or already reached), will different allies have the opportunity to work on more pet projects? If so, has anyone (including you) voiced their ideas for said pet projects? I’d love to hear any hopes and dreams anyone has had for something they’d like to do in the future, even if it’s vague and subject to change.

TAHK0

Great hair cut jones

Henry Ramirez

Hey Mr. Jones! This is a resubmission, because while watching live, I didn't see/hear you answer my question. I sent you a tweet with proof of my submission (though at the time of this writing, it doesn't appear to have sent, so I'm copy/pasting it here.) No biggie for missing it! Stuff happens :-) A couple of times during a recent episode, for different topics, you said, "That's the number one feedback, critique, etc." for said topic. Now that EZA has gone two years plus and on the cusp of getting a studio, what do you believe is the overall number one piece of feedback you have heard, both in terms of importance and amount, and is it the same from when EZA started? And tangentially, what has been the one (or more if you like) thing EZA has answered, accomplished, or able to overcome as a result of feedback, critique, requests, etc from your various audiences? As always, thanks for taking my questions. Cheers!

Brandon K Gann

Hi, I wanted to share that I believe Friend code is taking away from the podcast. Too often Nintendo news is overlooked in lieu of coverage within Friend Code. I understand that you want to avoid covering things multiple times, but I think that the depth and breadth of analysis in Friend Code warrant double coverage of major topics. I personally don't care for the cadence of the Friend Code, so I tend to avoid it, but I really wouldn't mind that it exists, but for its impact on the podcast. Keep up the great work, L&amp;R

Personal question: Out of curiosity, what race and class did you play during your World of Warcraft days?

Professor Metal Gear

It will get back up there sooner or later.

Professor Metal Gear

under 50k sadness

Afternoon!

wuggles

Morning

ZatVunDoot