Episode 559: Not all Marvel Heroes wear capes

Ha ha ha. Yeah. I am so sorry. I bought this machine right before I made it. loved it and I upgraded it and I've been playing so many games on it and recording so many podcasts and last Thursday it just made some horrible horrible noises. Uh when I try to reboot and it was it was dead. It's dead. So did your hard drive escape? Do you keep all your stuff? I I do a backup every couple weeks. Oh good. So I've got important stuff. But um

Yeah, it's kind of a bummer. My kids were like, No, all of our steam, you know, like our Minecraft worlds and stuff. I'm like, Well, you know, the cloud, who knows, it might still be there and if not, we rebuild Sun, we rebuild like the great pioneers of the West. We rebuild our Minecraft islands. I don't know. So yeah, we're in we're in the process of uh Starting a shop around. It might be a little while so I'm making do with

on my other computers setting actually I'm at work right now so if this sounds weird I don't know I'm using my backup mic I'm using my backup Brie. She's not quite as high quality as the other one but we make it. No one will notice. It's fine. Always low quality.

Welcome back to the Mass EOP podcast, episode five five nine. I'm Justin with me as Bree today, and we're excited to talk to you, uh, computer or no, uh, because, you know, the games must go on. We must play ab w play them and talk about them.

and spend an hour just rehashing the news and some other things. So we've got an interesting show today. Uh we've got a little bit of news and our personal stories to talk about, but then we're gonna go into a daily grind blitz later. We haven't done one of those in a while.

And uh we extensively prepared in the last ten minutes for this. So You can't it's it's better if you don't prepare. First off, we've all read these daily grinds, like we already know'em. But second off, it's more interesting if it's off the cuff. So he doesn't know what I've picked out and I don't know what he's picked out.

But I have a pretty good idea and I think he can get like I I picked out my most interesting stuff from like the last couple of years. I deep I went all the way back to twenty fifteen. I No, no. What? Okay, then that would actually have been fun. That would actually maybe next time. We go back to like ten years and Yeah. I do that every once in a while. I I cheat. When I'm when I really don't have an idea, which honestly doesn't happen that I have a huge bin full of like

ideas that have just never actually made it in into an article. But like if I'm really stumped and I just need something, I go back to old massively. I find our old daily grinds from like fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years ago. And try to see if there's anything that can be rehabbed into like a modern version of it. And occasionally there is. Do you think Calegate London's gonna be an amazing game as it's been talked up?

Yeah, a lot of times it's it's really like, Wow, I forgot that even existed and we're using it as an example that everyone would know and now it's like completely dead. That's just wild. Yeah, I I don't think people quite appreciate how difficult it is to constantly come up with new questions. All the time for the daily grind. Yeah. I mean it's thousands. We've done many, many thousands of these.

So you know the next one. It's you gotta you gotta be on top of it. If you have a random thought during the week, if you're playing the game and you're like, Oh, that would make a good question, you gotta do that. That's what I do. Justin and I will be talking on the podcast, like, ooh, we should We should do that as a daily crime. It happens all the time and you have to grab'em. Yeah, absolutely.

Uh with three hundred and sixty five of these questions every year, so they're they're all gonna be Plus plus overthinkings, they're basically just daily grinds. They're just daily grinds that we all answer. So add another one on the top. And then we used to like layer leaderboard on top of that and that was another Yeah. Always thinking of some sort of Oh, poles are such a pain in the butt. Oh I hate dealing with poles. Honestly, I'm not sorry. We kinda we semi retired that that little feature.

Yeah, but don't look at our semi retired features. That's that's always embarrassing. Jukebox Heroes, what's that? Game archaeologist? I haven't seen that one of those. You just did a game archaeologist. It was like a week or two ago. Yeah, I guess I did one. It was yeah, it was kind of off the cuff though.

All right, well let's talk about what we've been playing. Did you since you had an operational PC? Unfortunately. Uh yes. I actually did get to play on A little bit on the weekend I played some Palea. I got back in there. I I had been talking with Katriana on Blue Sky about like some stuff that both of us had experienced in in Palea specifically where Palea makes us feel like

we're behind, like perpetually behind, which is bizarre because it's like the coziest game that ever did cozy. So you would think you would just be going in there like, Oh, I'm gonna make make jam and you know W you're you think I'm gonna chop down trees and I'm gonna tinker in my house and I'm gonna change my dress and blah blah blah. But no there's something about that game that is very like

Go go go in a really weird way and I I wanted to get in and play a little bit more. I haven't been in a ton since they started adding those tracks. They have like reward tracks now. They're kinda like I don't know, they're kinda like the new world reward tracks or like lots of games have these things now. Minecraft Dungeons. They're actually identical to Minecraft Dungeons. They they could be ripped right out of there from the way you can like go back and buy the old ones or whatever.

But they are. There's a paid and a free version and Yeah, I can kinda see why that's part of it and then there's like all of these extra bulletin board quests you can do now and there's like time limits on them and it just it feels like the game is rushing me. Like Do you think that the daily time cycle also contributes to Well, mm, I see what you mean. Maybe a little, actually, yes, because the NPCs are in certain spots

And so y you end up learning it and you have to run to where they are. But there's there's little ways around that sometimes. Like you can go bang on their door and still talk to them even when they should be asleep. You know what I mean? But they're all conveniently in in the town center at certain days and certain times of the day. I think that's part of it, but I think the major produ problem is more recent for me, it's that

all of those extra quests that have been layered in, you can't really keep on top of them. Like just logging in and like doing your farm or doing your ranch, which I've completely abandoned, but just doing that stuff takes up a significant amount of time before you even get to anything else. So ugh.

I I don't know how to ignore it. I I don't know how to like play it while not thinking about those things, which is weird. Again The thing we both came to was that we play all kinds of MMOs that have all kinds of time cycles and daily limits and weekly limits and you gotta get this done and th they somehow don't feel as rushy as this and I don't know why. I don't get it. But anyway, I did have fun. I did play.

Um, I'm not going away. It's gonna be like a forever game on my my PC, it just is now. But the other thing I got to play this weekend was Marvel Heroes. I actually got in there. I I played some last week actually because I didn't get to play last weekend. So I played during the test server and then they brought it up. They brought the new server one point point one point oh. It's like the official launch of this rogue server was like Friday Friday night, I guess. Yeah?

So I got to log in. I kinda didn't bother on Friday and Saturday because I could see from the Discord it was not going well. It was kind of a mess. Uh they had many more people show up than I think they were expecting, which is good it's a good problem to have, but I don't think they were prepared and they were like, We won't have to do cues, don't worry. They totally had to do cues.

because that was how many people were trying to break down the door to get onto. This server, you know, a couple thousand people which is which is a lot for a game that been dead this long, um I think we did we said it was almost seven years this game has been gone. Which is crazy. It ha no wings It's longer than that. It's nine years. Almost nine years, right? Was it twenty seventeen? Okay, so almost ninety years.

Which is yeah, crazy. But yeah, this this server has also this whole like emulator project has been it's relatively recent last couple of years. And it's been kind of low key. compared to emulator projects for some other games I could name, so I'm not sure it's like spread far and wide yet, but it will be because like I said, they got a lot of people in there. So apparently yesterday they said they were opening up a new server. I don't think they've done it.

Guys right outside my window window literally activated a wood chipper. This happens to you several times a year. What this is what is with the wood chippers up there in Buffalo? I need to know. It's snowing and they're wood chipping. Why why not? I mean, of course. Is it really snowing up there? Yeah, a little bit. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. It was so lovely yesterday. Like everybody's in T shirts and shorts. It was great.

Uh, you get like one of those a week in the spring and then it goes right back to being crappy. I I think the Buffalo Weather Channel th this morning was saying it's thirty six up here and down in Pittsburgh it's eighty four. Like what the hell is that? Yeah. There's the front. That tells you where it is, right? Yeah.

Well good, I'm glad you got some some. It was fun. Yeah, and I actually played. Like when I got in on Sunday I didn't have a cue. I had a crash bug, but then I got right back in and I didn't have a queue. People in Discord were whining about a cue. I don't know how I magically got in, but I did. Um yeah, I I I'm not sure. Why are you sitting there? He's literally sitting like an inch away from where the v goes in and it gets

I'm gonna let you know if like suddenly I need to. No, I'm not gonna sell that footage. Oh my gosh. Anyway, yes, I I did get to play. I played Storm. I I even wrote a daily grind about this. See? Everything is a daily grind if you think about it long enough.

But I sat there and looking you could you play anything. You can literally they give you like a big chunk of like free currency. This is by the way, they're not taking money, so there's no way to put money in and pay to win or anything like that.

But they do give you a chunk of the in-game currency, which you can then I guess buy with eternity splinters, which just drop for you, so eventually you can unlock everything. But in the beginning they give you like I don't know like five thousand points or something and you can buy several heroes just right off the bat.

In addition to a couple they give you basically for free. So Do they have the team ups as well? They do have team ups. They brought all of that back. Yeah. Including uh I had I had missed somehow that at some point Disney made them remove Some of the characters? I know I I noticed it because um not them, sorry. Had made Gazillion remove some of the characters probably'cause there was a movie or something, I don't even know. And I wanna say it was like Silver Surfer and

Um the Inmisible Woman and it was like several other characters. Do you remember this? Yeah, I do. I don't remember this at all. And it was wild to me'cause I played those two characters and I was like, whoa, I think I would have been really pissed off.

It was bouncing. Um twentieth Century Fox had the rights to those at the time. Oh, okay. And it was bouncing back and forth like they were trying to retain the rights and then the the Marvel thing happened and they finally got but the Marvel thing happened, alright. Yeah. So anyway, those are all in,'cause of course everything else about this server is rogue. Why not one more thing, right?

Uh so you can you can buy those if buy um air quotes buy them. You can pick those up. I ended up just going with Storm. I know Storm. Storm is really easy. It's literally you're floating around shooting things with lightning and it's like fun as heck.

So I just went with that. That was my main character back in the day. But I'll I'll unlock some others later. You can unlock costumes and everything too. It's it's very play the game and the splinters will will follow and then you can you know, exchange them for these coins. That will allow you to unlock everything. And I saw some 60s already literally yesterday. So some people 100% no life this.

That's to be expected, I guess. I did not no life it, but I did come to the point where I had to unlock Storm'cause I there's a I guess it's level ten or something. You have to like actually physically unlock the character or you can't keep going. And I did'cause I was having so much fun. I really, really love the game. I had forgotten how much and why, like precisely

What about it feels so good? It still feels like an MMORPG, even though it is not really an MMORPG. It's like if Diablo and superheroes and an MMORPG had a baby. that doesn't make any sense'cause that's not how babies work. But you know what I mean? It has that rogue like feel and then suddenly Some other player just shows up, like hanging out, like hey, and then you both end up killing the thing and everybody gets experience and everybody gets loot, everybody gets

Quest completion and it just suddenly it's like, Oh, this is just an open world MMO and we're all you know what I mean? It's like Yeah, and it's so much fun like swapping characters and just expecting around and yeah. Doctor Doom, man. He was fun he was a lot of fun back in the day.

So anyway, I'm I'm gonna keep playing. I've I had so much fun. I'm trying to get my family like I'll just keep playing until they join me because I think they will. They they did back in the day, long, long ago. I know we had my son with us, um, even even nine years ago. I am I wrong? It has to be. Nine years. This can't be nine years.

Anyway, it was fun. What what did you you didn't get to do anything because of I did. Oh. So so here's what happened. So Thursday night my computer dies and Um, I'm not having a good day on Friday. Friday was just that was that was a that was a day. We had plumbing issues, we had

The computer went down, you know, like my wife just looked at me like, We're just never not gonna be broke. I'm like, Well, you know, like It's just one of those days like you just kinda laugh and you throw up your hands, you're like, Well, okay, I'm just gonna st you know, like turn off my carrying switch and just go with the flow and um but you know

It's not like I told my kid the other day, I I it saying, Yeah, in the early nineties it was not that common for every household to have a computer. I don't know what the stats were. One out of four, two out of four, you know, like It was not not every household even had one computer, never mind multiples. And I'm thinking nowadays I've got three computers. Like it's I've got two laptops and I have my gaming computer. So

It's just so blessed to have backups and other things that rely on. So I my other computer at home is my twenty twenty MacBook Air, the M One chip, and I've loved that thing. It's been one of my favorite writing Like I I just bring it places and I write. I do movie reviews. I do some massively stuff. It's been my favorite portable laptop of all time. I'd absolutely love this thing.

But I d also don't really use it for gaming that much. Like if I was gonna game, I'd go on my gaming computer. I just not everything has a Mac. Like client, especially with MMOs and it's been We've seen a decline of Mac lines for MMOs over the years. There's not that many anymore, but fortunately Blizzard is one of the companies that still mostly does.

it. I I think uh Diablo four is not Mac compatible. But in any case, World of Warcraft is. And I I've had Classic on there before, but I thought, oh man, you know, my computer went down. I really wanted to play some retail And

It's only a two hundred and fifty gig hard drive. It's not that big. But so w wow retail's like a hundred and twenty five gigs. So I'm like, well, I guess it could be the one thing I have on my computer. So I spent Friday like setting it up and I had to update my operating system, all that background stuff and but The end result is I got in, no problem. Like work like a dream. I didn't even have to like scale down the settings.

It was beautiful. Um, I actually sat in the same room with my wife'cause I'm like, I'm not gonna sit in my office, you know, like I'm just gonna sit here and she's like, Well, thank you. That's what you look like And so Yeah, we played actually she's playing retail. I'm playing retail. So we're like, let's do some delves together. Let's, you know, run around toget We haven't actually game together in a very long time. It's just not something we

are usually in sync to do. And so it was kind of nice to have that. Or just to sit around talking about the same game. And so that was a nice point of connection. And I spent I had some time on Saturday and some time on Sunday. And since it was the only game I could play, it was just all I did. You know, like if I had some time, I'd sat down and I just played some retail and so I started

powering through the campaign because I found out like if you don't get to the end of the campaign you don't get the higher level delves. You're like stuck at delve level three, which is nothing. So I'm like, what yeah, I gotta get this. So yeah, my um my wife's outpacing me and laughing at me every step of the way. I'm like, Well, you gonna be home twenty four seven? I don't like.

That's not fair. Um but no, I had I had some good time. I got to level ninety. I got a good chunk of the campaign done. I had some fun. It wasn't a bad thing. I even like took my kids to karate the other day. I'm sitting in the car waiting for them.

Got my computer out, hotspotted it right through my phone, no problem. Playing World of Warcraft in my car. It was a lot of it was it was crazy. So yeah. I mean at least it's something, right? At least it's something. Yeah, I'm glad you got to do something. Yeah. So, um, yeah, I'm I'm not complaining. I just wanna kinda get to the point where I can start doing the daily or the weekly stuff I wanna be doing, especially Delves, but it probably's gonna be another week.

So hopefully next week I can give you that report. Yes, hurry up. You you're required to have a working functioning machine. Yeah, we'll we'll see about that. You know the prices of storage right now'cause you don't even want to think about it. So I'm kind of looking around. If you guys have any tips like online, a really good deal for a gaming PC, even a refurbished model, let me know. I'm kind of looking for something with really decent storage and some nice RAM.

Um I might I might cannibalize some parts from my prior computer, but we'll see. All right, well let's uh let's go into a little bit of the news here. Do we have anything more we wanna talk about Project Tahiti? What do you think? Um no, I think I think we're all just kind of in in a holding pattern now to see what goes on with that next serve with the second server and how they handle

Are they gonna let us move? Are we gonna have to re roll? Is it gonna be super lagged? Who knows? We're just gonna keep keep watching, just to see what happens. I mean if people stop playing then they don't need the second server, so Yeah, but I don't think that's gonna happen. It was packed, Justin. It was so great. That's great. Uh you know what? A lot of those games coming back, they have the an advantage brand new games don't, which is, you know, the nostalgia, the baked in family. Oh yeah.

You know, people who were lamenting the loss of their game, which this kind of happened pretty suddenly back in the day. So I'm so happy for.

Uh but we could talk about this EverQuest emulator story. I think it I think it pretty much is. This week we found out that Daybreak and the uh defendants, the the operators of the hero's journey EverQuest Emulator have basically negotiated a settlement and are now waiting for the judge, or at least they were last week. I didn't even double check to see this morning if the judge has signed off yet, but it seemed pretty likely that the judge would sign off, so I think it's basically a done deal.

Um you guys would remember uh in case you don't Uh, the Hero's Journey was a very large, very successful and popular uh EverQuest rogue server. um that Daybreak basically cracked down on last year in spite of the fact that there are lots of other rogue servers that were you know have been going on for many years and in fact daybreak had signed an agreement with one of these servers to allow them to like completely operate out in the open. They even have a forum and whatnot.

Um, but this one was apparently making large sums of money according to the lawsuit and the judges own statements that it sounded like they were making at one point as much as a hundred thousand dollars a month. We're not talking about a small amount of money and you guys I'm sure remember Daybreak basically said in its filings

Yeah, like this is actually actively hurting our finances. This is actually eating into Everquest the OG Everquest and the player base and our our money, our revenues from this original game. This is literally the definition of copyright infringement. This is the thing that copyright law is supposed to protect to protect us, you know, from that people can't just take our stuff and like make money at our expense.

So like, you know, rogue servers for dead games, ew, they're not really making any money at anybody's expense. You could get them shut down, but there's you know, ethically and morally, it doesn't seem as bad. This was one case where like daybreak was panicking. Like it really seemed like a big deal. Uh so yeah, they they pursued that specific server.

pretty much ignored the other servers, but a lot of them panicked anyway. And um yeah, now we're we're finally we're finally coming to a resolution because that server wouldn't just capitulate right off. They decided to fight it. So yeah, it's it's it's happening. The um the final sediment basically looks thusly. Um

The hero's journey will not be allowed to operate. It is it was already shut down, um accord the judge had already shut them down earlier in in the lawsuit, but they won't be able to like spin it back up. They're not really allowed to like so much as breathe the words. you know, a request code or a repository or anything like that. They it's over, no more of that.

Um and in return Daybreak will kindly not pursue them for damages anymore and if they screw up, if they break that agreement, then the defendants will owe Daybreak the equivalent of three point five million dollars um in the damages that is for bearing right now. It's not actually seeking them right now. So that is the agreement. Um I I am actually kind of shocked. went away so quietly. I th I think they were in a very good position.

Um, I don't know. Really depends on y you can take your own view on whether you think this was a win for daybreak or not. I I think it was a win for daybreak. I think no one will give it credit for that leniency, but you know, they they did get what they wanted, which was Um all of this stuff shut down and yes, a chilling effect on other servers that might try to do the specific things it does not want you to do to compete with EverQuest.

It seems like it will continue allowing some of these other you know, the smaller servers that aren't necessarily trying to be the next um legacy s what do they call them? Uh progression servers. Time limited progression servers. Yeah. So this so this um this crew that has now escaped the legal Uh dire threat of the All this. Um they're they're going on to Oh yeah, no they didn't other M. They didn't hide. Yeah, what's it called? Holl Hollowed Oath. Yeah, that's them.

Um, they're not really being shy about it. That it seems like they just changed the Discord name and or maybe imported the past people from their old Discord. I'm not really clear on how that that transpired, but Yeah, some of this stuff is very similar. When you read between the lines, they've got that multi class thing. Their world name is very similar to Norath. It's it's

They know what they're doing. They're they're coming right up to the line of the law, of the agreement they signed, like I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you But they're not technically touching them. I'm sure Dave Rake will be watching them very, very closely. Um but I mean honestly like this is what everybody told them a year ago, almost a year ago, and they're like if if if you're so great, if this is such a great server, make your own game. Like literally.

Yeah. You know, if that's if that's your thing, that's fine. I'm not shaming you. But if you're you're putting a lot of creative effort into writing a story into a copyright universe that you can't actually legally sell, why not just do your own thing? You might as you know, fifty shades of grey came out of Twilight. You might as well just make your millions somewhere else. So yeah, I think about that with game development too. So you know, these these people are obviously like

not just this this group, but, you know, rogue server devs. There's a lot of talent there and it's really nice to see that them pour that into it, but you want to make sure that they're not doing that year after year and then suddenly the the studio or, you know, lawyers come by and say, Well, that's it and all that And can you even put that on your resume? Like

Yeah. Yeah. I mean some of these guys are really doing it for the love of that OG game. They don't they're not there for the money, they're not even there for the fame. A lot of them have a day job that already pays their rent. This is just something the they feel like the emulation

And the preservation is so important that they're willing to donate their time to it. And other people are like, How can I make a bunch of money and fame off of this off of somebody else's IP and then parlay that into my own thing? Yeah, you can you can debate which one you think this one is. I think I I already have an opinion and it's probably very obvious. I think by the time you're making a hundred grand a month

Um, we're not really talking about the same scale as, you know, the indie devs who are begging for a thousand just to keep the lights on. Right. That's that's my opinion. But I know they weren't making a hundred grand. Every single month it was you know, that's like their peak. It's like when you're speeding five miles over the speed limit or, you know, forty. at some point your your head has really popped up high enough that people have to crack down.

Yeah, I think that was it. And you know what? People are still really mad at Daybreak over it. So I'm not really sure that even Daybreak winning winning in quotes, you know, uh n ha coming out the victor in the settlement is really gonna be like um

you know, a a community victory. A lot of people are still so disgruntled that it doesn't even really matter what the judge says, you know, whatever. That's that's just something to be aware of to s to see what uh these companies do next, that's for sure.

Damn the man. Hack the planet. Well, it's probably too early for our end of year awards and nominations. Yeah. Probably a little bit. But if we do have one, I think Bree should get an award. uh for the cutest headlining photo for an article that has to deal with layoffs. Well it's it's a bee in a knight's costume and he was supposed to be looking angry, but he doesn't look very angry, does he?

Yeah, you're probably right. Yeah. So the long and the short of this is we'll get we'll cut right to the chase. We won't bury the lead. Amazon laying off some lost arc. uh people including some pretty high profile names, uh the community uh manager there, uh Rox and the producer Henley h Henry uh Stettler uh were both let go this past week among others.

And that's um you know, anytime there's there's a batch of people that go from a studio, especially ones that you know uh because they're more high profile, that's not generally a good sign for what's happening. Um of course this is Amazon. This is not a company that's uh really been super invested into gaming over the past twelve months. It's been uh trying to get out of that relationship as

one wood with a crazy ex boyfriend or ex girlfriend. Uh and just kinda trying to extricate as as quickly as possible. We're talking about video games, just to be clear. Like my metaphors are all not not specific people. Yeah. frustrating because we even quoted this in the article that when when Amazon last fall said that they were shutting down or at least maintenance moding at the time, New World not developing it further, pulling out of games. We specifically asked them about Lost Ark and

uh Throne and Liberty because these are um overseas publisher they're the overseas publisher for these for NC Soft and Smile Gate on these games, right? What are you doing with these games? You don't own them.

you can't just unilaterally shut them down without violating a contract, we're sure. And they're like, Oh, don't worry, you know, we're we're they're gonna continue getting development and everything. Well Well I mean they have technically don't worry, New New World isn't going to go away by the end of this year.

Yeah. So I I think part of the problem here is that the two people that we know of who got let go we know that there are several actually, but we don't know how many they wouldn't really tell us. Um but the two people who were like really obvious right away because they spoke out They were obvious because they were like the spokespeople for the game. Like they were the people who did all the videos, they were the people who interfaced with

the actual community, if the you know, people are talking about or thinking about the game, they're thinking about those two people and for them to both be acts at the same time is not just uh routine layoffs or whatever, or scale back or whatever. That's disturbing, that's a major marketing shift for Amazon, uh, to get rid of the only liaisons uh to the the community. I'm sure someone else will be tasked with this job.

But you know how hard it is to start that from scratch, uh, if you weren't uh haven't been doing it for a couple of years already. So I think I agree with the community and in fact I think I thought this before was that um this game Lost Ark specifically came out in twenty twenty two over here in the West. That's when Amazon started publishing it.

which should make this the fourth year. February would have been their fourth anniversary. And if this were a typical five year contract, not unheard of in the games industry, we've seen it before. then that means they might be trying to renegotiate right around this time for, you know, a year from now, what will it look like the next five years beyond that?

And if they couldn't come to any kind of agreement, this might be Amazon's way of going, you know what, we're not going to invest any more into promoting the game and liaising with the community. We're just going to ride this out. That is definitely what it looks like. Is that true? Don't know. Would I be at all shocked to find out in a couple of months? Um, that SmileGate has already made plans to take over the game and begin publishing it itself next February.

I would put money on it. I wouldn't just think that's likely. I think that is very, very likely. So I I'd actually breathe a little bit easier on Lost Ark's behalf if that happens. Do you think so? Yep. The community doesn't think so. Well, I mean I I just don't feel like Lost Arts. Yeah, but I don't feel like Amazon really cares anymore. I think that's fair.

Online games, so you might as well just put it in the hands of the thing. I think they care quite a bit. This is their livelihood and something they you know what I mean. But Amazon corporate does not care. Once out and I'm sure I actually think you're right. I think that Smile Gate will be a better guardian, custodian of the future of the game. Will it

necessarily be everything and the players want. Probably not, but it's not gonna do that now either. So at least give it back to the original devs, the original Korean publisher that is not going to shut it down unless it's really like bleeding money. So

Your thousands of players who were left are not you know, they're they're they're worth sustaining and I suspect that Smilegate will keep it going. I c I just can't imagine they would give up. Lost Ark was too big for too long. That sounds so cool. Guardians of the MMA. But it does also leave open the question of what's going to happen with With Run and Liberty, did they also have that kind of contract with NC Soft? Um it's not as old a game, it's only been out for was that twenty twenty?

before that it came out, so who knows? They did not, by the way, let go the liaison for for that game, although we did point out we haven't seen one of them for a while. But the other one is still there. I don't know about the the first one. We we were actually researching this on a couple of days ago, like scouring the internet trying to see if anybody had heard from her in a while, and we can't find her, so I don't know if she's gone or not. But anyway, long story short, Amazon is d Amazoning.

All right. Well it's pr it's been uh it's been a while since we've done a daily grind blitz, and maybe you're not familiar with this format that we sometimes like to haul out for an episode here in the Massively OP podcast. So what we're gonna do here is Uh every morning we do a daily grind topic and you guys in the community are invited to answer questions, have discussions, ch kinda get the juices flowing early in the day.

And we love to do those. So every once in a while we'll just take a handful of them and throw them at each other on the podcast and actually answer ask and answer. Yes. So Breeze assembled some of her topics that she wants to ask me, I've assembled some of mine, and also Elliot's that I want to ask her, and we'll both answer all of them.

So I will I'll I'll let you go first. Oh I'm going first. Okay. Um What is oh I love questions like this. What is the worst MMO that you play anyway in spite of knowing it's a bad MMO? I love questions like this because they really force you to like be honest about what you play and like if you are playing the equivalent of trashy TV, here is where you can just be like, Yeah, it's trashy T V and I watch it, so what? This is this is that kind of question.

I think the easiest thing I mean the I'm just going with right away what pops in mind. Oh yeah. I know it's not a good MMO. Like it's it the the Latin it's not good the It the graphics look like, you know, two thousand eight. Yeah, two thousand eight like just uh a time capsule of what uh you know like an indie game back then would look like.

Uh like it's it's a difficult, cumbersome, not super sleek game. The UI is not the best. It obviously needs a lot of love if it ever gets us huge overhaul that Little Orbit alluded to a while back and then hasn't really shown any progress on doing, that would be great. I would be right there cheering it on. I don't have high hopes. But it's just It's obviously it's like a creaky game. Like you play it and it's just it's it's creaky, but at the same time I love it so much and there's

There's a a black sense of humor that runs through the entire game. It's a weird weird post apocalyptic game where like five apocalypses happened all at the same time. Why not? And the beautiful sunsets and the per persistence of mounts and the weight of inventory and the time based crafting system, all these things kind of work together to overcome like the really bad

uh combat system or how awful the animations are, how plasticky the characters look. Yeah, I mean I like I I I can't stand up here and like hold this game up and say this is the best MMO but There was definitely something special and odd and unique about it. And uh yeah. That would be my answer. What about you? Yeah, I mean it's it's not gonna be it's not gonna be uh

Fallen Earth, but it's it's Star Wars Galaxies for basically the same reasons. Okay. I mean, I we're I'm ribbing on Fisti here. This this original um topic by the way came from Fisty because he was talking about Dune Awakening and he said it was his personal game of the year, but it's kind of trash. And that's like honestly how I feel about Star Wars galaxies.

It is my my my best MMORPG of all time. I think it is genius. I think it was very bizarrely coherently designed for a game of its age. It came out in 2003. It's ancient. And a lot of times it feels like it. It's creaky. The f the combat is really bad. Like really bad. Like even the NGE combat, it's terrible. We all know it.

But like so many of the other systems are just twined together so like in a way that a lot of MMOs don't do anymore. A lot of MMOs feel like a bunch of little individual teams built their own little portion of the game and then at the very end they get sewn together real fast. They don't have a lot of, you know, cohesion. They don't have a lot of

Vision. Vision, yeah. Like there is no one vision that they're all trying to mesh into. They're all just different chunks of the game. That also that also exists. And Star Wars, like every little last bit from, you know, how the minstrels or uh what do you call them? The musicians would heal you down to, you know, how the doctors would buff you down to the specific type of meat you need to make the thing. I just have a I just have this mental image of a bard following around Luke Skywalker.

And that would that would actually be kind of awesome. Yeah, not not really. But you know what, there are a couple of cantinas in in the Star Wars universe that where people are definitely going to rejuvenate themselves so Anyway, it's it's Star Wars. The guy lost his arm. Like there's so many arms that are lost in these cantinas. They're not health spas. All right, your turn. Greedo got shot. Come on. Um

Okay, so my first question, really easy yes or no, uh with some explanation. Did you switch up any of your MMO main characters this year? Ooh, did I? Switched this year? No, but la was it last year that I switched over to an engineer in a mechanist really in Guild Wars 2. So maybe this is cheating. I'm not sure that was literally in the last

What about your lotro care? Did you say like you were? Yeah. No, that's fair because I I'm thinking about it, but I haven't actually done it uh just been grousing. It would be yeah, I have been grousing. That's fair. Yeah, and if I do, ironically I would be going back to my minstrels speaking of minstrels, um, because she was my original, my OG main character, and I actually kinda dumped her when I returned.

And that's why my hunter is is now at the top. But yeah, I I I might. I don't know. I I need to get in there, I need a new spec and I need to decide whether I can still tolerate whatever they've done to the character or if I should just Call it and move on. How about you? Yeah, I definitely did. I've I've been meaning a

Death Knight in World of Warcraft retail for a very long time. And I kind of decided before the expansion launch that I was gonna switch over to a warlock. Warlock, yeah, that's what I thought. Okay. Yeah, just for more of a minion. M master minion master kind of uh game style. And actually that was that was fortuitous because they just had a huge nerf.

to my you know unholy DK spec uh a week or so ago and that whole that whole segment of the community was really not happy with 20% nerf like across the board. And so yeah, yay, I escaped that. I do want to get back to that character. I think it'll be an alt, but right now I'm really enjoying like having a little gnome warlock running around in her Murloc onesie. And my wife's like, You're so adorable. I'm like, I know, I know, I'm awesome.

Uh so yeah, I I don't regret it. I don't regret it at all. Uh but you know, also like I switched up um when the Burning Crusade anniversary server came around. I did actually dump my druid and I picked up a a shhaman instead. So Okay, that sounds really familiar too. But I thought you had already had like You've got so many WoW characters. Yeah, but I do try to I do try to kinda narrow it down to one per game because there's just so little time. So yeah, I'll do alts when I when time permits.

Yeah. Okay, well your your question. Yeah, okay. Next next I wanna do um What MMO ideas are you just completely over in in twenty twenty six? Stuff you used to like maybe that you're just done with or you've just come to a plateau where you're like, Nope, we're moving on, don't want to hear about this anymore. What are you over? Public quests. Ooh, public quests. Really? I don't hate them. Like this is not a like if they happen, you know, like any time I go back to Guild Wars Two

I'm cool with doing them. But like back in the day, this was like the savior of the MMO. You know, you remember the Warcraft or the I'm sorry, the Warhammer era. Oh yeah. Where Public quests were like the big buzz.

Like, you know, we're we're throwing you into a raid without any of the stress and you guys can all d work on a thing together and it kind of makes the world more dynamic and everybody just like latched on to this really hard. I think it's great. I think it like it's a really nice feature. It It should be kind of de facto in most MMOs and in fact you do see them. But I'm

I I think I think my disillusionment came about because the rewards were never really worth a lot of the effort of doing these. Once you've seen them go through the cycle a certain number of times, you kinda stopped getting excited about them. You know, Rift of course went all in on

public events and that was that was great. I mean it was great when people all do them and the more people you have, the more potential rewards you got, but at the same time, it kind of did get grindy after a while and it didn't really come with like a narrative. It just kind of came with an experience. And if the experience was good and the rewards were decent, great. But a lot of times that's not how it shook out.

No wonder you don't like Guild Wars too. It's like it's like all that I like Guild Wars too, it just doesn't have its hooks in me. That's yeah. Obviously I'm a big hater. What about Obviously, I nothing but hate for from Justin. I I picked housing in the actual article and like you're gonna laugh because you guys know I'm a huge proponent proponent of housing, but I specifically mean instance housing.

Because we've been banging the you know, any housing is better than no housing drum for a really long time and I still think that's true. But I'm really tired of instance housing. Now that so many MMOs have gone, Fine, you want housing here phl here's some here's an instance with a house in it. I am just kind of like But that's not really what we wanted. Like we we we were willing to accept that instead of nothing, but like we can do better. We can be more.

And we have so many great examples of better. Um even even some of the games, I don't even necessarily mean like Star Wars Neo, but I mean some of the games where like the housing was semi instant. You know, I'm sure that's a good idea. Like that. I think that's that's preferable to what some of these games are doing where it's just like a the bottle episode of MMO is where you just go out into this Whole new little subs iron.

I'm not a fan. And yes, I realize I play Lotrio and Gilbush too and they basically do that. And I I n I know, so does Palea. Like a lot of MMOs do it and I I find myself a little let down by them. They are very unmotivating for me when it comes to like wanting to bother to decorate, to wanting to bother to turn them into anything. They feel very

They feel like the thing people complain about when they complain about MMO housing, period. I just don't think that those problems are necessarily attached to open world housing. And that's that's what I'm kind of over. I'm over putting in a housing system as a checkbox so that you can say you have housing. That's I'm tired of it. Ugh I don't I don't know how to say that better without like

I s I still want those games to have the housing they have. Do you know what I mean? They definitely suit some people, but I feel like I feel like we should now move that bar and set the bar higher and challenge the the games to actually go beyond. That's Okay.

I did one daily grind, I was like And it popped into my head and I thought we nobody ever talks about this. So I kinda wanted to I don't think it really blew up into any great discussion, but I still wanted to talk about it, which is do you like using a random mount or pet skill button?

Like in MMOs uh you know, you collect a lot of amounts and you collect a lot of pets and sometimes they give you a button that just says Summon a random one or summon your random favorite one, like I World of Warcraft will let you tag certain uh one says your favorites and just to kind of have that variety and also not to overcrowd your hotbar with like a million different mounts for different you know occasions.

Is that does that have any appeal? I I'm I'm just curious. I mean like I remember I know you're not a big pet person. I'm not, but I tend to have like I tend to at least have one mini pet per character. I I remember when WoW didn't have this option because I remember when we needed mods to make it happen. And they were huge. They were like super popular, like randomize your mouth or whatever. And Lotro still has these, right?

I never use them. Never, ever, ever used those mods and now that they're part of certain games based games, I still don't want to use them. I have a set idea in my head what my character should be driving or flying or riding and there should be a mini pet that makes sense for that character.

And I don't want it to be random. I want those specific things. And if I don't have them yet, I'm making it I'm making a beeline for them to go get them so that that character is my personal vision for what I was looking for, which you can say that's role playing. I d I don't know what it is.

I have a thing and I want that and I don't I don't want it to be randomized to like some random crap I picked up as a newbie or like you know, some of the really ugly mini pets I have in Guild Wars too, like why do I even have, you know, this weird Sun Spear lady as My mini back. This is yeah, like everybody's got a mini Jaina. I don't want mini Jaina. Like that's not even cool. I want, you know, my super adventure box.

critter or you know whatever. I have the I have the little baby quaggin pinata with the maracas. I I use this on a lot of characters'cause it's cute. But like that's what I mean. I I have a thing that I like that I feel like it's like showing something about me and showing something about my in this case, lack of seriousness, when it comes to playing my characters. And I don't want it to be random. So no, I n I never

ever use those features. Do you? This seems like the kind of thing you would really like. Yeah, w yes and no, because I actually I I would vibe entirely with what you just said. Oh. Uh there's yeah, some of my characters I have a very specific amount. that just goes with that character and I would never use anything else. Like with my gnome in World of Warcraft, I used a Bumblebee flying mount. I just it works so well for her. I love it.

It's small and she's small and I don't want like a giant huge but you know on another gnome character she loved riding around in the giant mech th suit that I had and Yeah, but s sometimes I do like any time I play Star Wars The Old Republic, which is it's probably the first game I saw this feature in. I really do like using both the random mount and the random pet buttons because I don't usually care what you know, like I don't have any attachment to any specific

vehicle for them and sometimes it's really fun to just have that variety every time you you mount up and you're like, Oh, it's this thing this time or, you know, this pet this time. That's kinda cool. So You know, it's usually just a robot pet, so anyway, why why not? They've given out so many of those. Yeah. So yeah, but you know, sometimes I don't and that's

I was just curious. That's all. I think it's a good question, honestly, like because it it it speaks to w how people design their characters and whether dev should even bother making, you know, random whatever buttons. Yeah. It's not always even possible too. There are so many games where like your account wide achievements and your account wide collections aren't really accessible, so you end up with one per character anyway, regardless of what you would use.

Alright, your turn. Okay, Justin. Do you judge people for what they buy in MMOs? Do you judge them No no hesitation. Justin judgmentalism all of that is what they call me. Do I judge people for what they buy in MMOs? Yeah. Sometimes. I think there are yeah. I I wanna be honest here. Like you buy a level boost, yeah, I'm gonna judge. Like I just I do. I you know, WoW Classic when they just came out with Burning Crusade and like I half of everybody bought a level boost.

And suddenly they're like, Hey, I'm in the burn you know, I'm like, I'm here and Like, oh, okay, I'm just leveling normally and you know, any time I saw somebody who was like instantly level sixty, I thought, Oh yeah, you just you know, you just shelled that out. You didn't spend any time on that character, no effort, didn't go through the journey.

Yeah, I'll judge you. Like I I don't have to like it. I don't have to I'm not gonna besmirch your character like your your person like your personhood. character. I you know, whatever. You're probably a beautiful person with a wonderful tapestry of uh personality traits. But at the same time, like, you know, come on. You just you paid to skip over the core of the game. That's just weird. I think the other thing is anytime I see somebody buying really ostentatious, like

the giant dinosaur mounts in World of Warcraft or s things that are just like That's literally the picture of this daily grind. Right. Like the you know, the whale the whale kind of purchases and you just go I j the the reason I judge isn't because you did that. It's your money. Spend it the way you like. But it's usually because people buy it just to show it off and just to kind of make a big deal out of the fact that they bought something really expensive and it's just kind of

honestly a little bit prideful and egotistical and I just don't respond very well to that. So I d you know, it's not like I send them, you know, spit on their face or send them par shells. I'll just Kind of walk by them and go, Okay, you know, like um I'm gonna be over here. For the most part. Like you know, like whatever. You you spend your money and if it brings you personal delight in a game and doesn't unbalance the game for the rest of us, fine.

I just want to be a little honest. Yeah, there there are there are moments. There are moments. What about you? Yeah, I I think I'm exactly the same. I'm not gonna like Go out of my way with like a Shame, shame. You know, it's like I don't have time to do that. That would be a great emote and just ringing a bell in front of people.

I mean like who ha who has time for that, honestly? I I don't I don't care that much and honestly I'm probably not even that observant and it's really not my business. I guess it's our business to like worry about the longevity of the game and the health of the community on some like esoteric level, but like

individually. I don't think one whale is gonna make that big a difference either way. Um, but yeah, I I I feel like I feel like especially for things like the dinosaur'cause again this is the thing that inspired this. It was like yes. I actually am judging the people who bought that a little bit.

I can understand why they did it and some of them I think I'll forgive more than others. Some people just buy it because it's new and shiny and other people are like, Oh my god, this I need this for my you know, for my dudes or because I'm I'm I'm a merchant and I just I have to have this and uh I don't know, like there's there's like variations for like my type of judgment for when people like you said, when people are just doing it

So that they have something you don't have versus something they're like, uh, well you know, this is worth I only have a three hundred dollar budget this year, this is worth a third of it. I'm just I'm just gonna do it'cause I know I will use this every single day for the next year. It's like, okay, well I mean, that just seems like any other hobby, you know, investment.

But not everybody's making decisions like that. Some people are just like, Yeah, swipe the card, man and then yeah, with this this just encourages Blizzard or whoever, whatever the studio is to like keep excessively

charging us for various crap or lockboxes I think is probably the worst thing. I think I understand why people really want the thing that might be in their box, but you know, if if you're gonna spend hundreds of dollars to get the thing you have taught whoever the company is a very, very bad lesson and ultimately it does come at our expense. It does because that they will just keep putting lockboxes in and keep making the odds suck, so

Yeah, I'm judging you a little. Do I think you should care whether I'm judging you? Not really. If you wouldn't ask m for my opinion or for my advice, you definitely shouldn't take it out of hand. So don't don't listen to us. I'm just Being like you said, being honest, sure I am judging a little tiny bit.

Alright, we'll move away from our judgment. Uh what what experimental MMO had a gem of a good idea? Ooh, experimental. What counts as experimental? It's it's up to your you know, I would say any game that's kinda off the beaten path or even a proposed MMO that never got made.

Um, or ones that just kinda died in development or either even ones that kinda got out there but never really made it big. What were some good ideas that you'd just kind of a shame that they never went anywhere? The f the literally the first thing that pops into my mind is Ashron's call. 'Cause call's economy was super weird and like way ahead of its time and that's why it failed. But they like didn't have they didn't have NPCs, right? That's how it was set up.

So like the only trading was between you and other player. It was something like that. And I I realize Star Wars did this later, but Star Wars had players, so like there was a way to make this happen. Like Asheron's call did not have enough people to actually sustain that economy and it kinda just collapsed. But it was an interesting idea. The I you know, d when you change your economy to literally just depend on humans instead of

you know, these little vending machines who just stand around and buy stuff and sell stuff and stuff and stuff. The other thing I was thinking of, um, was glitch. Maybe you consider that experimental, but I I've I've talked before about the cool like player imposed treasure hunting system that you could do in that game because of a scribing system where you could like write anything down and people would like write notes to each other. They would write like secret um

directions to secret locations, they would hide stuff like geocaching in those secret locations. They would create uh teleports to all kinds of places and just like scatter them around the it was it was a whole club called We Drop stuff. I know I've written I've talked about this, written about this, but it was a really interesting system because it was like a it it allowed the players to actually make

their own I don't want to say story, but their own content. This it's not like the content we're thinking of like here's a quest, but it kind of is. It's it's kind of like you're you're sending random people on quests that you have manually set up. I that wasn't super common and it's still not really super common in a like a

I don't know, like a a loosey goosey way. Everything that we have like that is like uh um Star Trek or um City of Heroes or Everquest or even Star Wars where they're very specific here's how you make a quest in the game and here's how a player can follow it. And this was like, no, we're not giving you that. We're just giving you the chance to write things down and to set your own

mark mark scrolls and things like that. Do whatever you want with it. And players came up with their own quest system. That was really cool. What about you? What do you got? Oh, I'm going deep cuts. Ooh. I actually w the first one won't be too deep cut, but I really like so um The Wagadu Chronicles? Oh god I think. One thing I really liked about that is just that they I I don't know too much about the gameplay and I I think that's probably where they're

they fell down the most. But I really love the idea ever since we first heard this of exploring kind of the the fantasy myths of other cultures. Sure. Because we're We're definitely we've definitely covered very European fantasy very well. And also I would say, you know, Eastern fantasy. Yeah. Korean. It's all about who's making the games, right? Sure.

So it's you know, there's been so many cultures in the world and a lot of them have their own like flavors and it just would be so cool just to get that. Different flavor in an MMO than, you know, here's yet another uh Norse god MMO or another You know, Tolkien esque thing. So I really love the idea that they just went really deep into that and they they loved it and they were doing a lot of research and they were kinda incorporating

uh a lot of different parts of Africa into that'cause you know, it's it's a bit of a continent there. There's a lot. Yeah, more more than one or two cultures. Yeah. There there's a few there. So you know there it's just it's it feels like there's such an untap uh wealth of ideas from real world cultures that MMOs just have not really seized upon and maybe they're not super marketable. I don't think that's that's was the downfall of this game. It was just that was a really good idea.

The other one, this is gonna be like probably nobody remembers this, but I will never forget is the Maestros of the Anthem. I remember Anthem, like anth ant it looked like Anthem with the wise. Yeah. Yeah. So this was a Kickstarter MMO. Uh back in twenty fifteen, in fact in February twenty fifteen, where certain things were happening in massively, by the way, uh that particular month.

Uh but yeah, this was a it really interesting Kickstarter project that the minute I heard it, I thought this was really cool because it was a a fantasy realm where Not they didn't just have like a bard class like everything was musical like the the magic and music were intertwined and it was a very music centered MMO and I the the second they said that I'm like yes

I love that idea. I love music and I always feel like it gets shoved off to the side of, you know, the game soundtrack or maybe one class or maybe a little player music system, but to have it be the core concept of your MMO had a lot of potential and I don't think we've ever seen that before since.

But um you know the other there was a game way back in the day, now even deeper cut, uh going back to LucasArts back in the nineties, a game called Loom. L O O L that sounds really familiar. I think they have that. Yeah, it was a point click adventure. It's not unknown. It's just not their most famous one. But it was it's It's based around music and your your ability to do magic is

Yeah. Basically you have to play music notes, uh certain little riffs and you know, I but it's of course, you know, the the legend of Zelda, like the Orcana time and stuff like that. Sure. Certainly, you know, kinda incorporated that. But I'll never forget this. I was really bummed they you know, the Kickstarter project kinda went nowhere. They only raised like thirteen thousand out of a hundred and forty five that they needed and

You you can still look up the Maestras of Anthem uh on Kickstarter. They ne they never delete these projects. They'll live in shame forever. These fa port failed. But the fact that it was just it was so they really thought through this. I thought that was so cool. Oh well.

Oh well. Alright, I think we have time for one more of each. One more. Okay. Um okay. This this one might have been my The the one that I thought would be contentious and instead it it kinda blew up because people were so angry, not at me but at the idea, it was would you show or upload ID to play an MMO? Yeah, that one we just did this past week. Yes. And people were so like it you just go down the list, there's like nobody like eager to do this. Nobody. People are like actively hostile.

To this idea, developers take note, people are not interested. People do not want to play this, they would rat no, absolutely not. I was I was surprised actually at their response. Not not mad, but surprised. You remember Root Blizzard's real ID back in the day? Oh yes, yes I do. That was a bit of a kerfluffle. It was it's funny we we

w when uh companies are really sneaky about getting our ID or making us kind of sell our information and stuff and we're just like, okay, whatever, you know. But when they really make it prominent Uh then then we get really riled up and it's it's too it's a shame we're not pushing back on this sort of thing more often. Uh, because we are trading our information way more than we realize. Yes. No, I mean no, I would not play an A I D to play an MMO. I mean

Okay, here's the thing. But what if it's an MMO you already love and then they go, Okay, if you wanna keep playing Lotro or you wanna play keep playing WoW You have to upload your driver's license at some point or show your face or whatever on a camera t in order to continue playing it. And you've already, you know, sunk cost fallacy. You've already invested into that game and you don't love the idea of just suddenly not playing it on principle because

Yeah, that that would be um that would be tough. Uh I don't like that idea and I know we've been I know in Discord's probably the reason This is yeah, that's that's I saw an um at least in New York State they were doing this because of um like mm adult sites. Anything that had to do with adult sites, you know, suddenly you had to upload some sort of identification in order to be able to continue to access. Um not just not just outright porn, but also Anything like that?

Slightly adult, uh they started kinda g uh. Gay gay keeping behind some sort of idea. But then they get to decide what adult is and pretty soon every text app is adult because adults can hang out there. Right. And it doesn't yeah, it doesn't take long before it's it's subsumed a whole lot of culture. Yeah. I think there's like a lesser form of this, like if you can just prove like, oh I've had a

an email account that's beyond, you know, a certain age and they'll just kind of give you benefit of the doubt. Oh yeah, you're probably an adult. You know, like you don't have to show I've seen that too. Like, you know, you don't have to show an ID so much. I'm a little bit oh more okay with that, but I still don't like it. I remember I'm pretty sure you're not No no no no no. And I I think I side with the people who were like, if an existing game demanded this and I couldn't like

see a really like if I if I think they're complying with bad government law in advance, I would probably just leave the game. We have way too many games and so many games are accessible without having to deal with that that I don't feel like I need to really compromise on it.

Um, they can sort that out later, you know, when when when the people start leaving because they're so angry then that'll be something they can contend with later. I will say I want I think it was Star Wars Galaxies Legends. I'm pretty sure it was Legends and not the original Emu Emu Emulator. I always do that in my head.

But they at one point were asking for like if you had more than one person in your household, in other words, more than one person going to be using your IP, since they had a no multi boxing rule, you had to like send pictures of your hands. With the hands of the other person? Like to show that you were different people. And even that

felt really disturbing to me to the point where I just didn't do it. So nobody else in my house like a hand fetish over there or what I think they were just trying to say, you know, if if it's really you and your kid then it'll be you and you know what I mean. That even that seems a little disturbing to me. That's very disturbing. I think they Someone's got a wall full of hand photos and they're like ah I think they just figured that

people who were gonna cheat and lie wouldn't bother doing it. But let me tell you, they probably would. So all it really ends up doing is keeping out who are people who are a little disturbed at times and so We have no other accounts because I just I I that just seemed weird. I don't know if they still do it. This was a while ago. I'm pretty sure it was legend.

But yeah, no, I d I don't no. This is an absolute no th the thing is we already know that this doesn't work and I made this point in the Daily Grind. This is not new. We've been watching this happen in China for like a decade. That they've been slow rolling out these various policies. Then you have to show ID and then they have cute curfews and they have crackdowns and like then they show how like okay, kids are not stupid. They know how to get around all of this.

So it doesn't even work for the intended purpose. It's literally just um a government control system. It doesn't even matter what the government is. What that we're talking about here. We've already seen this fail. It's going to fail here too. So absolutely not. We'll not will not participate. No thank you, sir. Yeah, and it gets it gets people so mad at the companies too. It's such a bad PR move on their part.

All right. Well I got one last question pretty easy. Um what MMO login music do you hate the most? I thought this was a pretty fun question for Millie. Um the Oh, it's the City of Heroes login music. Yeah, I think that's example he used to be. Is that what he used? Yeah. It that's that's the correct one. The original, the OG. The origin I don't like the current one either. And that's weird because I like a lot of the City of Heroes music. Like it's just the login music that I don't like.

That's it. So loud and bombastic and it just plays over and over while you're trying to make a character care exactly. For the next hour and a half you're just listening to this like oh god. It's not good. It's not good. And I don't know come to think of it, I don't know why I haven't changed it. Like I've changed so many other sounds in that game. I have like lightsaber sounds and like light you know, Star Wars blaster sounds for my pistols and

things that I've just gotten rid of'cause I don't want any hum, hum, hum. That noise drives me crazy. So I just put nothing there. There's nothing there. From you know, like all of the leadership skills and things, just a blank em out. I don't want to hear it. But I haven't gotten rid of that and I don't know why, come to think of it. I should do I should do that.

What do you think it's the same or did you have another idea? I had one other. Um the original Lord of the Rings online theme, I wasn't really that fond of it. Tavern music or something? Why do I have that in my head? What was it? Until Riders of Rohan they had the original theme and then Riders of Rohan they did a new track called Lotro Legacy. Mm. And no, it's the original one. I I didn't it wasn't the worst piece, but it never felt like this is Lord of the Rings to me. It felt

I don't know. It just was a little weird and ugly and off-putting. And that, you know, the original soundtrack, as much as we we do uphold it as like this is an amazing soundtrack. also had some pieces that were just kind of weird and ugly and Yeah different. Like very different. Like they were going for kind of an older medieval, you know, soundscape with some of the instruments and stuff. I I just never felt that that original one it was it was trying so hard to kinda

like overpower you and go, Oh, look, you know, they're gonna be playing this awesome game. I'm like, no, you know, now I'm thinking of Howard Shore's music for the r the movies and this is missing it, yes. This is not it. This is not even close to what I was expecting. So Honestly in another one this will th this will get me kicked right off of the uh World of Warcraft Cool Kids Club. I've never really liked most of the the main themes for Yeah.

Um most of those login screen ones are they just go on forever. It's kind of a riff on the original, which the original was the best. It was it was fun. I still actually have the original soundtrack. C D from the Collector's Edition. I still have held on to that. It's actually behind me in my office right here. And I I really like the original and then everyone since then I've not been a fan. I've just no it's eleven minutes of

like this mishmash of you know, like an overture of all the different themes, but it never really works and it's just not as fun and iconic as that original one. So when you said that you unlocked a memory in me, I wanna add to the list, can while while we're hating Nightfall. Guild Wars One Nightfall. Oh. They always again I'm a huge Sewell fan and they always changed the music for each one of the installments, but that one I there's something about it like it was a really fast piece of music.

Like and it always like it like made my heart race. Like it would it would like I don't know, unsettling in a way. I I'm sure it would belong to one of the the provinces. Okay, go back and listen to this. Yeah. I don't like it. So I was really glad when I the north came out. And now I think you can pick whichever one you want. I'm trying to remember. But I'm pretty sure they added that.

With the the classic or maybe like right after the classic line or what did they call it? Revived, revitalized, renewed. What is it called? Reforged. Reforged, thank you. I don't know. Yeah, I th I think these are the kind of fun uh daily grind questions when we ask people like complain about really minor trivial stuff and then we just get to

Just to get to have a big grump session over stuff that doesn't really matter. But it's fun to talk about because you know, these things are burrs under our saddles. Yeah. So all right, well that was fun. That was fun to do a daily grind blitz and we got through, I think, at least eight of'em there, so that's not too bad.

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