Strain 99 - AFT

(gentle music) (gentle music) - Welcome agents to Strain 99-AFT. Of the Zero Point Report, the number one broadcast all about the news surrounding the Secret World IP. Today is Thursday, January 16th, 2025. And with me tonight, we have Two Ton Waffle. (laughs) Okay. And Jimmy the Rabbit. - Hey-oh. - Hey. Waffle is a mute. - Morning. - Oh, there it is. There it is. - It's a little delayed. - Good morning. Good morning to you, sir. - I was just going with a silent stick.

- And I'm Ochoo and welcome to the Zero Point Report. How are you guys doing? - Yay, Palmer. - It's chilly. - You're still giant and tiny. That is what she said and she was very confused. - Well, you can be giant and tiny. - Yeah. I mean, frankly, that's a little disappointing. Anyways. Doing fucking awful, Bob. Thanks for asking. - Later, Bob. - You're cold, that is how you are. It is very cold right now. Yeah, yeah, we're getting, it's a little cold here in the Northeast. - It is cold as fuck.

- And also all across the country too. Not just the Northeast, yeah. - It's only 53 right now. - I don't know what it is right now. But I know that for some reason they still made my kid go to the bus stop when it was fucking five outside. - Bill's character. - It was five, feels like negative seven. - Yeah. - I would say I heard it's, I heard it's getting down out there. It's all right here. - I had to actually use my snowblower today. - Oh. - Which I don't, you know, get to use all that often.

But you know. - Good times. - Yeah, yeah. Not super fun, not super fun. It is not power assisted. - No. - You know how like some lawnmowers like, it turns the blades and like the back wheel or something? - Mm-hmm. - Right, the snowblower like turns the thing, but it does not provide for momentum. That's all me. And it's not fun. - Do you even snow blow, bro? - Snow blowed your mom last night. - Oh, got him. - Got him. - Got him. So we haven't had that much.

- I said the same here for my snowblower. Your mom gets around. - Like mine did, mine did too. (laughing) - I knew that one. I knew Vava would have a reaction to that. (laughing) - Not that. Gosh. - Your mom was a snowblower. - I would say that, yeah. We're used to the cold. It's not, it's been pretty, it's just been okay here. It hasn't been like terrible. Say that this weekend though is polar bear plunge. So we're gearing up for that. - Go in my backyard.

I have a smaller dog and now I let him to go outside in the side yard, like to go to the bathroom. Like the snow is like, like he doesn't have to sit down. Like he's chest deep in the snow, just standing there. - He's like, eh, it'll melt it. It's fine. Say no, we jump in the ocean. Of course I don't jump anymore. I did it a couple of times, but I'm not, I don't jump anymore. - What do you do? You just like gently slide in? - I just crawl.

- It would be probably, it's probably like way more messed up if you just like slowly slide in. I feel like that would be way worse. No? Like the polar bear like plunge, like it's shocking cause you like drop in, right? But I imagine purposefully continuing to insert yourself into it like a couple of inches at a time. Feels like that would be horrifying. It'd probably be a lot worse for your body overall. It sounds dangerous jumping into frigid waters.

The thing is, is that it's, it's usually, it's actually not so bad considering that usually the water temperature is still warmer than the air temperature. So when you jump in, you go, oh, this isn't so bad. It's actually nicer in here than it is out there. And then like five, 10 seconds later, you go, wait a minute, wait a minute, no, no, this is not good. This is not good either way. And then you get back out.

And then the rest of the day, and then the warming up process of your body is like, it's like your body runs a marathon because you're just tired for like the next three days afterwards. - Sounds like a lot of fun. - Yeah. I mean, you know, there's usually also alcohol involved too. I mean, let's not go, you know, let's be realistic. It's not just about the physical experience. - So I can jump in while holding the drink. I'm totally down. - Will they let you do that? That's a good question.

Probably not actually. - Like I was gonna ask for permission. - I mean, they do. - Someone else was like, I'm gonna do that. You can't do that. Aw, but the other guy did it. - Yeah, but he's doing it. Fine, I'm just gonna jump in over here. - Well, if Billy jumped in the lake, would you? - Yes. Next question, Billy. Like, yeah, I'm gonna follow Billy. Of course I am. - Would you accept on? - We're going cliff diving tomorrow. What are you talking about? - Nah, it's a good event.

Night before there's like a beef and beer fundraiser. Everyone gets a little lit. Then the next day, also drinking in the morning. Then jumping in. Then having like a catered lunch afterwards. It's not bad, it's not bad. It's a fun day. - I had a lot of fun doing the Margarita Marathon 5K when I did that. I was literally just go there, drink a shit ton of Margaritas, do the 5K, and drink some Margaritas. - And run a 5K. Yeah, yeah. - And then I was like, "I'm gonna do the Margarita Marathon 5K."

It's like, "All right." - I have found my place to run. - This is the board I was talking about, by the way. - Oh, okay. It's the same one that's on the outside of the entrance as well. - There's a couple, there's two different boards. - Oh, okay. - This one might be a social one too, I don't know. - No, this is the group one. That one right there specifically is the social one. They look similar.

But yeah, you can just put in the thing there, and then when other people look at this, it'll show, as long as you're logged in, it'll show the thing. - The thing? - Yeah, your post. - Your thing. - Your like, advertising. - And your post. - It'll show your weighing on the board. - What? - Well, that's not very family friendly. - This one is for social. And then what's the one back here? - I kind of forgot about it. So I've started, when I'm streaming now, I'll go and put live at whatever.

And also it saves the last, the last one you did will always be there. So if you do it once, like come back, a few weeks later, a month, whatever, like you can click it, and then just review the last one you did. - Interesting. - But it only stays on there while you're logged in. - Okay. - So it's like a live activity board. - Sort of like to show what people are up to in the game. - Yeah, I don't know how many people made it there. Looking for groups or looking for whatever.

- Yeah, like if you click like sign up on it, you can pick like trade, cabal, dungeons, or you can put trade posts on here. You could put like, theoretically lair on here or something. I remember usually back in the day, I would see cabal shit, you know, recruiting or whatever. - Mm-hmm. - But you can just click social and post your message. - Mm-hmm.

- And then if you like log out, let's say we do a show like next month or something, like when you click sign up, it'll have your last one already there. You don't have to like type it again. - Select difficulty. - Nope, you don't have to do that for a social one. (laughing) I don't think you can actually. - Preferred role. - All three. - Healer. (laughing) - All this social activity is nightmare difficulty. (laughing) - It's a nightmare. Too far. - I don't normally see stuff in here, but.

- I don't think all the people. - Occasionally I'll see something, but again, you'll only ever see it if the person's actually logged in. And they have to be able to come view it when they log in. - I was gonna say, and people have to, well, know about it in the first place too. - Yeah. - Which I'm not sure. - A lot of people just run right by it. - As a topic of discussion, like I've seen a lot of fucking new players. - Like?

- Yeah. - A whole amount of like level twos and fours and shit like running around. Like different ones. I'm not sure exactly if the influx is just normal, you know, whatever, but like, or if there was some kind of inciting event. But I've been seeing a pretty large number of like new people coming through. And what I was thinking is like, a new person's actually running around and clicking on shit. Right? 'Cause you're like, I don't know what this is. Let me click on it.

So I'm less putting stuff on there for like regular, the regulars, as much as it is like new people exploring the game, I go like, oh, there's something going on. - Yeah. - What's this? - What's this? What's this? - What's this? - As long as they don't go like, you know, they see the board outside that has all the missions on it and just think, oh, these are the same things. Like it's just the same boards, just in different locations. - I mean, they're visually different a little bit.

Like they're colored different. - Yeah, it's like colored. - Green, a red, and I think this one's yellow. Yeah, this is like a yellow. But also if you like go with up to your reticle, they actually say like which activity they are. If you pay attention to that, I suppose. (mouse clicking) So there's group, there's paragon, and there's social. Then is this one back here different? Or is this, these might just be duplicates. - They are duplicates, yeah. - Those are duplicates.

Yeah, it's just the red and the green. - But is the social one out here too? So there's a green one. No, green and red. Social's not outside here. - I think the social's only in the one spot maybe? There's really only one social. - There's two of each. Barbara says there's two of each. - Well, there's two of each of the red and green. I don't know about the yellow. Don't see it. Ah, it's in here by the dance floor. - Oh. I'm turning around. - Your post goes to both of them.

It's like you don't have to do each one or anything. But yeah, it's by the dance floor. - Oh yeah, there it is. - Be jamming. Waffle's not jamming. He decided. - I was jamming. But you guys, what? I was too cool for you, so you had to go do your own jam? - Jamming on the dance floor. - Fine, I'll walk over there. I'll RP walk over. - That's like the spite walk. - Fine. Oh Lord, here coming. (laughing) - That's what she said? I guess. - Got DJ ephemeral over there.

- Oh, Waffle here, it's not cool now. I'm leaving. (laughing) - Fine, I'm gonna go home. - I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding, Waffle. - Yeah, but you know what? Everybody loves Waffle's. - Waffle, Waffle, Waffle. Waffle, Waffle, Waffle. - So welcome. Welcome if you're tuning in. How you doing? Hope you're doing okay. Joining us in chat, of course, Vommer. Vommer is being the talkative one in our chat right now. - Yeah, learning a lot. - Yeah, lurkers. They'll start calling you out.

- Well, they're unutterable. - There's. - Waffle, they're unutterable, of course, 'cause they're lurkers. - The unutterable lurkers. - Look at you, Moobot. We see you, Moobot. - Stream elements. - Stream elements. - Who else is in here? - 'Cause I don't generally call out lurkers, 'cause I am a lurker. I'm like the lurkiest lurker, too. - You are a lurkiest lurker. - I really am. (both laughing) What is it? They did that Twitch wrapped at the end of the year?

And I don't know if it's because I use a third-party program to do all my chats through, and so it doesn't count them. But it'll be like, like you chatted this many times this past year, and it's like 30. (both laughing) And I'm like, I've chatted more than that. - Oh yeah, maybe it doesn't track those the same or something? - No, it should. - It must not. - Because it's going through the Twitch API, so it's. - It can't, though. It can't, like it's a disgustingly low number.

- Only 30 chats out of the whole year. - Something like that, yeah. It's like 30. I'm like, what? I'll have to- - Dude, there's a channel that I've been subbed to for like seven years that probably is like in the same range just for that show. It's like 30 chats. Like I am a mega lurker. I will sit in your channel, subscribed for years and not say anything. - Yeah, and not say anything. - Not say a word. - Yeah, here it is. I found it. What is it?

Hours watched in 2024, 'cause I do watch a lot of Twitch actually, I do. Hours watched 1,370. Distinct days visited 334. Chats sent 250. - Okay, 250 is not like as bad. - That's, you know, it's respectable. - But even I'm like, that seems low for me. - Well, you don't have to respect it, but it's respectable. - I was like, that's like one chat sent every like five hours. I'm like, no, it's gotta be a little more than that. - No, that sounds more or less accurate to me. (laughs) Here it is.

I'm trying to find out where this cash shit comes from. Dude, the sick world music is jamming. - And banging. I get a copyright DMCA on this. - And it wasn't good enough for you, you son of a bitch. - Nope. I'm trying to figure out, someone keeps looking for a dark mystery shotgun three pip. And like, that's not a thing. Trying to figure out what they're looking for. - Dark mysteries shotgun three pip, yeah. - Yeah, dark mysteries is a chaos focus. So, I'm not sure what they're looking for.

I'm gonna say something about it. That's not a thing. - Like Sweeney Todd, come on now. That's not a thing. (laughs) - I mean, if there's a comma, maybe he's, but I mean, the way it's written, it looks like he wants a dark mystery shotgun. That's not a thing. - Yeah. - There's a dark precipice blade. There's a thundering demise shotgun from the same cache. Maybe he just wants the passive shotgun, the shotgun with passives on it. Right, 'cause all those ones have passives.

That's the cache where like all the weapons have like three passives on them, like for free. - Yeah. - Maybe he just wants the shotgun with the passives on it. - Maybe. - Yeah. Like maybe he just thinks the set is called like dark mysteries, like it's part of the dark mysteries set or something. - Yeah, that's what I mean. Like in which case, what he's looking for is thundering demise, if that's true. But I don't know.

But it certainly would help to search for the right thing if you're looking for something. - He's like, why can't I find this? And it's yeah, it's 'cause it's not a thing. That's all right though. - Is it? - No. - All right, just curious. (laughing) I'm ornery today, I'm ornery this week. - Are you? I'm spicy this week, apparently. - Spicy. - So spicy. - So spicy. - Someone said that, they're like, you're spicy this week. I'm like, what are you talking about? - Shut the hell up.

- Yeah, shut your mouth. - You shut your mouth when you're talking to me. - Like your opinions are a little not being well received. I'm like, you know what? Shut up. I didn't ask you. - Come over there like a spider monkey. - I'm like, fine. But we did have news, we do have news. - No. - Yeah, that's why we're here. First one being the tabletop RPG Anvil Stars, the Secret World North America expansion is kickstarting Tuesday, January 28th at 12 p.m. Central.

So make a note of that, kickstarting the North America book. And the Kickstarter page says, an age is ending and the darkest days are already here. As magic begins to fail. I tried saying that with like, like a positive, like they're already here. - They're already here guys. - It's great. - But wait, there's more. - As magic begins to fail, ancient enemies cast their avaricious gaze upon our world.

Threats both mortal and cosmic, once thought merely myth, both horrifically all too real, but horrifically all too real, begin to reveal themselves as a clock counts down towards apocalypse. In the midst of these growing shadows, some hope yet remains. Are you? No, and you are that hope. Thought that was a question. I can't read today. Can you discover the truth behind the Secret World? The Secret World North America.

Secret World North America focuses the story on the Illuminati and the North American region. New player options, new cryptids, seven new locations, three new interconnected adventures. The Secret World North America will be available for both 5e and Savage Worlds simultaneously. I like the three new interconnected adventures. Adventures always, I like that. I like that a lot. Like give me the adventures. All the- - All the interconnectedness. - All the modules. - I wonder how interconnected.

You know what I mean? - I assume like one adventure like probably goes into the next. - Take Ocho on an adventure? I mean, he's- - Take Ocho on an adventure. - He's going on a plunge. He's getting enough adventures. - Yeah, you don't want to shock him too much. - You know what can happen when I get shocked too much. - I don't. - Yeah. (laughing) - I genuinely don't. (laughing) - What was the biggest adventure? - Heart of Rivia maybe? - What was the biggest adventure I've been on?

- The one called life. - That's right. Live, laugh, love. Oh, what is it? No, I started- - Shut the fuck up. (laughing) - I started another- - It's not about the journey, it's the friends we meet on the way. - I started another playthrough of Conan Exiles last night. And in the beginning, you know, you get saved by Conan right in the beginning and he comes and you're being crucified and he like shoves you down and saves you. But one of the lines he says- (laughing) - Sorry.

The way you said that, (laughing) the way you said that, like, Conan personally came and saved me. He shoved me down, he took me in strong arms. (laughing) - I mean, that's what he does. He shows up, he's like, oh, you're on the cross, he like knocks you over, like takes the bolts out of your palms. But then he says, (laughing) but then he says like, he's like, live, love, like slay or something like that. - Laugh. (laughing) - That's the first thing that came to my head.

I was like, Conan going like, live, laugh, love. (laughing) - Yeah, this is sounding very like romance novel cover right now. (laughing) - You awaken to his bare chest. Yes, clearly, yeah. (laughing) - I somehow missed that part. - I caught it, I missed the previous sides, but I caught it last night and I was like, huh? Like, yeah, you can make that into a nice, on like reclaimed wood. - Yeah, or like a throw pillow for your couch. - Yeah, live, love, slay. (laughing) - That's amazing.

- I was like, why haven't they run with that yet? Funcom. - I don't know, that is a missed opportunity for sure. - Yeah, make your throw pillows in reclaimed wood. - Yeah, it should be a display. - That should be a display, 100%. - That's amazing. - You have to make him find it. Find like the YouTube, find it on YouTube, like the Conan Exiles introduction or something. I don't know if it's the one, like there's a, what do they call that? There's a cut scene. - Yeah, like a cinematic?

- Yeah, the cinematic of him like, you know, of him like saving the woman. I don't think it's that one. I think it's the introduction. It's the introduction for your character. - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, live, love, slay. Okay, all right. - Microm. - That's great. - Yeah, I was like, ooh, I was like, well, yeah, I never caught that before. It's good, it's very good. - I'm gonna go to my Etsy shop. - That's amazing. - We could be the sisterhood of the traveling. - Lloyd Closs. - Ripped Lloyd Closs.

- Oh man. - Anyway, what was I saying? - I'm still stuck on the romance cover part. - Yeah, I mean, it works. - Conan took you in his big strong arms. - Conan is a romance ad, obviously. - Yeah, it's like Fabio cover, totally Conan. - Yeah. - There's only a single set of footprints in the sand as you carried. - That's when Conan carried me. - Oh my God, that's too good, literally too good. - And I would say Funcom needs to talk to the rights owner, but Funcom is the rights owner of.

- Yeah, they should interview us. - There is no wondering who owns rights. They own the rights, outright, they own the rights. They can do whatever the heck they want. - I think they're missing out on the Conan romance novel segment. - Right, I mean, if, who is it called? KFC, if Colonel Sanders can get in on it. Certainly Conan can. In-game text adventure, Conan romance, there you go. - I like the Conan dating simulator. - There's like a Overwatch had a lover watch.

- Yeah, they actually did that too. Remember like when people talked about that for Secret World before and then like Overwatch actually did it. - Yeah, not seven days, but Dead by Daylight one too. - It's crazy. - Actually did an April Fool's with the visual novel aesthetic a while back. I only sort of remember that. - Yeah, I'm not remembering, but that doesn't mean anything. - Yeah. (laughing) - It means nothing. - I was like, I have to go back and see. Not that I don't trust you, I do.

April Fool's was, I don't know if it's as big as it used to be. April Fool's was like-- - I think everybody's just getting burnt out because all the companies doing like these stupid, April Fool's and everyone's just like so tired of it. - Yeah. - I think you guys are just getting old. - Also true. - Yeah, welcome to the club. - I'm still down for the googly eyes. Give me googly eyes April Fool's. - I love it when Overwatch does that.

- I said there's some games-- - Overwatch googly eyes is amazing. - It is. - I don't know when the last time Cartoon Network did it, but the one year they did googly eyes on every single cartoon was fucking hilarious. I watched that shit all day. (laughs) I watched cartoons on that channel I'd never watched before just to see the googly eyes. - Yeah, I've never seen this before, but yes, all of them. - But it's got googly eyes on it, and it's hilarious. - Oh, Varmer found it. - There's a link.

- Oh my gods. (laughs) Did you know that human flesh has more protein than chicken? A proper diet is essential. I do love a healthy lifestyle, tell me more. (laughs) This is, oh, Conan Exiles gods dating sim. (laughs) (laughs) (laughs) - That's amazing. - Oh my god. Should have gotten alcohol. (laughs) Several follow up there, I just should have done that. - Very nice, very nice. Thank you, Varmer, for providing that. So yeah, I forget where I was going with that whole thing before Conan.

- We were so far from the rails, it's... - It was something having to do with the tabletop RPG, Secret World North America, I forget how or why. - I don't know. - Then we, with a code ad and... - Oh, hold on, what was it? Okay, it sounds familiar. - I said, we're talking about the interconnected adventures and how the adventures were interconnected. - Interconnected adventure, right? - Right. - And then... - Somehow we got to Conan. - It's probably live, laugh, love.

We got to that somehow and... - Well no, you're saying that you're... - You said, what's my biggest adventure or something like that? - Oh, my biggest adventure? Oh right, oh, so I'm talking about my personal biggest adventure? - What? - And then I said life. I think I said your biggest life, and then it spun from me saying life to that prompted you to think of a Conan thing or something? - So it's your fault. - It's your fault. (laughing) - We can Sherlock Holmes the fuck out of this, okay?

(laughing) - Be like, there's a path somewhere. Doesn't necessarily make sense, but there's a path somewhere. - I think we got it, we got it. - Yeah, no, I think that's good, I think that's good. - But what I wanted to say about the interconnected was, do you think, Jesus Christ, it was so far, we haven't come anything in the original. We have come so far. We've gone too far, we're not going back. - Can't. - It was, okay, so do you think the interconnected is like tangentially interconnected?

Or you think, like remember the TSW Christmas one where the factions were all doing the same mission but from different points of view? - Oh, oh. - See what I'm saying? You think they would do like that or do you think it's more just like more tangentially? - No, I think it's probably more tangentially. Like it's three, it probably is three distinct adventures and there's an overriding theme among all three of them is what I'm assuming.

- And we need to pitch them the Christmas, like not the adventure itself, but the concept. 'Cause you have secret world, you have the factions. You could probably, you could write an adventure and then just sell it three times by shifting some badges around. - Right, well, isn't that like how the, the first time I really saw that in the game was when they did like the underground garage one, right?

And it was like, at some point they're like, oh, this faction got here first or this faction did this first and this faction, yeah. Like you were just basically. - Yeah, that's true, it happened in that one as well. I just remember the Christmas one, I think being, I don't know, somehow it was more noticeable to me like the differences or whatever. You're right, it does happen in "Into Darkness." - Yeah, it's sort of that whole.

- But the Christmas one, I think was just, I don't know, it was more impactful, I guess. - Yeah. - Maybe it's 'cause I didn't play the Christmas one with other factions. I only played it through Illuminati. - Well, because I mean, you see the other faction, like when you're going, whatever faction you're going through with, you see the other factions. But then when you play the other faction, you are that side and the other side is like NPCs. So like. - Oh, okay.

- Whatever you played through, if whatever faction you were, when you saw those other factions in that Christmas one, like when you play through the other way, you're the other side. - Okay, so you're doing what the other side was doing, essentially. - Yeah, yeah. And then the other side is like NPCs.

So like, also there's just more NPCs where like "Into Darkness," you're right, it is the same concept, but it's, I don't know, it's like in a cinematic and like talked about, and there's like a timestamp on the thing, but it's not as in your face as like, I'm running past these other groups of faction people that are shooting at me or something. - Yeah. - It's not quite the same. The Christmas one felt, I guess, larger, like more in your face about it.

- That it's sort of like there is, yeah, 'cause you don't really encounter that too often, the concept of like, no, there is competition between the factions. - Isn't it a Christmas one, Wormer? I thought it was the Christmas conspiracy one, no? Maybe it is London, wait, which one's London Underground? We don't have it in Legends, whatever it is. For some reason, I thought it was the Christmas one. Maybe it's not. Okay, maybe it was London Underground then.

- Maybe. - Was Christmas one in like a similar venue and they just like re-skinned it or something? Maybe that, I don't know. I remember that, I thought that was like Underground as well. - London Underground does have a novelization of it. Blood, Wed, and Mallory did write that. It's on Amazon, you can go get it. - Templar had a sword to defend, Illuminati and Dragon wanted to get out the sword, and one group fought, and one did turret stuff. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, maybe, yeah, okay, it probably was London Underground, not the Christmas one. Yeah, it was three distinct POVs of the same thing happening, but like, but like that was the content, whereas like an Into Darkness, like you only really see it in like a 10 second cinematic or something with a timestamp, like it's not. Three different missions to tune? I mean, maybe? - 'Cause it's technically three different, yeah, three separate missions, really, yeah.

- Yeah. - Like, you know, all the artwork behind it would be the same, and the location basically would be the same, but. - That was my point, is like pitching that concept to Star Ambulino. - How would that work in a tabletop RPG, though? I'm not even sure. - Well, no, I'm just saying, I'm saying you could sell three different versions of the same one, and you could reuse like probably two thirds of the writing.

- Unless you do it as like an almost PVP sort of tabletop where you just go from one person to the next, like, okay, and now you, what are you doing? And you, they're doing this, like, you know, you're actually like against the other two. - I'm saying is like, you could literally have a, yeah, red, blue, green, you could have, you could have, but I'm saying you wouldn't necessarily buy all of them, or you could buy all of them, right?

Or you could just be like, oh, our group is like mostly like Illuminati players or Templar players, so we're gonna buy the Templar one, right? - Or just, yeah, or just make it, oh, I see. Like, it's sort of like. - I'm just saying you could kind of, I'm just saying you could kind of recycle some content and tweak it and have three different versions of the same one. I'm just, I'm trying to give them a way to like boost revenue for less effort.

- Sell three. - But do it in, in continuity of the game, you know? - I see what you mean, yeah. - And then some people wanna own all of them, and then boom, you're selling triple. - You got three sales. - I'm just saying, just trying to help with the marketing, okay? - So this bookstore I'm most doing right now is Illuminati Focus, maybe they'll have three different versions of an adventure for the next faction-focused books. - And then you need alternate covers, you know?

- Oil, oil. (laughs) Gotta do the whole nine. - Say seven new locations, locations across North America. Gotta figure one or two has to be in Canada. - Canada, eh? - Yeah. Secret world of the North, eh? - Cool steel book. (buzzer buzzes) - Anyway, that is coming to Kickstarter Tuesday, January 28th, and will last a month, 'cause that's how long Kickstarter lasts for. I'm sure we will promote it again. - We'll buy it for Valentine's, right? - Yeah. When is Valentine's Day? - The 14th. - February.

- It doesn't move. - I think you're right. - It's the 14th. - Yeah, I should know that. (all laughing) Like second Tuesday of the month or something, right? No, it's, yeah, it's always. - Oh, yeah, it's not a, it's not a, it's not like Thanksgiving or something. It has a date. It doesn't move around. Although I'd love to see you try and get that one passed. Like, no, babe, it moved. - Valentine's Day is right, the second Monday. They're like, why are you making it Monday?

Gosh. Of all days but Valentine's Day. - Yeah, okay. Valentine's Day has always been a date. - Always been a date? - Not sure if you're aware of that. (all laughing) - What? - I was gonna say, I actually have a friend whose birthday is on that day. So maybe I'm just confusing it as like-- - That's what you're gonna tell your wife, sorry I can't make it? - Like that's his birthday. It's actually more her friend, really. But it's our friend.

(Jacob laughing) - You're like, yeah, you should understand it's your friend. - Yeah, it's his birthday. Why aren't you celebrating it? (Jacob laughing) Good times. But yeah, it'll be ending just about Valentine's Day. So you could, if you have a secret world lover in your life, you could romantically get them the Illuminati, North America. Or at least, whatever they, (all laughing) give them the Kickstarter for it. It's not as romantic. Be like, oh, what'd you get me?

Oh, I got you a, I Kickstarted something in your name. Like, oh, thanks? (Jacob laughing) They're like, I don't even play this game. Put your own name. (all laughing) - You just got that for yourself. All right, maybe, yeah, sure. But it's something we could do together. - First of all, you never came that easily. - No, no, it's for you. - But it's, yeah, but it's tabletop. It's a game we could play together, you see. It's a- - Bring the family together. - I also got you Conan Exiles.

So you could live, love, stay. (all laughing) Live, love, slay. That's romantic. Say, other than that, we have news for Dune Awakening. They're still going strong on Dune Awakening. They put out their fourth Communion at Signal on December 20th, which was just like the next day after our last show. - So I'm debating. - 2024. - They couldn't, they couldn't like do it before. - Couldn't do it the day before, no. - No, why you gotta do it on a Friday? That's dumb.

(all laughing) - What a dumb date, Friday. Gosh. - It's the weekend. Who works on a weekend? - Is it 2024? - What's up losers? - It's been a pivotal year for us and the development of the game as we have opened the development build of the game to the lucky players selected for our closed beta testing. We started with a very small core group of testers at the end of last year and have been slowly growing that group ever since.

Sometime in the middle of this year, we expanded the scope of the test with the persistent beta test, where we keep the servers running 24/7 for our testers. It has been an incredible source of important data and feedback. We've taken to heart and used to continually improve the game, doubling down on the parts of our vision that resonate with our players and tweaking and adapting those that do not.

It's a very rewarding process and we're incredibly grateful to all of our testers for helping us complete this final leg of our journey to launch. There's not much we can share with you just yet as these tests are still strictly under NDA, but as a year end treat for you all, we'll be sharing some fun and interesting stats from these closed beta tests. The early 2025 release is fast approaching. Until then, enjoy this last community signal of the year. Hey, Dan Van Dam. DVD, how you doing?

Where they say deadly Arrakis, the NPC inhabitants of Arrakis are responsible for 58% of player deaths. The second and third most common causes of death are sandworms and dehydration. 2% of players who have played at least 10 hours have never died in the game yet. More content. Who's your mentor? During character creation, you can choose your mentor, which determines your starting abilities as well as some dialogue choices across the game.

These have been the selections of mentors chosen by our beta testers so far. Bene Gesserit, Swordmaster, Trooper, and Mentat, with an even split generally between them with most people choosing Bene Gesserit at 31%, where Swordmaster, Trooper, and Mentat are 24, 23, and 22%. Still a pretty even split though. It's pretty nice.

They say, "P.S. We gave an early look "at in-development version "of the character creation process "in our Dune Awakening Direct episode two "and our Gamescom gameplay reveal. "All water is precious on Arrakis. "Closed beta players extracted approximately "1.5 million liters of blood "from fallen enemies and living creatures." - Oh, Jesus. (laughing) - As they say, that's a primary source of fluid is blood.

"Close to 100 Muad'Dibs had their blood extracted," which not the character Paul, who they just called Muad'Dib, but the actual creature, the kangaroo mouse, the little tiny mouse that he took the name from. And they say, "How could you?" (laughing) "How could you extract blood from the tiny kangaroo mice?" - Like you won't get much from them. (laughing) - Not a whole bunch. - That just sounds spiteful, that one. - Yeah, it's like a small, tiny little creature that's very cute and lovable.

And you're just, "Oh." (coughing) You're an evil, evil person. - How could you? How could you? We put them in the game and we gave them blood, but how could you kill them? (laughing) - That sounds like a very Joel thing to do. (laughing) - Why not? It's there. As I've always-- - I just put this nice, tempting thing in the way that no one would ever do something like this without allowing it to happen. - They give players hammers and put nails everywhere in the game.

What do you expect them to do with it? - Make dicks. - That's right, that's a primary thing. That's why the Funcom game, what was it, Lego? They had a Lego game at some point. - Was it the Worlds? Was it? Was Worlds theirs? It's very short-lived. - It was short-lived, and the whole reason why, Lego minifigures online, that's what it was. - Minifigures, that's what it was. - Lego minifigures online. - That's a mouthful.

They had to basically shut down because too much effort went into policing the community to stop people from making lewd things with Legos. - I mean, I don't really see how you can do that. It takes like five bricks to do that. (laughing) - It's not difficult. - Speaking from experience. - You're like, it's just a tower. - Five Minecraft blocks, like it's not fucking difficult to do. It's pretty basic. - Yeah. - It's a basic shape. - Pretty straightforward design.

I guess because they had to have made an agreement with Lego that they were like, "Yeah, yeah, we're not gonna have that." - I don't see how that's not a problem. - Do you think Lego didn't see that coming from like a mile away? - Of course Lego did. That's why they were like, "No, we don't want that to happen." But they said, "Yeah, it was costing them way too much." And I believe it's one of the only games that Funcom has shut down. One of the only multiplayer games that Funcom has shut down.

- I think also 'cause maybe they didn't have the rights to it anymore or something, right? I think it got shut down not because like they wanted to shut it down, but because they had to. That make sense? - Lego came in with a- - The hammer. - The wonder. - Yeah, I don't think they don't own that, right? It's not like Conan where they have the IP. Yeah, Lego did- - No, obviously. - They're like, Lego- - If Funcom owned Lego, that'd be a whole other- - Right, right, different story.

There'd be a whole different conversation happening right now. - Wikipedia. - I don't know where the fuck my secret Legos are is what I would wanna know. (laughing) - Yeah, come on guys. - I wanna build a Gartha, God damn it. - Or Innsmouth Academy. - According to the website playminifigures.com, which was a Funcom website, they say Lego minifigures online closed down September 30th, 2016.

No, that's just a basic- - No, I think, yeah, I think like Farmer said that Lego didn't get like renewed license. So like they hadn't, they weren't allowed to do that. They had no choice but to turn it off. They didn't have legal permission anymore. You know what I mean?

- Well, according to Wikipedia, they say that due to the game's failure to meet Funcom's internal revenue forecasts, they shut it down, which may have been also, I'm sure part of that was how much they were paying for the license, of course. - Yeah, if you can't pay for the license, then you, then, which is another reason why I think they're making games that they have IP rights to.

You don't have to worry about someone coming along- - They were just like, "Listening, it's not making, it's also not making, it's costing us so much to find all the dicks. And it's just, and then on top of that, we have to pay for the licensing, which- - Hold on, hold on, hold on. I just want to know that that was someone's job title. Funcom Dick Finder. - No, it's the Dick Hunter. - My name's Peter, I work at Funcom. - I work at Funcom. - It's my job.

(laughing) - The Lego moderation, giving the poor GMs PTSD. Yeah, absolutely. - It's on my office door. Dick Tracy. That's amazing. There you go. - I wonder if we ask Andy nice enough, he would tell us if it was- - Who was the Dick Finder? - Who was the Dick Finder at Funcom. - This week on Dick Hunter. - Dick Tracy. - Dick Tracy's really good. That was a really good one. Inspired, inspired. - But yeah, as far as I know, the only Funcom game that they've actually taken offline.

The rest of them still up and going. You could go play NRE online if you want. - The rest of them, they're not licensing these on, so it makes sense. - Yeah. And they won't take, and obviously they won't take Conan Exiles offline now because they own Conan Exiles. - Yeah. - They also have no reason to do that one either. Dune Awakening, I guess, well, I guess that's, that could be part of it too, is Dune Awakening, they obviously do not own the rights to Dune.

So, that will be something that they have to wrestle with Dune Awakening. Interesting thought there. - How did they end up licensing Dune then? - Well, they did it through, they obviously did it through Tencent. Or no, they did it pre-Tencent. - Yeah, it's on-- - They got the rights. They got the rights to, and that's 'cause it was, they got the rights. - So you got it for Dune Spice Wars?

- They announced it, they started working on it, and then the Tencent acquisition happened because Tencent's like, "We want that Dune money, yo." - We want that Dune money. - And they were like, "Just work on Dune, nothing else." - You got it, boss. - Why do they use the vines? They are green on this pink thing. Pets vs. Monsters 2, but it's not a game of the same level as MMOs.

Yeah. - They have a gaming partnership established with Legendary Entertainment for the creation of a minimum of three games based on the Dune intellectual property over the next six years. - Oh, okay. - So, they're gonna have to do a lot of work to get it to work. - Yeah, they're gonna have to do a lot of work. - Dune intellectual property over the next six years on PC and console. So, this is from 2019. So, yeah, it's not just that they...

So, they partnered with Legendary Entertainment, this is pre the Tencent thing, for the creation of a minimum of three games based on the Dune IP over the next six years. - Minimum of three, which is interesting, yeah. - Yeah, so it wouldn't be just Dune, unless that detail has changed since. Unless that detail has changed since, that's interesting, 'cause that means there'd be... - There should be a third. - Yeah, 'cause they did... - Spice Wars is one. - Yeah, and Awakening.

So, there should be a third one then at some point, right? - At least satisfy the contract. - Yeah. - Satisfy the agreement. - Interesting. - But if they are, they haven't announced it yet. It's gonna be Dune Chop Chop is what it's gonna be. - I mean, I'd play that. - Hey, Scratch, how you doing? Welcome, Scratch. - As long as they don't do like a life service Dune game. But Spice Wars is also one they're just publishing. - Is it? - Right. Is that correct? Let me check real quick.

- I mean, maybe. It might still count, I guess, potentially, if they're, as far as they're publishing. - It might still count, yeah. - It might still count towards the total potential. - Right, 'cause Dune Spice Wars was developed by Shiro Games and then published by Funcom. - Yeah. But do they have the rights to publish it? You know what I mean? Like that still could follow that umbrella, I suppose. - They can, yeah. - That still means there needs to be one more Dune game.

- Yeah. It's gonna be the visual novel. It's gonna be the dating site. (Humming) The dating simulator. - Dating simulator. - Date your favorite sandworm. (laughing) They'd be like, "Technically, it counts. I don't know what to tell you." Yeah. - Technically, it counts. Not sure that's what they want from that, but okay. (laughing) - Be like, "It's a third Dune game." I mean, they could make a single player game, I suppose. Theoretically, right? Okay, hear me out. They could do a Dune Souls-like.

- Okay. - Right? - They've got all the desert assets, for sure. Yeah, they could do that. - They do a Dune Souls-like single player/co-op. Sandworm simulator, be the worm. Oh, actually, that would kind of go hard. That would kind of go hard. If I could just swim around in the sand and then just come up underneath things and then cronk, cronk. - Sandworm surfer. - Sandworm surfer would fucking be legit amazing. (laughing) All right, gotta throw that over to Funcom. Sandworm surfer guys.

- You basically build a little house on top of the worm itself. You just go from place to place. Worm. Worm traveling simulator. (clearing throat) - You know that game, there's the game where you're just like a little ball and you start rolling around picking up shit and then you just keep doing that through cities? You know what I'm talking about? - Yes. - I think it was like a Japanese game originally or something.

- Yes. - And you just keep, by the way, Google did a thing with that for the, you can enable that on Google and just roll all the text on the screen into each other and this ball of HTML spinning. - Katamari Damacy. - Yeah, you can do Katamari in Google and it's like a, I think if you Google it, you can do it on the page itself and all the elements of the page will like wrap and you can like just snowball over each other into this ball of shit. Like it's still a thing, I'm pretty sure of it.

My kids wanted to see it and I did it for them. Just Google. - Yes, you can. - You click the little bubble and then you just roll the ball around and it picks up the elements. - I'm doing it right now. - On the page, like I'm sticking to it. - Yes, it's true. - Yeah, it's so fun. Oh, that's amazing. Okay, so what I'm thinking is, is that, but like the sandworm, right? Sort of the opposite, it was destroying everything. There's a sandworm just going around like.

You can pick up all the little pictures, all little icons. - Okay, it's basically like the snake fucking eight bit, like DOS game, you know? - Yeah. - But just 3D and you're a sandworm, just eat everything. - Katamari sandworm. All right, what would be the third game? - Cool. - But they also said that they were really pushing Nvidia's new features coming to "Dune Awakening." They say, "Dune Awakening will be one of the first games "to feature Nvidia's DLSS 4 tech "with multi-frame generation.

"DLSS multi-frame generation generates "up to three additional frames "per traditionally rendered frame, "working in unison with a complete suite "of DLSS technologies to multiply frame rates "up to eight times over traditional brute force rendering." Which, brute force rendering, it's a way to put just what every other engine has done for the history of computing so far. - Yeah. - Yeah, just brute forcing all these. - Those brutes, forcing themselves. - Brute forcing it. - Shoving it right in.

- All these frames. (laughing) - This is Nvidia's use of AI technologies. They powered by the graphics industry's first real-time application of transformers, the same advanced architecture powering - Robotic. - Multi-frame models. Like chat, you can flux more than the eye. But always remember, folks, if your game is putting out more frames than your monitor is capable of showing you. - It'll look even better. (laughing) - If you have a 60 Hertz monitor, you're only getting 60 frames, that's it.

- Now, the next thing is we'll have to upgrade our eyes FPS. - That's right. I wonder that sometimes. - Yeah, technically, I think you don't, so. - It's 60, right? - There's a, yeah, well, yes and no, I think. So like, I think technically, yes, but you can notice the difference. - Yeah. - Between like 60 and 120, like you can. Even though technically you don't see more, I think it just ends up being smoother. This looks smoother, even though you can't see the individual.

In fact, I would argue not seeing the individual frames is what you want, right? Like you don't want to see the frames. You actually want it to be past what you can see. 'Cause if it's past, if it's more frames than you can see, then it's gonna be smoother, right? If you think about it. That make sense, what I'm saying? - It does, yeah. - If I can see 60 frames per second, that means I can see each frame. I don't want to see the flip book, right? You want it to appear to be a one seamless frame.

You want it to appear to be smoother. - Yeah. - I get that, but it's also simultaneously, but you're still only getting the flip book, right? - I mean, it's always still a flip book technically, right? - Yeah. - I mean, that's what the point is. - What all video is, is just one frame after another.

- The more of those in between frames there are, like the smoother it ends up looking, that it's like when you go (imitates motor) with a flip book, if you do it really fast, it appears that you don't see them. If you do it slower, you can kind of see the seams, right? - And I get it, yes, because to a certain extent, we do do that, do do. - He said do do. - And I have a story about this. I was playing, what was it called? Half-Life 2, I was playing Half-Life 2.

And I had not set up on my PC any sort of frame limiter or anything like that. So Half-Life 2, it's an older game, was probably running at like, I don't know, a thousand frames a second or something like that, because it was just pushing it as much as it could do. And as I was playing it, this is the only time I've ever experienced this, but as I was playing it, I felt myself getting like hot and like sweaty and then nauseous. And I'm like, what the hell is going on? And I just stopped playing.

I was actually getting motion sickness from playing it because the frame rate was so exceptionally high that it was like throwing off something in my visual perception of it. It's the only time that ever happened to me playing a video game. - Watch my stream from last night. - I've (laughs) I would say I've never had motion sickness in real life. I've been on airplanes multiple times. I drive everywhere. I've never had motion sickness in real life.

I have only had motion sickness playing Half-Life 2 on my PC. And it was probably because the amount of frames that it was pushing out. And it could have been that the amount of frames it was pushing out was... So obviously there had to have been that I was detecting it. There had to have been some sort of like disconnect there. There had to be some sort of like something because I was- - Yeah, it was just too much. - Obviously. - Your brain's like, I feel like I'm speeding down a hallway.

- Yeah. (laughs) Or there was some major disconnect between like what I was seeing and how my brain was translating it and something. - Yeah, Varmer, I think- - I don't want them inserting frames. I want the frames that actually exist. You also don't want them to start making up frames because some animations rely on a certain number of frames per second for a certain feel or movement. Yeah, that's sort of- - The problem, okay. So the problem is the 60 FPS interpolator.

You can't interpolate 60 FPS. That's what you see. Interpolating, that means you're pushing 30 and filling in 30. That's gonna be shit. But you can do 60 and fill in up to like 120. Like you can artificially make it feel smoother without it being- - And that's what they're doing, yeah. - But you can't interpolate 60 'cause that means you're only pushing 30 and you're like fudging the other 30. That means we're just lying to your eye for half of what you're seeing. That's gonna feel shitty.

But I'm saying you can smooth, you can 60 and add more. - Yeah, it's not like you've set the game to 60 frames, you're only gonna get 15 frames a second. And they're just gonna be like, the rest of them are just gonna be, we're just gonna make this up. - No, that has been a problem. Like 60 FPS interplay is a thing, that is a problem that they're trying to be, they're trying to save and do less work. So like, oh, we'll just do 30 and we can interplay it up. And like, that is ass.

I've watched a whole YouTube thing on this where like, yeah, like a 24. Like I watched a YouTube thing on this, they're talking about like, part of the problem is they're trying to get around essentially doing work that they should be doing. Like, oh, we'll just get the engine to do it for us. And it's like, no, no, no, you need to do it up to this level and then the engine can make it better.

But you can't just be like, oh, it'll do it for us, let's do less because it'll cost us less money or whatever. Like, it's just, it's bad. - Yeah, no, the examples that they've given have been like, they've been like 60 frames and pushing to like 270 frames or something, like almost 300 frames. And they're like, it's gonna be basically running at 60 frames or with the same power as 60 frames, but it'll be pushing something like 270 and thus make it smoother, make it smoother for the viewer.

- Yeah, yeah, like you shouldn't fuck with the base amount your eyeball can see, that seems stupid. - Yeah, or that your monitor can even put out, yeah. - Yeah. - I have thought about that, like what is our, at some point our eyes themselves can only see up to a certain resolution, up to a certain, you know, frame rate, like what is a frame rate of our eyes? At some point we actually hit, there's a threshold where we have to hit that.

- Yeah, but also, I saw something about that too, like also people like adapt, if you're staring at a certain rate, like all the time, you kind of get used to it. And so you'll, like, even if you technically can't, or you're not supposed to see it, like your brain will notice when something's like off. - Right, which is why I said the story of me playing Half-Life 2, where it's like, you're like, I noticed it. Yeah, I noticed something was wrong.

Even though my monitor was still only putting out 60, I could, my brain was like, nope, there's a lot more going on here. But I just found that interesting. Yeah, the only time I've ever gotten motion sickness was playing fricking Half-Life 2.

I don't know, it's just weird. (laughs) - Yeah, I imagine it, like, you know, that would be like, what it'd be like to, you know, you're going super fast, like you're the Flash or something and everything's just like, (imitates car engine) too many frames going by, too many frames going by. - Or maybe the disconnect of like, like I'm not actually traveling that far, and yet I'm traveling that far.

Like I'm traveling way farther than I should actually be traveling, and thus it's creating a, yeah, some sort of disconnect. I was like, wow. Yeah, so now I know what motion sickness feels like. So, just weird, anyway. (laughs) - I need to make a clip for you. See if-- - But I can see if, 'cause what are they, what are mostly, console games are mostly at 30 frames?

- Yeah. - If they put out console games mostly at 30, I could see them potentially trying to do that from 30 to 60 in console games, but even that's, that could be bad. That could be weird. - Yeah. - Well, the other idea, yeah, I do not want 30 to 60 FPS interpolation, yeah. - Yeah. - I mean, most people do anyway. Like how many times do you see during, like during the holidays and people are like, are you going home to visit family?

This is what it's called to turn off their feature on their TV that makes it look worse. And it's like, you know, smoothing or whatever, whatever feature on their TV is like, picture smoothing or this or that. - Like there's not one that makes it look like everything looks like a daytime soap opera. You're like, what the shit? - Yeah. - Why does my Marvel movie look like a fucking soap opera? What the fuck is happening? - Yes, that motion smoothing. - Yes, motion smoothing, yeah.

And they're like, yeah, 'cause many people don't like that. Yeah, they don't want that look. They want almost the lower frame rate because that's just what they're used to. That's, you know, that's what looks good. Unless you're watching soap operas, I guess. And then it, you know, then it has a different frame rate to it for whatever reason, I don't know. The other idea is that, and I've taken classes in this in the past, when it comes to audio engineering, they, what is it?

Our ears, what is it? What are CDs burned at? (sighs) CDs are usually recorded at 44.1 kilohertz. That's a sample rate that CDs are. And the reason why it's at specifically 44.1 kilohertz is it's twice the rate of human hearing. Our ears can hear up to 22 and a half kilohertz. So, but if something is done at a higher frequency, if something is done at a higher rate, 44.1 for CDs, and for, excuse me, and for, they do that so that you get more of a range that otherwise we do not hear.

Like we don't hear the sounds directly, but we can still perceive them in different ways. And that's why when you listen to a record that you hear, it sounds quote unquote warmer, it has a more warm sound, because you don't get the tones, but you also get the overtones, and you get the semitones, and you get all the ranges in between that a note makes up. Like you hit one note, and it's really not just like that one note, but it also has other cascading overtones on top of it.

And when you get that whole effect, our ears can perceive that. So it's sort of that same way, but we still can't hear anything over like 22 kilohertz. Just because our ears aren't designed that way, but we can still perceive it. Does that make sense? - Yeah, yeah. - Audio engineering. I took that class, gosh, I took that class like 25 years ago. So, (laughs) I hope I'm not like talking up my ass on that one. Yeah, there's a reason vinyl persists. Yeah, absolutely.

And it's because of the, it's not digital, where digital cuts it off. Digital cuts off those, the wave forms. Whereas vinyl is, whatever the opposite of digital is, I can't think of the name off the top of my head. - Analog? - Analog, yeah. Vinyl's recorded analog. And so, yeah, so it has, you get more of that. Now I'm not gonna be the type to be like, I know all of this. I have been an audiophile. I know all, or I know all the science of audiophile. I get why.

But I also, my ears are not good enough to really care that much. (laughs) - You're all deaf as shit. - Doesn't matter. - Yeah, my ears are not good enough to care about that difference so much. So I'm not gonna be like, oh my gosh, like this sounds so much, you know, so much, so much crisper and so much warmer and so much this. It's like, yes, it does. I also really like an MP3. (laughs) I also really like that convenience.

And you do the trade-off of the convenience for the, for cutting off the waveform a little bit. And obviously because, you know, MP3s and CDs flourished as they did, a lot of other people agreed as well. But yeah, but for that reason, vinyl is not never gonna go away. Anyway. - That was just cool. Vinyl's just cool. - It's just cool, yeah. It's just, it's just good collector's items. I'm glad it's made a comeback. But it sort of made a comeback for that reason.

Like it's because it is technically fully analog that it, that it eschews the digital. Other than that, what else do we got? Conan Exiles. Conan Exiles releases, have released their producer's letter going forward over 2024 and beyond, including holding off on developing new content. Conan Exiles, they put in their, in the producer's letter. This was today, actually. They put out their producer's letter. Or was it today or was it yesterday? When did they, when did they put this out?

Breaking news. No, this was yesterday, January 15th. They say Conan Exiles was not actually intended to be a game as a service when we developed and first released it into early access in 2017. We hope to recoup the costs of development and make enough money for our next project. Instead, it became the biggest success in Funcom's history. With so much interest from the community, we continue building on it for the next seven years.

We released many DLCs, major updates, and the Isle of Sistah expansion, apparently, in early access. It wasn't early access for quite a while. - No, it wasn't. - I mean, quite a while. - It was like one year. I think it was one. - Was it just one? - I'm pretty sure it was just one. I had, it was one, it was hot, so I wanna say it was one. - Let me see. I think you are correct, yes. Early access versions of the game were released in early 2017. Leaving early access on May 8th, 2018.

- Yeah, they were the example of like, stop fucking sitting in early access for goddamn ever. - I was gonna say. - Early access is to get ready and then launch. - But Funcom has done really good with early access. They're like one of the companies that it's actually-- - They do it right. They're like, oh, early access is this, and then they publish. Instead of early access for infinity.

- We're just at early access, we can stay off the criticism of people going, oh, well the game still needs this, it still needs this, and they're like, well, it's still in early access. It's like years later. - Yeah, I remember that, well, A, I had it day one. I was in early access the second it was available. And I just remember it being a thing. There was articles like, this is how you're supposed to do early access. - Yeah. - They're like, you're in early access.

You use the money from early access to continue development and then you launch and then-- - Yeah, but seven years, holy shit. - But yes, early access in 2017 is when they started. Said instead, it became the biggest success in Funcom's history with so much interest from the community we continue building on it for the next seven years. We released many DLCs, major updates, and the Isle of Sipta expansion.

Aiming for an even longer term goal in mind, we released Age of Sorcery in 2021, setting out on a new path to deliver content to everyone free of charge and a more regular cadence than before. Over time, keeping up with this ambitious release plan has become increasingly difficult. Conan Exiles development is complex because we must balance new development with the need to address longstanding issues brought on by years of expanding a game that was never built for it.

Technical debt is inevitable in all game development. We've accumulated quite a bit with Conan Exiles due to how the game was initially built and expanded over time. Therefore, we've taken the decision to hold off on developing new content and features while we focus on improving the game from a technical and quality of life standpoint. At this point, we believe we need to put more focus into making the game better, not just bigger.

Our goal for the next update is to start focusing on resolving bugs and increasing stability. We will release this update in spring 2025 and give you more insight into what to expect as we get closer to release. This update will be a key step in addressing the game's core issues and laying a stable foundation for the future. - I think it's pretty awesome, honestly. - I mean, all games need quality of life. And it's actually kind of across the board. We've seen other MMOs too.

Specifically, I'm gonna point out Elder Scrolls Online. Elder Scrolls Online kind of also put out a letter that was very similar to this. They're like, "We've been doing this cadence of every year doing a dungeon and then an expansion and then a second expansion and then blah, blah, blah, blah. And having for the past couple of years." And they've been really stable about doing so. And then this year they were like, "Yeah, we don't know if we're gonna release one this year.

We're instead, we're gonna focus a little differently. We're gonna pull it back a little bit." But that could also just be because the MMO genre as a whole, sort of on fire for the past year. Tons of layoffs across the board. Many, many studios taking big hits as far as. - Yeah, that's true. - And so a lot of studios have pulled back a bit and they say, "Yeah, we know we've been hitting this cadence but yeah, we don't know if we can do that." - We've hired everybody so.

(laughing) - We got rid of everybody. I'm looking at you Star Trek Online. What the hell are you doing over there? Gosh, Star Trek Online. It's, gosh, they've got like the worst news out of everybody. Star Trek Online was made by Cryptic. Cryptic was bought by somebody, Perfect World, I think. But then Perfect World switched to somebody else. I don't know, I forget exactly who.

But basically over the past year, they've switched Cryptic to DECA Games which is essentially under Embracer Group which is essentially a holding company. They've switched Star Trek and all of Cryptic's properties over to DECA Games which they've made like one online game but it's not big, it hasn't been a big one. They've switched like the entire group over there and then just basically just started laying off all of Cryptic. Such that like some of the biggest names there are gone.

And it's like-- - Wasn't the other lead graphic designer for all the ships for like the past 20 years, he just left? - Yeah. I think Nick DeGoyde is his name. Yeah, he just left. Thomas Moroney is still there. He's also one of their best ship designers. But hopefully they won't get rid of him. Um, yeah, just losing talent. Just losing basically what made the games what they are. So it's like the future for Star Trek Online is really, really dim right now.

So it's like them, Elder Scrolls Online, pulled back content. Yeah, you're seeing across the board a lot of layoffs. I know someone who was just working at Microsoft. He was just laid off like a really long-term engineer. So just across the board, a lot of layoffs. And so this isn't too much of a surprise over the past year or so. Like Conan Exiles stopped doing the, what you call, the battle pass. They decided to stop the battle pass. - Yeah. - They stopped making for that.

But then they released that, you know, they're like, "You can have two followers that like have their own storylines and have their own, you know, you can have companions with you." Which is really cool. I really love that idea. But yeah, so them turning around and also saying, "Yeah, we're going to be holding off developing new content. We're gonna basically build it up to what we can, fix some of the bugs, increase the stability, fix some of the long-term issues."

It's a little bit of a scale back. - Yeah. - But I don't know, like I said, they just put out the thing with the companions. That's a really cool feature. Who knows? And then, but of course also, Dune. Dune's basically getting the lion's share of what they're doing anyway. - Yeah, yeah, for sure. - But I haven't heard of any layoffs at Funcom either. So knock on wood. That I, therefore we know it's safe. - Can't get it up that fast. I'm gonna need some time. (laughing) - Not knocking that far.

You're very far away. (laughing) So yeah, so they've been scaling back. (laughing) - I mean, you gotta whine and dine me a little bit. You can't just be like, "Come on." - "Come in here." - You. - I said, I gave Waffle a clip to try and give Mikey motion sickness. - Oh yeah? (laughing) - What do you want? People see it? - Yes. No, I sent you the clip so you could print it out on a piece of paper and shove it in your sock drawer. - Oh, okay. (laughing) - One frame at a time, by the way.

It's gonna be a lot of paper in your sock drawer. (laughing) - Just be like, "They still print stuff out on paper anymore?" We have a printer. - I was gonna say yes. - I have a printer, but I haven't set it up. It's been just sitting over there for like, I don't know, the past year. - Every once in a blue moon, I have to take it out and print something for like kids' school or something. Oh my God, it's not dark mode. - I don't know. (laughing) - What did you do there?

- Try to make this screen bigger. Earth. (laughing) - That is not my clip, FYI. (laughing) - Okay, okay. Live view of the ISS, okay, all right. Exciting. - That's not what I wanted either. - Can't wait to see what happens. (laughing) I'm on the edge of my seat over here. Should I be scared? (laughing) - Hold on. - Okay. (laughing) (humming) - While we wait. (laughing) Another piece of big news that came out. Astrolab Interactive, oh wait, here we go. Oh my gosh, this is your clip of.

- Okay, but that's still, it's like a phone on your screen. What are you? - Yeah. - Hold on. (laughing) - It's like I'm adjusting the picture, God. - Get it together, man. There you go. - Okay, okay. - I can see it. - This is Jimmy playing, running, that's just a Gartha, oh my gosh. - No, it's the rogue agent mission. - Okay. - Watch my jump, watch my jump down. - It feels so weird to jump off. It's like you're landing in it. It's super strange.

- That did look like 10, like so much more of a jump. Well, it looks like you're falling like inwards or something, like it feels so weird to do that. - We're gonna do it again. - This looks and feels so weird to jump off. It's like you're landing inside of it. - Like the way the ground comes up, it's bizarre. I was in a dungeon with Bomber, I did a whole dungeon and like, it gets worse. Like you don't, when there's walls around you and you spin around, like it goes, like.

- This was Jimmy playing, you were using the photo mode mod, right? This was the photo mode mod. - No, not photo mode, reshade, reshade. - A reshade, this was doing reshade. - Yeah, with tiny planet filter. - With a tiny, yeah, tiny planet filter, which changes for whatever reason. - Well, the whole point is like, it warps the perspective, right? So like you get like that, the ground you're standing on is like a ball and everything else like sort of like warped around.

But when you move your mouse around, like it changes the focal point and it'll do some weird shit. - Especially when you're moving. And I was tanking a dungeon like that and I killed Bomber many times, unintentionally, 'cause I couldn't actually see them when I was doing it. - So you kill a couple of people in the process, it's okay. - I was like, is anyone alive? I can't tell. - You hate to see it. Hey Astrid, how you doing? - Astrid. - Welcome in Astrid. It's a fun way to play though.

Now you have to figure out. - Pictures out of it. - Playing the game 100% in that. - 100% tiny planet? Dude, no one would fucking watch my stream more than they already don't watch my stream. (laughing) I'll just put regular pictures for you, Pavel. So I can get them in here. God damn it, why is this being done? - Barbara said it was honestly a hilariously fun dungeon run. All the wipes were hilarious, even to the rest of the group. - What did Jimmy look like from that perspective?

'Cause obviously Jimmy had a different perspective. - He just looked like an idiot, like running into shit. (laughing) - Yeah, like running into a corner for five minutes. Jimmy was tanking and instead of taking a fully shielded prime maker to the water, he went 90 degrees and bolted away with the lens still up. - Okay, okay. Yeah, I couldn't see where the water was at first. That was a problem. - Yeah, you gotta find that water, yeah. - Well, like the view more and then, yeah. - That's awesome.

So that's why, I mean, I love all your runs. I love all the ideas that you come up with. They're so creative. - I was going through to install the latest version of ReShade and I was like, oh, what's this filter? And I was like, oh, that's crazy. I got some cool screenshots like for like the thumbnails. I can play like this. And at first I was like, there's no fucking way. But there's sliders on it because, okay.

So I don't know if you're gonna understand this, but that plane like that works because the, everything's warped, but like I can kind of see straight ahead more or less, like it warps up and down, but it's kind of, by default, when you turn on the filter, it's this way. - Ooh, okay. - So the part that is kind of like looks semi-normal is just going horizontal to the right. - And that's not really, that's not really doing well.

- If you're trying to walk forwards, like the part that you can see is just sliding like this. So I was like, what the fuck, I can't play like this. But I found the sliders for that filter and you could turn it. So I turned it, so like, oh, I have like a path I can sort of see and go. Let's see. - Walking a friend through SWL for the first time, I give them these instructions. Do Tyler Freeborn last on Solomon Island? Yes, I agree because Tyler Freeborn technically was released.

I mean, in SWL, they did make it part of the leveling process, but it was technically like the last content to play on Solomon Island. I guess, so yeah, I agree with that. - Technically, it came after Transylvania 'cause it was a DLC that came after, like you went back to the other zones. - Yeah, I was like, but they put it into the leveling process, but without, it gives you, if you do everything else first, you get more out of it.

Still very good, Tyler Freeborn, I love some Tyler Freeborn and don't touch that hologram in the city of the sun God. And maybe do immersion after Transylvania because they all released, technically, they all released after Transylvania originally, yeah. - Yeah, they did. Like it was meant to like, you went back after you, so before Tokyo existed, it wasn't released yet. Like Transylvania happened and then they released those issues where you would go back and revisit the earlier zones.

We actually had a conversation about this on Discord the other day about how-- - Do touch the hologram. I mean, you could go back and touch the hologram. - Yeah, but if you don't finish the mission, if you don't, that fucking shit stays, like he keeps a rumbling and the voice happens nonstop forever, wherever you are until you finish the mission. There's the loading screen with the tiny planet. That's the Agartha one. - Nice, that looks cool.

As we were saying, like, yeah, who used to, who was it that did this? - And look at this, look at this. How fucking cool does that look? - Zubari, calm down. - Now is not the time for argument. - Get to the next platform. - That might be my favorite one of the loading screens that I got pictures of. - That's cool. - Just 'cause like the sort of like bobble head-ish thing. - Zubari has taken up almost the whole entire quarter. (laughing) - To touch it when you're ready, but don't never touch it.

That is what she said. - That's what she said. (laughing) But no, so if you do Angry Earth, if you do Angry Earth and you get the, you know, the djinn's voice, right? And there's like that shaking and rumbling. - Yeah. - If you never complete the mission, like that shit just stays on permanently. Like you're wandering around a Garth and it's like shaking and the voice is happening like all the time.

So that's one reason to not pick it up is if you- - He's like, "Come on, won't you finish this already? Where are you going?" - What's happened to people where they didn't realize that was like the cause, that they didn't realize that was the cause and they just had this shit going on forever. Like, what the fuck? It's bugged. (laughing) It's not bugged, you need to finish the mission. - Yeah, just finish it already. Gosh. What are you doing over there?

(laughing) - Yeah, I actually played a lot more Tiny Planet. - I'm a genie, I've lived ages. - I thought I would. - I did the faction missions. I got lost in the dark. Into darkness, Tiny Planet was very difficult 'cause I couldn't see where the fuck I was going and it was warped. I got lost in the Venetian Missile Crisis warehouses really bad. Rogue Agent was pretty easy. That was pretty chill.

- Astrid says, "Honestly, worth the shaking to get to In the Dusty Dark, which is the actual best sabotage mission. I will not be hearing arguments for Cost of Magic." - Lies and slander. Lies and slander, blasphemy. (laughing) Take them away. I'll have none of this. - Cost of Magic as best sabotage? - Cost of Magic is the best, period. - Hot take. - It's not just the best sabotage mission. Cost of Magic, best mission. - Just best mission, period. You should do a top 10.

Top 10 best missions in the game. - I'll do like a tier list. - Yeah, yes, a tier list, yeah. - Do a tier list at like Cost of Magic S tier. S tier. (laughing) - It's a wonderful mission shade. - I love Cost of Magic. I genuinely love Cost of Magic. Now mind you, in the past- - I'm just saying from the more perspective of many people just hating Cost of Magic. - I broke, I broke. Did I break an Xbox controller trying to do in TSW? Yes, I did.

Did I hurt my hand punching an Xbox controller repeatedly? Yes, I did. Still best mission. - But when you finished it, the level of satisfaction from finishing it. It's like a hit of adrenaline. - Well, I just like, I like, I will say it got better. Like, so, or my computer got better. Like, it was a lot more difficult back when I did it in TSW. I think not because Legends made it better, but because like my computer was better. So it was just more responsive.

- Okay. - That can be a legit problem. Like- - Is it because it has that like platform, platforming part and you know. - Most people just hate the platforming part. Like specifically the disappearing platforms. - Yeah. - Like technically the Ask the Puzzle is platforming as well, but no one really complains about that. It's the disappearing ones in the air that people truly hate. I do actually feel also that TSW was slipperier. Slipperier? Yeah, that's a word. More slippery.

- Okay. - TSW felt more slippery to me. I can't tell you the number of times I lost Sins of the Father achievement because I jumped over a wall and as my character's feet hit the top of the wall, they hit it, slid sideways and off onto a laser. And I was like, what the fuck is that? (laughing) Like, I just felt like I was like- - What did you say? Like the number of times that you've done, what, the Junkyard jumping puzzle? - A lava game? - Lava game.

That like you've come to, you've come to very, very closely understand how it determines where you are standing. - I know how all that should work. - Yeah, like very, very distinctly understand. - And server prediction. Yeah. What counts as- - And that's why sometimes you'll be like, I made that jump, but it's like, no, you didn't make that jump. And it's because of it predicted you were gonna be in a different place than where you were.

And it predicted that based on, right, possible server, but also server connection at the time. And, you know, other factors. - Yeah, it can be, it definitely is worse. If your latency is worse, the desync is gonna be worse. Like just run it on a lower sprint. Technically you can run all of lava. People, I mean, it's easier probably like at sprint two, but you can do it at sprint one, it's possible. And the thing is the lower your sprint, right?

The less distance the server is predict, like, it's gonna predict your speed and direction, right? And then it's gonna sync back up. But the faster you're going, right? The more it can potentially be off, right? 'Cause it's gonna predict in the next half second, you're gonna go this far because you're going this fast. If you're going slower, if you're on sprint one, then it's going to be off by less. Even when it does desync, it's gonna be off by less.

- The faster you go, the more percentage of an error there is in your location. - 'Cause now when it's off, it like predicted you, oh, you went like three feet past the thing you're supposed to land on, as opposed to like, oh, you just didn't land on the middle of it, you landed it on the front hood or, you know, or the back hood of the car or something, right? - Right, and so it goes like, nope, you're off.

You didn't make the jump, and you're like, I did make the jump, my clients, I see myself on the thing. - In general. It's actually much harder to run, like running that shit at sprint six is actually way more difficult. 'Cause you're flying. And if at any point it's doing, desync happens, like you are, it's detecting you way the fuck off. So yeah, slower is better.

There was Icy Claws, Icy Claws, when I made that character, so like hold Icy Claws, the first thing I did upon hitting a Gartha at like level four and no sprint upgrade was run, like literally finish this tutorial, go into Kingsmouth, and I just ran straight there and did Lava Game, first try. I just ran straight there. Lava Game, Jimmy! - First try. Brand new character to Lava Game speed run. I didn't think of it like that at the time, but I guess that's technically what it was.

It was like how fast you could lava. - That kind of was, yeah. Which also kind of points out the fact that yes, just using the sprint right out of the gate, you could do it. - Yeah, sprint one, it's possible. Like, I'm not saying it's, it's easier in the sense that you won't desync, but like the second to last jump is probably harder. That second to last jump is easier with a higher sprint. It's a very far jump, and it's really easy to under jump on sprint one. But it is doable.

And then most things in the game are like built like that, right, where it's technically possible, just easier with the higher sprint. - Yeah, I love, I love "Cost of Magic." I love "Cost of Magic." I have like an appreciation for "Sins of the Father." Although that, I don't know. That is, I guess the difference with "Sins of the Father," people hate "Cost of Magic" because you can't even, it's not even about the achievement. They're not trying to do the achievement.

They just can't finish the mission, right? - They just can't do it, yeah. - "Sins of the Father," you can lose the achievement, but you can still do the mission. I think that's why it doesn't get as much hate. But as far as like trying to get the achievement, "Sins of the Father" is way fucking worse. Way fucking worse. The "Cost of Magic," you can fall off that floating platform as many times as you want. The achievement will reset. You can just go try again, right?

So achievement-wise, "Cost of Magic" is way easier just because you can instantly retry it. Back in TSW days, even if you were a patron, like missions used to be like on a three-day cooldown. And I was trying "Sins of the Father" achievement every third day for fucking like three months. I got it on like three other alts before I got it on my main. 'Cause every time I went to do it on my main, something fucked up. And then I had to wait three days to do it again.

And then I would run practice runs on other characters in between, and I would get it. I would get the achievement on other characters and then go to run it on the main again and just fucking fly into a laser randomly somehow. (Jacob laughs) Or a camera just like decides you're there that it never detected you there before. Like "Sins of the Father" was like, drove me fucking crazy. - Just threw you off completely. - C tier? No, no, it is S tier. It is S tier. (Jacob laughs) It is S tier.

- I think, what would even be C tier? - Do a list, do a list. I'd like to see it. - There's a lot of missions in the game. I mean, I like most of the missions. I mean, does it have... 'Cause C is like, I don't know, like "Fistful of Zombies" is probably like C tier, right? It's like a starter mission. It's fine, but it's not amazing. - Do it as like a YouTube shorts sort of format where every short is-- - Are you kidding me?

Do you know how long a tier list of the missions in "Secret" would take? Jesus Christ. That's gonna be like a fucking six hour stream or something, not a short. - No, I mean like one mission per short. This mission, you're doing this, blah, blah, blah. And for that reason, it goes in B tier. - Wetwork S tier? Dude, I have a special love for Wetwork because I solved it myself on day zero when it came out.

Back in TSW when, if you were like the subscriber, you got the new content like three days early. So like literally like day zero or day negative three, like however you wanna say it. Yeah, I have a special soft spot for Wetwork. I still would probably maybe make that like A tier. I don't know if I would put that S tier. I love that mission. But it like-- - I'm just thinking. - I don't know. And also investigation missions are different animals.

Like, but there's some jank in that mission, not related to the actual investigation part. Like the investigation part and the deciphering the code stuff is awesome. There's some of the interactions with the Orochi fucking patroller dudes are fucking, can be really irritating. And just react not appropriately. I think it would knock it down a little bit for me.

- C tier is filth surveil guide due to the grammatical pain of the name, the lack of context in the mission itself and being the only CDC computer related side in Blue Mountain without a media pop-up. Oh, and the sudden mass of CDC agents when we already knew that the CDC team in Blue Mountain was way smaller than that. And now there's nameless additional CDC agents and mass. They're just all there. They just all, you know, they just show up. It's fine.

- Okay, I would say probably like the low tier would be like, I don't think, is it? It's not this one. I don't think we're, I don't know if we're talking about the same one or not. Maybe not. I think the minesweeper one in Blue Mountain, right? The minesweeper side mission. The minesweeper side mission is like, gotta be one of the fucking most annoying pieces of shit. (laughing) Like everyone fucking hates that mission. Everyone hates that fucking thing.

Although I don't know if I would rank, I don't think I would do a tier list with mains and sides. I think I would keep that separate. - Yeah, that seems. The only side that I was maybe consider as a main is the one in... - F is Helen Bach? No, Helen Bach's not F. - Helen Bach's not F. - Is the one in... - I'm not saying, okay, look. I'm not saying Helen Bach is S tier. I'm just saying Helen Bach is not F. - I'd put Helen Bach as like, I don't know, like B or a C. It is iconic.

Helen Bach is iconic. - It's iconic. I know why people get frustrated with it. Much like "Costa Magic," I understand people get frustrated with it, but for me, I think it would still be like, yeah, like an A or a B, I think. - I mean, it even points you to a fricking YouTube video. - Yeah, it's really good. The lore is really good. Like, okay, do you think you would do different tier lists for like, maybe just tier lists the investigation missions against each other?

And then tier lists like the sabotage against, or would you do all? 'Cause I think all main missions would be a little weird 'cause it's different criteria, right? What makes a sabotage mission good is not the same as what makes an investigation mission good. - It's true, they are different genres. - I wonder if you would make more sense to like separate them out and say like, action, sabotage, investigation, side mission as like different lists, you know?

- I'm just thinking of that idea because there's a channel that I've been watching on YouTube of this guy who lives in Japan and there's like a famous shopping street in Japan and he's ranking all the restaurants in that shopping list on a tier list. And I'm just thinking of that same context of like, and he's doing it all through shorts. So it's just like, he goes in, he tries the one thing, he makes a short of like that one, the one restaurant, and then he ranks it.

And it's just a continual ongoing tier list. And like something like that, like a format like that, I think would actually work really well. - Yes, Treasure Hunt was that one called Bomber 'cause that is like F tier. Treasure Hunt is F tier. That shit was so bad that back in TSW when all monster treatments were 10K kill achievements, no one found the farming method in that side mission until I did. And that was years later. They're like, what was it, the Badgers? Badgers have like the 10K stuff.

Like I found a new unknown 10K farming thing because no one fucking plays that mission. Like it's so goddamn hard. - They were like, this is the best way to farm it. And you're like, wait, but there's this mission over here that is really good at it. And they're like, listen, we don't want that mission. So. - No, like no one ever discovered it. Wait, no, we don't like Antenna. Astrid, Astrid, we are so far apart. So far apart. - No. - Also Antenna's tricky.

Antenna's tricky to rank because Antenna is both a side mission and an investigation mission. So I don't know. - No, I will agree with this. They reclassified it in "Seeker World Legends" as it should have been because that is an investigation mission. - It is, yeah. - And that is the only investigation mission that in the original "Secret World" I cheated on and looked up the answer. - I solved that entire thing correctly. - I didn't because it was a side mission. It was late at night.

I was like, oh, I'll just do one more side mission to log off. Let me pick up that side mission. And I started doing it. And then I was like, wait, no. - What the fuck is this? What is this doing? What, wait, wait, hold on. Wait, this, and I was like, oh. And I was like, no, I have to finish this before I go to bed. - Signal effect, just think of it, it's fucking amazing. - It was like two o'clock in the morning. I'm like, I have to finish this before I go to bed.

Signal effects, yeah, signal effect. That's what I mean, yeah. And it was like, I have to finish this before I go to bed. And after a while I was like, nope, can't do it, can't do it. Let me just look up the answer. - It's so good. It's so good. It's so good, but only screw it because it was misclassified. That was an investigation mission that should not have been a side mission. If I had saw this is an investigation mission, I would've been like, okay, no, I'm not doing that tonight.

I'm gonna put that aside. - But honestly, okay, here's the thing. I don't think that one takes that long to solve. I genuinely don't think that one takes that long to solve. That's not like a wet works thing. Like, and signal effects, not that difficult. - Right, and in "Secret World," right, that's an investigation side. It's like the only mission that's an investigation side mission. - No, there's like three of them or something. - Are there? I know there's one side mission.

There's one in "King's Myth." - Like Walmer just mentioned too, there's foundations in "Heavy Metal." There's more, I think. They have green icons. You can tell when a side mission in "Legends" is investigation 'cause the side mission icon is green. - I don't know if I've ever really, the only one, maybe they just passed through me. Like they weren't even like, okay, I need to look something up, but it's not the end of the world and blah, blah, blah.

Like I never put the other ones, but signal effect I always thought deserved. - This is the real game. - The real game? No, I'm sorry. - I know what I'm fucking talking about. - Jimmy, I'll leave this one to you. - I did a side by side play through of both games at the same fucking time. - Jimmy, yes, Jimmy ran a side by side play through where he played, he had both of them on the screen at the same time and he was playing, did one mission on one, did one mission on the other.

And not even like, even the full mission, like the small parts of the mission, just one on and play them literally side by side to give them the full comparison. - I mean, on top of playing TSW for thousands of hours for Legends ever came out, playing Legends for thousands of hours and then playing both of them side by side. Anyone knows about the two versions of the game and knows that first, that, you know, Jack Boone has water in Legends and he didn't in TSW. Like that's me.

- Like, no. - Gave the dude water. Like, listen. - Legends is a better version of the game. - Like, listen, we all started on TSW. There's no denying. - I fucking finished TSW. I finished the museum. I finished the museum twice, once a new game. - Like, there's no denying, it has a place in our hearts. SWL is better, yes. - I genuinely feel SWL is better. - Yes. - Less raids, less nightmare dungeons. I have 17,000 hours between the two games. I genuinely feel Legends is better.

I mean, are the two Aegis raids, um, good? Yes, the Aegis, here's the problem. Aegis mechanics in the raids in the dungeons were great. The Aegis system was fucking horseshit. - Agree. - Yeah, we did get Penthouse back in Legends. And this is the other thing. Yes, we have technically less nightmare dungeons, but we now have a nightmare plus. Those dungeons all have a new, like, difficulty level as does the raid. The raid has a new difficulty level.

So our New York raid's actually harder than the Aegis raid in TSW. We don't have the other two raids, that's unfortunate. We have a lair, we have a Kaiden lair, which those gates never opened in TSW. - I think I was talking with somebody else. - It's beyond that. - Sorry. - Beyond the stuff that, like, one has or one doesn't have, it's, um, it's got so much more improvements in, um, like, quality of life improvements. - Mm-hmm. - The systems are better, in my opinion. They have more depth.

It's not as easy to see on the surface. And a lot of people will see, like, oh, less actives, less passives, and just think there's less depth. Yes, it does have the future development, though. It actually did get more development. The last major rebalance patch was two years ago, and it's basically on the back burner, like Joel has said as much, not that they don't wanna go back and do it, but they have exiles and they've got Dune, so they have all hands occupied at the moment.

- That's true, and even then, as we said, Dune is, um-- - Dune's not getting new content ever. - Exiles, even exiles is scaling back right now as well. So, you know. - Yeah. But, like, the systems, the systems are more complex than is viewable on the surface. Whereas the opposite is true of TSW. TSW appears like it has more complexity, and then turns out it kinda actually doesn't.

Anyone that's played TSW for any length of time realizes that, like, 2/3 of the ability wheel is fuckin' useless shit. It's just filler to fill out the wheel. - Yeah, I call that the, what is it, the illusion of choice, where they give you a whole bunch of choices, but only a couple of them are viable. - Not just viable, but a lot of them are just like, oh, it does the same thing as something else later, right?

There's two versions of the same ability, then the other weapon has also two versions of that same kind of thing. Like, there's a lot of filler. It makes it look like you can do a bunch of different stuff. In reality, you're not gonna use, like, 70% of it.

- Yeah. - Whereas in Legends, it's deceptively simple, because you've got less actives and less passives, but arguably that means that you have to make harder choices so every build is more different, because just changing one thing matters more drastically. That's Double Dragon, not the side-by-side playthrough. Wrong side-by-side playthrough. - Wrong, right? - That's just me playing two characters at the same time.

(laughing) So, but yeah, in Legends, the interactions between the weapon mechanics, which didn't exist in TSW, and the abilities and the passives, and the effects on the Talismans, and the weapons with their own effects on the mechanic, the weapons themselves can have interactions with the mechanics. You can have two people running the same weapon combo and be completely alien builds. And sometimes even opposite goals.

Right, like you can be running an Ellie build that's based on heat, or one that's based on cold. - Yeah. - For example, right? - Yeah, here's the difference, right? Anarchy Online got a patch like fucking 20 years later, but you know what's not ever getting a patch? It's the old version of Secret World, 'cause they made a new version. They just like, they relaunched it. And arguably, they should have just fucking ditched TSW.

As much as I love TSW, I spent years in TSW, I, and way too many hours. - I wanna say-- - They should have just said, like, this is version 2.0, and there is no, like you, you know what I mean? Like at a certain point, you just go like, this is the upgrade, and you shut it off.

- I mentioned something about Secret World on Blue Sky, and I had a couple people be like, oh, you know, the same kind of concept of like, oh, but Secret World, you know, TSW was better, and so we're not even gonna touch it, et cetera. And I think Varmer, at one point, you mentioned something to that same person about some Dark Agartha lore, and they were like, what are you talking about?

(laughs) They were like, oh, it was something like what the Gatekeeper was, and you were like, oh, well, the Gatekeeper was a third-age tech. Like, the Gatekeeper was created in the third age, yes. And it was like, well, you know, how would we have known that? It's like, 'cause it's part of the lore. It's part of the, yeah. But he wouldn't know that if he's never touched SWL, right. - Well, 'cause it's got updates. It's not like it didn't get updates.

Yes, the last one was like two years ago now, but like, also the last one was like the fucking biggest thing they ever did, in my opinion. The last one had 9,000 word patch notes. - It's true, yeah. But it's like, you know, we all started there. We all started on Secret World. Part of the reason why we love Secret World Legends is because we love Secret World. Like, there's a correlation there. - Yeah. - And yes, and yes. We would love to see the content that's not here that wasn't TSW.

We would love to see that here. But at a certain point, that's not reality. They're not gonna put money into that if it doesn't make a return on investment. - And that's the reason the Legends happened is because TSW like was not making money. - Was not making return. Yeah, it was not making money. And just the engine alone was not sustainable. - That's true. - Like just the engine and what it did with like your inventory.

- And this is one of the interesting things that like people don't know about, like don't realize about Legends is the way the inventory system, and not just inventory system, the way the gear upgrade systems work is directly related to improving the performance of the game. - Yes. - The reason that your gear is used to upgrade your other gear, and it's an amazing system in my opinion, but part of the reason is it prevents you from having to upgrade your other gear.

The reason is it prevents inventory clutter because you're constantly using that stuff to upgrade other stuff, right? TSW, especially when I did the side-by-side, holy shit, it's awful. Like my inventory is constantly full of shit that I had to keep 'cause you need fucking 50 of everything to like combine, and then you're constantly throwing away. This is the other thing. In Legends, if you find a weapon you like, like you get new stuff, it collapses into this.

Usually you fuse it together to upgrade the next thing, right? Like in TSW, every time I went to a new zone, I was having to build a new weapon, and I had the other one sitting in my fucking inventory. - Hey, Cricket. - You just throw it away. You're like, oh, I'm a level higher now. I guess I better make a new pistol that's a little bit better. And then it's just fucking cluttered.

- It's terribly chaotic. - And the inventory directly affects the number of items, both in your inventory and in everyone's inventory around you directly impacts the performance of the game. - Yeah. - That's how the engine functions. - That's why when they were like, we're gonna have those big bosses in like, you know, whatever, it was a great idea to have these big bosses bring players together into a zone, defeat the big boss, excellent. People loved it. It was a slide show. - Zero frames.

- Yes, it was a slide show. One of my favorite stories is there was one time we did that in Secret World with Antida. And I wanna say it was like Antida was there, Griff was there, and we defeated the boss, we defeated it, and then we were hanging around. And it was something like the boss wasn't actually defeated on their screen for like another five minutes. It was a disgusting length of time in between when the boss was actually defeated and when they were defeated on their screen.

Like it was like almost five, 10 minutes later and they're like, all right, and the boss is down. And I was like, what the heck are you talking about? (laughing) Like that boss was out of there a while ago. - You care to share your opinion? - No. (laughing) - Nope. - Are you sure? - No opinion. (laughing) - Waffle, do you have an opinion? - I'm staying out of it. - Drink Ovaltine. - Drink Ovaltine is not an opinion, sir. That was a commercial. - I think I know Waffle's opinion.

He's said it before, but I'm not gonna put words in his mouth. - I know you can't find the login rewards in Legends, but even so. - You keep saying, harping on these login rewards. They do not exist. - What login rewards? - I have proof. Look. - Yeah, I see the pretty present box that you haven't clicked in like six months. - Oh, it's been longer than that. (laughing) - He's like six months, that's cute. - No, what he should say is what login reward. - Be like, I don't know what that button is.

- No, that present there is, it's a present from the devs of Funcom. Says, thank you for playing our game. It's like a little badge of honor. - It's like, you should get whoever, whoever is like a mod maker for Secret Worlds to make him a mod just to like, I don't know, put like his face on it or something. Put like something other than the, put like a little O symbol around it. (laughing) - It's a button that does nothing. Disables it entirely.

Have you ever wanted to disable your login rewards? Have I got a mod for you? (laughing) - I was like, but no, it's a, I am of the opinion that, - Marmoled again, that's good. - Yeah. - That same idea of like, yeah, they should have, they, it was, they were doing their community a disservice by keeping, by splitting the community as they did. Split the community. It was, it was not a good decision.

It just really wasn't like, I mean, a good example of doing it correctly is Overwatch to Overwatch 2. Whether you liked what they do with Overwatch 2 or not is irrelevant. Like the fact is they didn't keep Overwatch 1 hanging around, right? It's Overwatch and Overwatch 2, and you can't just go play Overwatch. And the reason is if they had kept it, you goddamn know that they would have bifurcated their fucking community.

There are people that have been like, I'm going to 2, and people that I'm going to 1. They bring back Overwatch, well, the 6v6, 5v5 is like an ongoing thing. And as my understanding is 6v6 is still a arcade mode thing right now. I don't know if they're actually gonna go back to it fully or not. I've actually been playing Overwatch again. I used to play, I also play Overwatch a lot. - That's a good example, Varmer, yes.

Final Fantasy 14, A Realm Reborn versus Final Fantasy 14 1.0. A lot of people forget that Final Fantasy 14, they put it up, they released it. It was- - Marvel Rivals. Do you have to do it from two accounts? - Well, no, it goes to YouTube and Twitch. - Oh, okay, that's what it is, is YouTube and Twitch. What the hell? (laughing) - Yeah, they basically took Final Fantasy 14 offline for a long time and then relaunched it as A Realm Reborn and it like exploded in popularity.

- So the point is like, whether you like like what Legends did or not, I feel like they shot themselves in the foot specifically by not being like, "Okay, everyone's going to Legends or you're just not playing." Because, and for two reasons. One, if there's no other choice and you like the story, all the story is here, if you're gonna play it, you're gonna play it here, number one. You're not splitting your base, right? Which is stupid to do.

And number two, it would have incurred, I think it would have meant a better chance of success, a better chance of additional, and like people spending money in the game in order to continue to get further content. - Like me and Waffle like a vanilla. - I'm just a classic Andy, I'm stuck on classic EverQuest and TSW classic. - The things I hear about Waffle, I don't know. I don't know if I'd call that vanilla. - It's not safe for TV. Like it's, okay, it's also, it just, it performs way worse.

TSW performs, like Legends got an engine upgrade. Also, like I mentioned, the inventory and gear systems in Legends are meant to deal with the fact that they now understand, you know that in TSW, they didn't even know like that the inventories was causing a performance problem until like the last year of TSW. They just didn't know. And then at some point they determined like, oh shit, everyone having 500 things on them at all times is fucking dragging everyone's collective performance down.

That was stupid. - They looked into basically, they're like, why is everyone having all these performance issues? And they looked into it and they were like, oh, it's the engine. - Yeah, it's literally like, here's the thing. If you're still playing TSW, okay? If you're still playing TSW, make everyone put their fucking shit in their bank and stop carrying it into the raid. You'll get better performance.

Your fucking client is trying to render, like it's trying to grab the inventory of everything fucking around you. Like at all times. That includes also dressing room, by the way. - Yeah, it's not just your inventory. It's your whole dressing room. - And you jump into Agartha, your client will chug like a motherfucker in background downloads. 'Cause it's trying to grab everyone's goddamn outfit inventory around you. No, but look, it's not about 20 to 30 people. Like, yes, that makes a difference.

If you guys go do like a world boss or something, it's probably a lot better. But the point is even a raid in TSW, 10 people in the raid. Okay, actually there's more problems than that. We also have since figured out, which by the way, this did not happen until the last rebalance patch, like two years ago, was discovered why New York raid lags so goddamn much. That has to do with the filth.

The filth on the floor, even when it interacts with the filth enemies that spawn, like the little dudes that run around in the in-between waves, it renders it on their pants at like fucking 2000 resolution or something, like for some stupid reason. Or it was. New York raid performance, even the nightmare, additional nightmare level in Legends is way better than TSW night, Aegis New York raid. Because they finally figured out the fuck was causing New York raid performance to tank.

It's like memory leaks and literally filth rendering at like astronomical levels for no really good reason. - Yeah. - Like it literally was like, oh, we're gonna render the filth hitting the pants on the filth guy walking through it at like some ginormous level, then scale it down or some bullshit like that. I remember we had conversations with Tilti about this. There was basically like, it was like, it was literally untenable. If they kept expanding TSW, the engine itself could not handle it.

It just couldn't. It absolutely could not. The problems that they were having, the game was-- - They were foundational. They were foundational problems. They were literally born of the fact that the creative designer and the systems designer when creating TSW fucking hated each other. - And never communicated. - So the creative designer would be like, I wanna do like, you know, 40 v 40 v 40 in PVP. And any fucking D systems I know would go, I'm like, your system can't do that, dude.

You need to scale it down. But they hate each other when they talk. So they would just like, okay, fine. And they do it. And then it's fucking performs like ass because it never could do that in the first place. So legends is like actually designed by people that, well, I mean, it's still the TSW teams. I think it was a fucking different team. So this is the other thing that bothers me when people are like, oh, I like, you know, I don't like legends because like, somehow it's like not TSW.

It's those guys that worked on the game for years that finally had a chance to like get a do over and do things like correctly from the beginning. They made massive systemic changes to how the gear and upgrade and inventory systems worked with all that knowledge of their T-SW development time in mind, it's a better functioning product period from like a technical perspective, it is better. Like, that's not even in question. But also from a flow perspective, it's better.

When I was doing the side-by-side play through, like it was very clear early on of how I was playing through and it kept going through as I did it, that like TSW was designed as like a subscription MMO. It was designed that way. It was designed to eat your time 'cause you're gonna subscribe and you need shit to do. And when they changed the payment model, right? 'Cause they did to like buy to play. - The buy to play, yeah.

- Also that shit becomes fucking tedious 'cause you're spending money for the game and then it's just draining your time for like no really good reason, right? Like, and it was clear to see, like it was always leg day in TSW. Every mission made you run all over the fucking place. It was just to eat your time. And in Legends, like it's the same mission but they're designed differently in the sense of like Norma's mission where you go pick up zombie body parts.

In TSW, you have to run all over God damn creation. Like if you want the dry rotted parts, you need to go to the fucking church. If you want this part, you gotta go way the fuck there. Like you're just going all over the fucking map to come back to Norma. Whereas in Legends, it's like, oh, the dry ones are back here. Like everything's within like a certain, I mean like sizable radius, but you're not leaving the Southern part where Norma is to go find zombies in the upper corner of the map.

You're just not, you don't need to. (mouse clicking) Fuseng product had a 225 player cap. Yeah, that's why when they did the, oh God, what was it? Like the Golem event and he went to get the Fuseng Golem. That shit was just a goddamn PowerPoint presentation. Sometimes not even that. Fuseng was fucking, Fuseng had two modes. So many fucking people, the thing didn't actually work at all.

- Mm. - Or again, leg day, I'm running for goddamn five minutes before I see a soul and then we shoot each other. Someone dies in like 15 seconds and we respawn and have to jog five more minutes to find someone again to kill. Like that was two modes of Fuseng. - That is literally my experience of Fuseng. I think I only had one good experience in Fuseng with like a group and we were all together and whatnot.

Every other time it was like, I'm gonna run in that direction and just run and run and run and run and run and run and run and run and then just like get one shot. - I will say this, as I'm dragging, I'm dragging as fucking shitty as the jogging outfits were, they were technically the best for Fuseng. Technically dragons had the best outfit for Fuseng 'cause they had their jogging attire. - Right, as Illuminati, you try running in that gas mask. Yeah, it's not great.

- And okay, I'm a challenge addict. I played Fuseng every single day 'cause it'd be a fucking challenge on the daily challenge thing. Like I was in Fuseng every single day anyways, like no matter what, right? And then I also did play with some people that did Fuseng. Like I did all the content all the time. Fuseng is a cool idea that the system cannot handle. Never could handle it. - It was a cool as shit mask. - And sometimes had cool moments.

You would sometimes get like this cool thing where like you got like three or five people and there's three or five other guys. And then like you're battling over a gate. Like every so often you get like these sparks of like, oh man, what could this be? And then, but like 90% of the time it's not that.

And you have like that one moment living rent free in your head where like, oh, remember that time when I fucking used chaotic pull and pulled three people into the gate and they just fucking insta-died. Holy shit, that was fucking cool. - Yeah. - Because you could just pull people to the gate and it would like kill you if you ran into the gate that was up. Like there's cool, it's not that there wasn't cool shit in TSW.

It's that like the system, the system could not build the vision that was had for it. And no one tamped down the vision. So it was actually like a presentable thing. And legends was built, like they built the mega boss, you know, summoning area. That thing is like, hey, guess what? Your FPS is not gonna drop to two when you fight a mega boss. - Because not only is everyone's inventory less, we're also capping the inventory. - Well, we're capping the space.

Like you're not rendering all of Kingsmith, right? You're in the mega boss summoning area, right? Like it's a zone that has like basically nothing in it. It's an Agartha platform you'd fight the boss on because now it doesn't have to do a bunch of shit. - And then a hundred people can be in Kingsmith at once. Dude, whenever there was a shit ton of people in there, like everything just ran to shit.

Whereas in legends, like you have player caps on the instances, which also does make it feel better. It makes it feel like Kingsmith is like this, you know. - It makes it feel, yeah. Part of the whole horror aspect is loneliness to an extent. Like, you know, part of the whole feeling is that, you know, yeah, it's not just like people running everywhere. And yet, and yet you will still go into Kingsmith and you will still see other people. I see other people all the time in Kingsmith.

- Part of that is because of the system. The way the system works is it will, you know, for one, it tries to fill them. It's not just gonna try and give you your own Kingsmith. Right? - Right. - It's gonna try and put you in one. But on top of that, it will try and put you in ones if someone is on your friend or cabal list. So you are more apt to see people that you're friends with or in your group, right? In a random zone.

Which is funny when we didn't realize how that worked initially in legends. Because we'd be like, goddammit, you're stepping on my toes in Scorch Desert again. I'm trying to run my mission chain and you're like right in front of me killing the guy. And it's like the person you know, you're like, hey, what are you doing here? I'm trying to do my chain. - Yeah, what are you doing over here? Why are we together? - Yeah, and it's like, oh, actually it prioritizes.

Which is actually really cool that you'll just randomly bump into your friend out in the world more often than not. - But Kev, specifically, like you say, going back to your comment where you say you're a classic player, you like classic EverQuest, you like CSW classic, I am actually sort of the same way. Whenever I see a game, it's like, we're remaking it. The game's being remade. And I'm like, why? Why do you need to remake these games? I love retro games. I sometimes prefer retro games.

I love the idea of needing something to be remade. Sometimes it's like, it is good as it is. But it's like Final Fantasy remake. I know a lot of people like it. I'm like, why? Why do you need to remake it? So the characters look like six blocks shoved together, like a Lego piece. Who cares? The story is still good. There's lots of it that is still quite excellent that it's like, why do you need all that? It really is good the way that it is or that it was.

But they still made it and they still got a lot of money 'cause people like remakes. But I sort of agree with that. I sort of like, I would much rather have the original. I would much rather have the, and it's also right, technically not a one-to-one remake. You take what made the game really good when it came out, and you're like, oh, we'll just try it again over here.

Well, it won't work the same way because it's a different game, it's a different time, it's a different audience, it's a different sociopolitical situations. It's different, the entire thing is different. It's like trying to make lightning strike twice. - Problem with TSW is lightning never struck in the first place. - Yeah, but that's the thing is, but I agree with Jimmy on this one that "SeaWorld Legends" is better.

As much as I love TSW, as much as I played a whole bunch of TSW, I think "SeaWorld Legends" is better. But I'm of that idea of like, I don't like remakes. I just don't, I don't like remakes. - Well, that's the thing too, is like it's not a remake in the sense of like, I don't know, like "Last of Us" remake or some shit like that, right? "Legends" is not a remake of TSW. It is a 2.0, it is an upgrade. It's like an engine upgrade, it's a systems upgrade.

- It is basically like, it's the same story, it's the same characters, it's the same. And then it's expanded. - To be clear, it's the same fucking game. - Yeah, yeah. - Like, I don't know, like some people genuinely don't know this, but like you can just patch between TSW and "Legends" back and forth. - You can, yeah. - It literally is like a one line change. It's a one line change to patch between the two of them. - Mm-hmm.

- It's like a nine gig difference, I think, in the actual like data, but it's the same client. It's just like an upgraded version. Like they didn't, it's like they built "Legends" separately and said, "We're gonna launch 'Legends' to replace TSW." Like it is TSW, it's literally TSW 2.0. - Mm-hmm, it's an SW action combat. It is. - So is TSW. - So is TSW. TSW was builders, well, TSW was builders and releasers. Right, it was, you have the building and then you- - That's not anything.

- Builders and consumers, right? - First of all, yes, but it depended on the weapon because they work differently. Which weapons you did- - Consumers, yeah, that's what I meant. - Action cam? Versus, oh, you mean the reticle. You mean reticle versus tab target. Yeah, it was always action cam, but like, yes, you target things with the reticle versus tab. - Versus tab targeting. - Yeah. - But let me tell you, I remember.

- Technically, I think it's still technically tab target under the hood, it's just using the reticle to do it. - But if you asked a whole bunch of people- - That's the thing, it's the system. - Yeah, it is tab target under the hood. - It's the same engine. I mean, it technically is actually a minor upgrade of the Dream World engine, right? But it's the same, like, they didn't fucking start over. It's TSW with like, they gutted some shit and like added some shit, you know what I mean?

Like, it's TSW, but like upgraded. That's literally what it is. - It's almost like auto tab. It's like putting your reticle over the thing and like auto tabs it. - Well, it's why they made champions taller physically. - Mm-hmm. - They made champions taller physically so that you could put your reticle over their head and it wouldn't get lost in the crowd, right?

Like, 'cause also I'm gonna just gonna say this 'cause like this probably at least partially impacts how I view them is I played TSW with an Xbox controller 'cause I fucking hated the control scheme. So I play TSW with an Xbox controller the same way I play Legends with an Xbox controller. There is like virtually no difference to me. When I went from TSW to Legends, it was not different for me. If anything, it was mildly smoother. But like, I played the same way. I basically played the same.

It's just, I had to like hit the shoulder button to make it cycle tab through shit. - Mm. So I remember, I remember a long time ago while TSW was still going on, one of the biggest criticisms. Oh, hm? - Like a waffle, like a waffle hits alt, right? Like you, and you move the mouse around. That's what TSW is. That's just what TSW is, is that. TSW is alt mode. But I remember one of the biggest criticisms that people had of TSW was the time to kill ratio.

They were like, it took, there were so many complaints, especially when people hit Blue Mountain of just how long it took to kill things. They were like, it takes forever to kill things. And then all of a sudden, if you have another enemy that just comes out of nowhere, you're spending so much more time in combat. And there was a lot of people who did not want to play did not like playing Secret World, did not like playing the original TSW because that time to kill was so long.

It was so, it was. - Okay, part, part of that is because TSW, not because, part of that issue is not because you couldn't have fast time to kill in TSW. It's because you can make the shittiest goddamn build imaginable in TSW. - Right, which then wraps back into the-- - And then your time to kill is super fucking high. - Which then runs back into the illusion of choice, yes. - It's harder to do so. It's much harder to make yourself a shit, like an actual shit build in Legends.

- They took out the illusion of choice and they made it actual choice. - Yeah, and you just, you can't-- - And then there's so much more. - I just put it into it, it doesn't work. - Then the anima allocation is a brilliant system. - The anima allocation is goddamn best thing in the world. Like I-- - It's a brilliant system. - That's so amazing to me still to this day.

The fact that you can dynamically change your stats on your Talismans between tank support, DPS, and not have to have three full sets of gear is amazing. Or then you can just do it on the fly. It's not a cost, you don't have to go pay to change your Talisman to another one. You're just like, nah, I wanna be 80/20. I wanna be 75/30. Well, you're not 75/30, sorry. - Yeah, it's like I wanna give myself more survivability. So I, yeah, pull back the survivability, drop the damage a little bit.

You can do it on the fly. - Yeah, technically, that's the thing, probably why we do have tab targeting for friendly targets. Like you do, tab targeting is in the game 'cause you use it to target like your friends. Like that's the thing. I'm like 90% confident the reticle is just-- - It's just a tab target. - It's essentially auto tab targeting. - Yeah. - Under the hood. - Just picture the reticle is your mouse and it's just stuck in the middle of the screen. Like that's what's happening.

- And whatever it goes over, if it goes over an enemy, well, that enemy is now tabbed. - That's what's tabbed too. Yeah, that's essentially what's happening. - Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I mean, yeah, but we've gone over this argument how many times because we've had it so many times. - I played through Secret World in first person. You could do that technically in TESW as well. You could scroll all the way in. So where like you're like literally in first person mode.

But I played all the way through Legends, a hundred percent run as first person shooter with assault rifle, you know, and the mod that showed they have like the combat reticle mod solved. So some of the bars at the bottom, they're like circles like around, right? So you're seeing your energy go up and down like this. - Yeah, yeah. - Oh, to your point with the consumer builder thing is like, I think some people would get lost on that. It's like, one, not all weapons work the same in TESW.

Like some started with resources and you had to build. Some of you like pistol build resources on the enemy, which by the way, stupidest fucking thing in the world. I liked playing pistols. I hated that about it though. 'Cause you load up resource, like you build resources on the enemy and then he dies before you get a chance to use them. It's such a fucking waste. Like it's so stupid. Whereas like other ones you build it on the weapon, right? Itself, like hammer always started full, I think.

And then you spent them and then you built. Whereas, but the thing is in Legends, the energy system is essentially the same thing. It's front loaded damage. You're basically like, everyone's basically playing like how hammer works in TESW. You start with energy, you burn it. And the thing is your basic doesn't use energy, but your energy passively regenerates.

So essentially while you're using your basic, you are essentially building because you're not using energy as your energy regens over time. So if you spend five seconds using your basic, you've essentially built for five seconds, right? - Your energy, yeah. - You can choose to stand there and not do anything and just be an idiot. But like essentially you're building. You're building with a non-energy consuming ability while your energy regens and then you consume.

So it technically is like the same thing. - Okay, yeah, I can see that. - Just viewed differently. And again, at least we don't have building resources on an enemy 'cause holy fuck, that's stupid. Especially in group content, we're like, I'm working on an enemy. I've just built five resources and I'm about to use an ability and your teammate comes over and one shots them.

And you're like, dude, I just spent 15 seconds building my shit to unleash and now I'm sitting here all erectile dysfunction mode. Like what the fuck? I hated that so much. And it was like per weapon was different, like how they decided to do that. All my resources gone and nothing happened. - Yeah, so you won't find any SWL hate here. And that should make sense because we have this show. - In the year of our Lord 2025. - We've been doing this show for... (laughing) - How many years?

I've been doing this show for Secret World. - You say Pal World? - Yeah, that's what we're supposed to be doing, right? - Pal World? Oh, sorry, man. Yeah. Oh, I thought you meant this was... - Pal World, I thought this was Paladin's. We're not doing Paladin's? - No. - Oh no, I thought this was... I thought this was TSW, Train Sim World. - Dude, I used to use #TSW and then I would get these things and I'm like, what the fuck is all this? And it was the train shit. - It's Train Sim, yeah.

I always loved that one, yeah, Train Sim World. - I used to do TSW and I had to stop. I had to start spelling it out for the hashtag 'cause I was, that was a legit problem. - And Train Sim World, when they released it, I remember when they released it, 'cause right, they released it as like, TSW, Train Sim World. I was like, are you kidding me? - So we're a secret, we're the evolution of Beyond the Veil, right?

Like, we were Beyond the Veil, the originators of Beyond the Veil podcast, eventually left and we decided, you know, it didn't necessarily feel correct to be like, not the original people and still see the title. - Right, right, it was honoring them. - We gave them a nice send off, they were actually here for it, you know? - Yeah, it was honoring them and their accomplishments with what they did and yeah.

- And then, in doing so, we also realized, like, Secret World is, you know, even though when we did that, it was still getting some content, it was very slow. It's like, you can't do this thing just for that, but we all like Funcom's content in general. So we basically kind of expanded to be Secret World primarily focused, but we kind of cover like everything Funcom's doing.

- Yeah. - In part, 'cause we like pretty much everything that they're working on, but also because anything Funcom's doing is gonna somehow indirectly affect Secret World, right? Whether it's like, well, we're not getting more attention 'cause Doom's happening, right? - Right, be like, all right, or yeah, or for a while there was, well, Conan Exiles is exploding, so they're putting all their eggs in Conan Exiles' basket, which makes sense. You know, we'd like to get more content over here.

- So we basically cover Funcom properties in general, but from like a Secret World-based lens. And I'm massively looking forward to Dune because if for no other reason, then they rehired Scrivdomancer, writer from Secret World fame, to write for the Dune game. And that's fucking amazing. I can't wait to read his stuff in Dune. - And oh, oh God, I was so pissed when, because they hired Scrivdomancer to do writing for, Amazon was going to make a Lord of the Rings game, like MMO.

And they hired Scrivdomancer to do writing. To do writing for Lord of the Rings. And it's like, oh. - I saw that moment. I saw that. - I was like, oh. - That's gotta feel awesome though, right? For Scriv, I mean. That's gotta feel awesome to like, be writing something with a voice or like a picture in your head. And then they actually get the person. You know what I mean?

Like imagine you're writing a part and you're like, this is, I'm clearly writing Samuel L. Jackson, but it's never gonna happen, right? And then Samuel L. Jackson like takes it and you're like, holy fuck, right? I imagine, like, I'm not saying that's what it is. I'm just saying, I imagine that's what it's like. Is like in your head, you're like, this is clearly who I'm envisioning, but that's never gonna fucking happen.

And then-- - Who got these motherfucking sandworms on this motherfucking plane? - Sandworms on a plane. That means to be a meme, like right now. - Yes. - Yeah, I'm sure that, that had to be, that, yeah, that had to feel awesome. That would be great. - Yeah. - And Ornithopter, true. True, sandworms on an Ornithopter. - These motherfucking sandworms on this motherfucking plane, on this motherfucking Ornithopter. - Ornithopter, you fucked up again. - I used to play it again. - Not him again.

Ornithopter. - Be like, yes, I wrote that line for Samuel L. Jackson and they got Samuel L. Jackson. Hell yeah, it feels good. (laughing) - I think it actually happened, that actually happened with, what was that movie with, it was him and I think Travolta? Like the military base, like investigation movie. How the fuck was that called?

I think the guy that wrote that script, like, I think he wrote it and then they got Samuel L. Jackson and then they changed the script 'cause the character was supposed to die. And they're like, you can't kill Samuel L. Jackson. - Yeah, they didn't like it. - You're not allowed to do that. - No. - And so they actually changed the script because they got him.

- I mean, heck, they even had to change the lore of Star Wars in general because Samuel L. Jackson was like, I want a purple lightsaber, make it happen. And they were like, okay. Like up to that point, lightsabers were just like blue, green and red. - It wasn't basic. I think it was called basic. Yeah, it's called basic. - And Samuel L. Jackson was like, I want a purple lightsaber. And they were like, oh, okay. Changing the lore of Star Wars forever.

- Yeah, Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta, it's a movie called basic. The guy that wrote that, like Samuel L. character was not supposed to survive. Like there's a twist in that. Spoiler for like a fucking ancient ass movie from 2003, 20, 22 years ago. It was like a twist, like he's not dead, guys. Sorry. - Yeah, sorry, he's not dying. Spoilers. - Jimmy, I can't believe you did that. - I mean, listen, you had 22 years. You could have had a fucking kid and had them watch the movie by now.

That's how it was supposed to be. - I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed. (laughing) - Spoilers, gosh. - But yeah, I think when he wrote that, like there was no way he was getting Samuel L. Jackson and then they got Samuel L. Jackson and they were like, oh my God. They're like, yeah, but you can't kill him. That doesn't work. - We can't kill him. - You can't kill Samuel L. Jackson. You're not allowed to do that. He's like, oh, okay. So he had to rewrite the part.

- But it's true, Vommer, I did see that, yeah, Scripps saying that, yeah, talking about how he was writing a character with a certain voice actor in mind and then they got the voice actor. - Yeah. - Yeah, it's got to fucking feel amazing. - But even stuff like Funcom published Aloft just released in early access two days ago and I've heard good things. I'm actually, I haven't got it yet, but yeah, I'm thinking about it. Like it's got a lot of good reviews so far.

- The visuals didn't necessarily sell me, but I think if I'm, this is what I'm thinking of, I think the sound kind of did maybe. - The sound of Aloft? - Yeah. - Of the wind? - Yeah, like whatever the background. - There's a lot of wind, wind is everywhere. - Yeah, but there's like ambient like music or something. There's something, it's not, look, dude, it's not literally just wind. It's not the dune trailer. (laughing) - No, but it had like a very like kind of like mellow vibe, you know?

- Oh, very, yeah. - It reminded me a little bit of, oh God, what is the bridge building game? Fuck, why can't I think of it? - Bridge building game? - Yeah, there's a bridge building game. - Bridge simulator? - Poly Bridge. Poly Bridge. You guys haven't played Poly Bridge? - No, I'm not even sure I even heard that one. - The best building bridge, Poly Bridge is fucking great. And part of what makes it really great is just the music.

It's got the super chill music in the background when you're building the bridge that like, I could just sit there trying to construct a bridge that like with those stress points, the little thing can go across and complete the goal of whatever that area is for like hours. It's so chill. It's like, Poly Bridge is like meditation. Like I'm gonna make really strong triangles and listen to really chill- - And just chill simultaneously. - Kind of music. Just like, I'm building.

So I don't know, like the audio, like the visuals, like I was like kind of, whatever. But the audio of Aloft kind of gave me like Poly Bridge vibes. I was like, I don't know, that could be kind of fun. - Yeah, no, I see it. Okay. It sort of is like, this is a survival sandbox, but it's not gonna be, it's like a chill out. It's a chill out survival sandbox. It's not a Conan Exiles, you know. I don't even know.

I was playing, I encountered one of those first like, we've been talking about how Conan Exiles has like the hunt or like, you know, these beasts that just come out at night. And I was playing last night and I didn't pay attention and all of a sudden this like werewolf came out of nowhere and started hitting me. I was like, I just started. Why is a werewolf attacking me? But it was also pretty easy to defeat. So, you know, it wasn't that bad.

- We don't have the messages on the stream, but I'm gonna put it in the host channel for you guys. This is the Polyverse trailer. - Okay. - It's just got the music like as well. It's just, click, click, click. - How's that go again? - Do, do, do, do, click, click, click. Hey to Conan, great to Conan Exiles. - Hey to Conan, great to Conan Exiles. - Okay, I don't agree. However, however, however, I will say, two years ago now I did an ages of funcom like 24 hour stream for extra life.

And I play Anarchy Online, Age of Conan and Secret of Legends, right? Like I went through, I went through all of them. Well, actually what I did was in secret world, I went into rogue agent because that mission is repeatable in fucking legends and it wasn't in TW. And I went to the portals for Age of Conan and the portals for Anarchy Online that are in that mission. And when I went in the portal, I would then close the game and launch the other game. I thought it was cool. Anyways.

- It's a cool site. - I hadn't played Age of Conan or Anarchy Online actually prior to that. And Age of Conan is the one where after the stream, I got like a four hour nap or something 'cause I'm a crazy person. And then I came back and I streamed more Age of Conan. Like I finished the initial city. 'Cause like, yeah, it's older. - I got stuck on Age of Conan last May. And like most of May of last year, I played the heck out of Age of Conan. Tortage is, it's beautiful.

It's like one of my favorite starting areas of like almost any MMO. It's a great starting area. - Well, if I can't hear the music when you're playing that on the stream, you're not outputting the audio. - Well, you wanna hear the audio? - So I'm not gonna say that it's better than Conan Exiles. I'm gonna say it is different than Conan Exiles. It is a different genre than Conan Exiles. - Even when they break, it's a chill. - I could play this for hours.

- Good. - Like every level has its own track. - The vibe went high or something. - Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, Age of Conan was ahead of its time. It was like, 'cause when did that come out? When did Age of Conan launch? - Well, I will say I captured a screenshot of this somewhere. - Yeah, we're getting the audio. - I captured a screenshot of something from Age of Conan. I think I put it, did I put it in? I wanna say I put it in this channel before somewhere. It was like the best.

- Age of Conan released 2008. - Age of Conan has the best explanation of what the fuck your shit on the screen is I have ever seen. - Okay. - Oh yeah, I did. I did here, I'll copy and post it again. So you don't have to go find it. This. When I hit whatever key it is to bring this up in Age of Conan, I was like, holy fuck. Why don't they do this for their, like for Secret World, for example, like, or why don't other games still do shit like this? - Mm-hmm.

Your health, your target's health, your location. - The way it explains like how the mechanic works of like the shield location. - That's your quest journal. - Yeah. - Like it's gonna hit you from these areas, right? It's gonna hit the unprotected area. As soon as I saw this, a bunch of shit like clicked and made way more sense. And I was like, why the, A, why the fuck doesn't the game just show you this initially? 'Cause I don't remember seeing it in launch.

You have to hit the button to find the shit. This is like the, it was like, I didn't find this until like, I don't know, like an hour or a couple hours in or something. I act like I was looking for something and I brought this up by accident. I was like, what the fuck? This is amazing. - I'll say they released it in 2008. And like, what else was released in 2008?

Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto 4. I'm trying to think of, what other games came out around that time period that it's like, yeah, there was a lot of really cool stuff in it that it's like, wow. - Wrath of the Village King? - Was Wrath 2008? Okay. - I'm assuming that's what that means. - Yeah. Yeah, so it's like, if you compare it to games like that, that were, that came out around that time period. I mean, I don't know if Wrath necessarily counts 'cause it was an expansion.

And so it still had to have the mechanics of the original WoW from like 2003. But like, yeah, it was good. It was good. I really enjoyed playing Age of Conan. - Yeah, when I initially played it like years and years ago, I didn't get it off Starter Beach. I was like, what the fuck is this? And I uninstalled it. And that was when I was playing TSW, by the way. I was playing TSW. So like, I was like full on like, all right, cool. Let me check out this other thing from Runcom.

You know, I got on the beach and was like, this feels, even at the time, I was like, this feels old to me. And like, I never found that screen where the controls work. And I was like, this feels bad to me. - Warhammer, oh God. - So. - I like even like, Tortage has like a night version. Like Tortage has like a, like there was a day version of Tortage and then a night version of Tortage. And I was like, oh my gosh.

- Yeah, so when I went back and did the Ages of Funcom stream and I played it, Age of Conan, you know, I played like, what was I, did like a, did I do a eight hour block or something? - It was a long time. - I forget. - You were doing a 24 hour stream, yeah. - Yeah, so, but I mean, I broke up between the three games. So 24 divided by three. It was eight, right? - You did, yeah, you did Anarchy, Secret World and Age of Conan. Yeah. - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, I don't think it's eight anymore.

- But like, I came back after that stream. Like I said, that stream ended like in the afternoon or something and I got some sleep. And that evening I started up the stream and streamed Age of Conan some more. So I wanted to finish the city. Like, and I did, I finished the initial, like main city quest and like, you finish the city and then like, you sail off and you can like, now go to like the rest of the world or some shit. Like I didn't get past that, but I did go finish the city.

That storyline was really good. - It was really good, yeah. - I got way better at the combat in that timeframe. Executions are cool. Which they brought back in Exiles eventually. They brought back executions in Exiles, in Conan Exiles final.

- Yeah. - I did like the fact that when they were doing Exiles, I don't know if they still do it, but when they were first few years of Exiles, they did something where they were like, I think both pulling shit from Age of Conan into Exiles, but then they also pushed Exiles shit down into... - Age of Conan. - Age of Conan. Like I think Age of Conan got an update of some kind that let it get, they had like a pipeline for getting stuff like cosmetics or something between two games.

There was some crossover. - Makes sense. - They called it fatality. - Babality. Why can't I turn them into babies? Come on now. - Yeah, I think I remember that Devstream, Bonner. Yeah. I mean, it's also like why you see like fucking secret world locusts in goddamn Exiles. It's the same, like I remember... - And the bat creatures, they're in Conan Exiles too. - Yeah, like you're like, oh wait, well the locust though is like, they didn't have to do anything to it.

It's the same, like I was like, oh my God, I recognize you. - It's the same locust, right. Makes the same noise. - You're exactly the same. They have changed literally nothing. - One of the deities in Conan Exiles uses hell as a base. Oh, like Draceto. Yeah, I see it. - That's funny. - I mean, but yeah, they've got the assets. They made the assets. - Which is another reason that we're more of like a Funcom podcast than just a secret world podcast, because... - Yeah.

- Well, honestly, because even secret world stole assets and people from Age of Conan. Like Scriv originally wrote for Age of Conan before being told to write the buzzing for secret world. - Which is just a good reason to play Age of Conan too, is if you enjoy Scriv's writing in secret world, you would probably enjoy it in Conan Exiles, yeah. - He wrote for, I think he wrote for Moons of Madness. - Yep. - And he's writing for Dune. Outside of Funcom, he got hired to write some for New World.

- New World, yep. - See a little bit there. Yeah, we have Elite, obviously. I mean, I would be surprised if he didn't write anything for the park. - I was looking around me like, you got Elite? Where's Elite? - I know he wrote for Hyden Shriek. - He's leaking the boot. - So the park was the Oslo team's Unreal Engine like... - Test. - Test game. And Hyden Shriek was the Raleigh, the US operations, like get used to Unreal Engine test. But yeah, I'd be surprised if Scriv didn't write on the park.

- He was like main writer in Funcom at the time. - Probably, I know he did. - I mean, definitely wrote for more pages in Hyden Shriek, 100%. - Yeah, I was gonna say, I know he did Hyden Shriek. - Park gives you three OP talismans in CSW. It's a fucking crazy ass story. - Was it the Hunter's Axe? Was it the Axe? The Axe Talisman? - Woodcutter's Axe. - Yeah. - Woodcutter's Axe. - That thing wasn't for you. - Yeah, it's true.

- Well, also, so we don't, sadly, we don't have this in Legends, but it's also not running in CSW, so it doesn't matter. But the Seven Silences Halloween mission in CSW was a continuation of the park. So the park ends, and then that story picks up with... (mouse clicking) Seven Silences. Does it list park on his website as credit? Yeah, I mean, I don't know, maybe. Like I said, I did, the park was an Oslo project, so maybe... - He may not have, yeah. - Maybe he didn't.

Like I said, there was dirt, so he did the Hyden Shriek one because it was the US branch. - Yeah, it was the Carolina branch. - So it is the park. It is the park, it's the park in Savage Coast. It's Nathaniel Winter's park. - It's the same place. - It is what the park is. It's just a standalone game. And it ties into the lore. Like, there's lore, like the lore in the park like has the boogeyman, I guess, technically spoilers, I don't know, at this point, like, that's on you.

- Bow for fucking ever. Yeah. Well, the park literally has the cardboard cutouts from the Albion Theater in TSW. - It does, yeah. I'll say it, it's got the boogeyman, and it's basically the same boogeyman that you see in Boogeyman. - Also, Chad, we got the costume in TSW, if you recall. The Chad, the squirrel, or not squirrel, the chipmunk killer costume.

- Yeah. - But he's also mentioned in TSW, like in the lore of the park in Nathaniel Winter, like it talks about someone in the costume like butchering people, then he's like a main, so yes, the park is a Secret World story. It's not like it's not part of the fabric of Secret World. It is. And also the same with Moons of Madness, by the way. Moons of Madness is set 50 years out, but Moons of Madness is a Secret World game. Like, it is in the Secret World universe.

It is directly connected to Secret World. Just plus 50 years. So if for some reason you haven't played Moons of Madness and you like Secret World and you like the story and the lore, like, you will find shit in Moons of Madness that only makes sense if you have played Secret World. If you haven't played Secret World, Moons of Madness is an awesome, like space, cthulhu horror game for what it is. But if you've played Secret World, it is like twice the game. - It is mind-blowing, yeah.

- It is amazing. In a similar sense, like the park, the park is a different way to experience that section of Secret World, basically. And it's got a lot of buzzing in the water. Like the buzzing in the park is actually fucking kind of, I think it's one of the more visceral interactions you can have with the buzzing is playing the park.

Like when you're like walking through and interacting with the objects and you realize that like the buzzing is trying to speak and like they can't quite get interpreted correctly. Like that shit is, yeah, it's very haunting. My wife likes to watch, I think it's like outside Xbox or something, YouTube. And I think they were playing the park and they're just like, you know, fucking goofing off, talking shit, right? They don't really, you didn't really get what was going on.

They weren't really reading everything and paying attention to all the not so subtle hints that shit's really fucked up. And they were just laughing and poking fun at shit, literally up until the end, which means they really weren't reading anything because the shit you read gets pretty fucked up if you're bothering to read it. Then they get to the end and then the end happens and they're like, what the fuck?

They were literally laughing like two seconds ago and then the end of the park happens and they're just like, what the fuck just happened? No, wait, what? Like they were a comedy trio right up until the end and they all just like collectively went, what the fuck? And like kind of lost their shit. - Yeah, 'cause we kind of knew, like if you went into the park as a "Secret World" player, you were like, yeah, this is not, it's not gonna turn out well. It's not a happy story.

This is not a story that is gonna end nicely. - Yeah, yeah. And it's not, and it doesn't. - And it's not, and it doesn't, and yeah. - It is amazingly, amazingly beautifully well-drafted. - It is a literal descent into madness, yeah. It is a- - It's a horrifyingly fucked up thing, which is why it hit them even harder 'cause they were like, they were acting like the Three Stooges up until that scene happened at the end. - Yes. - And they just were like, oh, wait, what? No, what?

No, no. And then they're like, it was like, yeah, maybe you should have been paying attention to the game as you were playing it. I don't know. - Yeah. 'Cause it's not like there's not fucking hints. - Everywhere. - Everywhere. And it gets progressively worse. Like you have to progress, where's the end of it? You have to progress in the same room like multiple times and it gets progressively more fucked up.

- Yeah, that's why I said the literal descent into madness is right when you hit that spiral and it's just the downward spiral. The literal downward spiral, yeah. - No, it's amazingly well done though. - Yeah. - Yeah. Yeah, lifetime fan of "Secret World" and its adjacent properties. - Which is why I always sort of like, are they gonna come back and put more effort into "Secret World Legends?" I'm not sure. As a choice, is that even a good choice for them even to make at this point? I'm not sure.

But they own the property. Getting more "Secret World" games. They said like, oh, a continuation of the story. I'm not sure that we will see a continuation of the story in "Secret World Legends," but that's not to say that we won't see a continuation in another game outside of "Secret World Legends." In like a, not "Secret World 2," but basically a "Secret World 2." I could see them definitely continuing the story, but just not in the same game.

- I mean, here, I know you're stuck on the classic or whatever, but the thing about "Legends" is it's easier, one, to get people to try it because it's fucking free. Also, in TSW, you have to buy the additional story. You have to buy the additional content, right? No, I understand what you're saying. I'm just trying to make a distinction that "Legends" is a lot easier to get someone to try because it's fucking free, and all the story is free.

Like, you don't have to buy a DLC to play a certain mission. It's all fucking there. So as far as that experience, I always recommend "Secret World 2" to people because like, hey, man, you can play it fucking solo, and you'll get like 100, 200-plus hours out of it, even if you're just doing the story. And then you will have at least experienced the story. - And it is a good story. It ruins you for a whole bunch of other games.

- That's why I say to people, it's like, look, man, you don't gotta fucking be like a, you don't gotta be a grind dude. You don't gotta spend 1,000 hours getting to max level, you know what I mean? If you just play the game to experience a story, even if you just do it by yourself as a single-player game, I don't think you would regret it. If that's what you went into it doing, it's like, trust me, the writing's amazing.

Every mission has a fucking mo-cap voice-acted cinematic that's not fucking like, you know, that's actually real. Like, it's, I don't know, it's not patronizing, right? They don't write down. This shit is well done. Even with its age, like it's well done. It's done better than a lot of cinematics or assuming you even get them. A lot of games don't even have cinematics or mo-cap or anything for their fucking missions. Just some text on the screen. So like, so there's that.

Also, I will say this, I see new people in Legends all the time and maybe they're just trying it out and they're fucking off once they're done with the story. I'm okay with that, to be perfectly honest. Like, as long as- - Like play it like a single player. - Yeah. - As long as people like experience the story and like get it out there, like in Unreal 5. I mean, Dune is, I mean, this way, they're using Unreal for Dune. It's Funcom.

Like they could at some point make a secret game with Unreal 'cause all their games have been Unreal since they made like the park in Hide and Seek. So like, it's not out of the realm of possibility that at some point they could make a secret game in Unreal. I would be surprised if they like, you know, relaunched it again as like- - They won't. - Secret world, you know, whatever different adjective. - That's what I'm saying. They won't, it's too long. The game is set in 2012.

- I don't know, right? Just put the legends in front, call it good. Like, I would be more inclined to think it would be a different type of game, but still like a secret world, like universe game in Unreal. - Right, like, would it be an MMO? - I don't know. Dude, I'd be down for it. Look, they seem to have found their niche with like survival shit. Give me a survival secret world game. - I was gonna say, would it be a secret world survival game?

Would it be like a survival exploration secret world game? Like in a- - Dude, can you imagine- - Can you imagine if that's what Tokyo was? Was basically Tokyo was like a survival, like in a destroyed city sort of vibe. - Carve out your base, build your shit out of like concrete rubble, right? Fight off filth monsters. - Yeah. - I don't know, like they could do a survival secret world game. Like you do a survival game out of fucking anything.

You got Kings of Ithaca, the whole zombie thing, right? Like you could, put it this way, once human, there's a big reason that in the betas for once human and even in the live game, a lot of people once human were like, "I get secret world vibes from this." - Yeah, totally. - Right? There's a big reason that like people I'd never fucking heard of, like I didn't bring it up. I'm sitting there in beta in chat and random people are like, "Dude, I get secret world vibes off this." Yeah, I do too.

You see it like in the fucking YouTube comments. Like once human is a survival fucking crafting looter shooter style game. The fucking- - Because it has like, yeah, horror elements and it's like technology mixing with humans and yeah, in this like- - Like multiversal kind of shit. Like they, in a very Orochi like- - Yeah, and a very Orochi like, yeah, bad guy. Yeah, you could totally throw in the dreaming ones. - Eviations, corruptions, like, I don't know, man.

There's so many things that feel similar. Like, and I would say it, like the writing of the dialogue I think is suffering from translation stuff. Like the dialogue specifically. Or maybe it's just the style of how they like to do dialogue interactions in like a Chinese game or something. But like the actual written lore that you collect in the game is actually really good. Like getting through some of the narrative that's spoken can be- - It's a little rough.

- For me, it can feel a little off-putting, right? I don't think I'm the target audience for that. But that said, the lore that you actually collect that you read is really good. Like there's a real good story there. So like, if that can work and can pop off, there's no reason a "Secret World" version of that couldn't pop off, right? - Yeah, modern. - You have this world that's filth and you have this corporation and you have abilities. You're a special dude with abilities.

- Modern existential horror. Yeah, it's a fun genre. - It's also really, really niche. But "Once Human" is an example that it can pop off. I feel like it hasn't really. Things that are more like modern era just don't seem to pop. Like medieval stuff does well. Like high fantasy stuff does well. And like future shit does well. And modern setting stuff in this kind of space just generally hasn't. But I think "Once Human" actually is kind of proving that it can work.

- I feel like it might be like an "Uncanny Valley" thing where people are like, or maybe I'm just talking to my butt, but it could be like, people are like, "I live in the modern world. "Why do I want a game in the modern world?" You know, sort of a fact that sort of like. - Yeah. - But to me, I find that fascinating. I find, 'cause I've also played a lot of "Division 2." And that series is basically about, basically a variant of smallpox basically wiping out society.

- Yeah. - Basically a secret government agency needing to, which is run by basically the individuals themselves and a controlling AI. Basically help to rebuild society effectively. And it's like, their environments are excellent. And it's all, but it's all modern. It's all in the modern setting. - Do you remember the game that came out like before "Once Human" that like, ended up being like a scam? It was supposed to be like the next big like, survival like kind of shooter thing.

And like all the streamers were on it. Like they sold a bunch and then it was complete fucking like unplayable garbage. And I think the company ended up going under, like they refunded everybody. You remember what that was? - No, off the top of my head, no. Feels like I should though. - It was, I'm pretty sure we talked about it maybe at the time. It's been a little bit. - Maybe. Was it "Redfall"? - The day before, the day before.

The day before was like, just like, but the thing was, it was modern time kind of like, I think there's supposed to be like zombies or something. Like looter shooter, like all this stuff. And like they had everyone on board. Like all the big streamers like fucking got on that shit. And then it just was complete fucking garbage. Like, and literally I think they ended up having to refund everybody. And I think the company eventually went under or something. Like it was a massive fucking flop.

And all of a sudden there was, once human had been in like a beta that you could just sign up to be in. Like it wasn't locked, you didn't need a key, right? But all these people had nowhere to go. And all of a sudden there's this other game that's like looter shooter zombie, but actually kind of looks good. And doesn't look like they're gonna get scammed and they could try it for free. And they exploded and they had to turn off the open beta and make it key related.

'Cause their servers couldn't handle the number of people. 'Cause all the people, they were all in that hype train from the day before, all of a sudden had this itch to play something similar and nowhere to fucking go. And I genuinely think if that hadn't happened, once human would not, I'm not saying it wouldn't have been a good game. I'm not saying it wouldn't have been a good game or wouldn't have done well.

But I think that literally catapulted them from like this game in beta that like people were testing, but it was nowhere near capacity to something where like they had to fucking lock their systems down and start giving out keys 'cause their servers couldn't handle the number of people signing up to test. Like if it wasn't for that other company fucking everybody, I don't think this would have happened. - I just brought up the Wikipedia for it.

- You need the right moment to pop off even if the thing is good. And I think that's partly what Seagirl suffered from is like when they launched, it was like the worst possible fucking, it was the opposite of that. It was the worst possible timing. Everything was against them. Once human got a fucking like literal massive boost from everyone out there, basically for free, right? Like everyone else was had plans to do this other game that fucking fell apart.

- Yeah, like this paragraph right here for the day before it says, "The game's lengthy development led to questions of its legitimacy and it drew early criticism for its perceived status as a scam. The development was marred by legal disputes involving Fintastic as well as accusations of plagiarism and soliciting unpaid labor. Fintastic denied accusations of scamming and plagiarism. Former Fintastic developers later accused the studios founders of severe mismanagement.

Upon release the day before was panned by critics for its technical issues and lack of creativity. Four days later, four days later, it was removed from sale with its servers remaining open until the following month and Fintastic was closed due to its poor sales performance." - Yeah, I believe Steam refunded everybody. It was like an auto refund. Like they just said, "Here's all your money back. This thing is a pile of shit." - Four days it lasted. IGN gave it a one out of 10.

- All those fucking people that were on the hype train for that and like, given some of the people involved that there had have been like, you know, we're gonna pay you to stream our game kind of shit, right? All those people all of a sudden have like nowhere to go, but they tried the thing and they're like, "I like this idea, but this was fucking garbage." Like I've seen clips of people playing it. It was awful. Not like a little bad. It was really bad. - Wow. And it says, what is this?

Early access, it released an early access on December 7th, 2023. So yeah, not that long ago. - And then everyone went from there to like, "Hey, there's this once human beta that's open and free." And like, it looks kind of similar, but actually looks like it doesn't have, you know, engine problems and they didn't fucking steal all their shit from somewhere. Your bullets actually hit where they're supposed to go. The animations work. You know what I mean?

Like that other game didn't have basic things functioning like at all. And so people are like, "Oh, let's try this." And everyone hopped and they all hopped on it. And yeah, once human fucking exploded, exploded off of that. Like I said, I think once human is a great game. I think it would have been a good game regardless, but I don't think it would have popped like it did if day before hadn't like set the scene. - Hadn't just completely hit the bed.

Yeah. - Yeah. But to that point though, I think once human is proving that you can do this genre in that space and like, it can be good. You don't have to do a fantasy. You don't have to do fucking, you know, super far like sci-fi Star Trek, you know, future stuff. You can do more like what looks like classic modern setting with like, you know, dystopian and weird, like outer gods sort of lore shit. And people will do that.

And I don't think there'd been a really good case of that actually like, what are the things like movie like studios won't bite on something until it's a proven success. Like, no one goes to see that. Well, they would if you fucking made it right. - They're like, 'cause they don't wanna put in the risk. There's too much risk there. Like, we know Westerns will do X. We know like this will do X. But this genre, why not so much, man? We're staying away from that. That's indie film territory.

- So that's why we just had like how many, you know, superhero movies for the past, who knows how long. - Over a decade. - That's just 'cause partly because we finally have been able to do them correctly. - Yeah, that's true. - I've never done superhero movies before. They just didn't do them right. One, because they didn't have the effects level, I think to properly do them. But two, because they also just didn't have people in charge that knew why they worked.

- True. - They just thought, oh, they're big and they're strong. And we put makeup on them. - But also because. - And then they, the worst writing ever. You know what I mean? - I see, but also because they weren't a risk. They were basically like, we'll put out this movie and it will make money. Like, there's no doubt that we put out another one. - I'm sorry for the first Iron Man. That was a big risk for them. - Yeah. But I'm saying, you got Marvel Studios.

- Everyone thereafter was not really a risk. - You got Marvel Studios actually having people that understand why comics sell. And it's not just the flashy character in the super, it's the story. - No, it's the story, yeah. - Like you can't just, like it's gotta be well-written. And prior to that, a lot of superhero movies are just not well done. - No. - Like, oh, like maybe that action scene was cool or whatever, but the story is kind of fucking thin.

So I mean, to me, that was the biggest difference is that-- - It's not just, right, it's not just the costumes. It's not just the effects. It's the story. It's the story. It's why people go and do these things. It's the story. The story's great. - Yeah, they just weren't getting that. They didn't understand that like, you know, the reason these things work is the writing.

- Yeah. - Right, what carries a comic, like a flashy cover will sell, but the only reason people come back and buy that comic week in and week out is not the cover. - Yeah, that's not the cover. It's not even the artwork. The artwork could be good, but it's not even the artwork. Right. - The writing sells it. And that like a fundamental, like, you know, investor misunderstanding is, oh, flashy cape, good. Like, no, man, why is he wearing the cape? How did it get to be there? What drives him?

Like, yeah, like there's just a massive misunderstanding. And then like Marvel Studios is like, no, we know why our shit works. We're Marvel. We make these, we sell them. We know actually what drives the sales. So we can world build and we can do this. And like, whether you like some of them or don't like some of them, like they definitely prove like, like, this is how you do it. - And the more that they do, of course there's gonna be something that you don't like.

Of course, there's gonna be some that are better than others. - Not everyone likes every comic that's put out either, but that doesn't mean that the process is not good. - But that just happens when you put out so much stuff that you're going to get, like, we were gonna be like, oh, this one's so much better than this one. This one's so much better than this one. This one is better comparatively here. This one is better for this, that. Like, yeah, that happens. I mean, that's a good thing.

Like the more that they put out, the more diversity you're going to get. - I feel like most of the bigger misses weren't even like, they were, I mean, some people might argue this, but I feel like most of the bigger misses are ones that are like Marvel Studios adjacent or like they're on it, but it's not them. Does that make sense? - Yeah. - Like the Venom movie is like in association with Marvel Studios, but it doesn't have the big Marvel Studios thing when it starts.

Like it's not Marvel Studios. It's in association with, they have like permission from or whatever, but like, and you can like the movie or not like the movie. That's not neither here nor there. I'm just saying like, there's movies that are tagged as Marvel movies that aren't actually the studio movies. - Right, right, right. - 'Cause I gotta say, I'm pretty sure I like pretty much all the actual Marvel Studios movies.

I'll say I like most of the other ones too, but I'm pretty easy to please though in that regard. Mostly because I'm not expecting like. - Yeah, you're not expecting. - I'm not always expecting like. - Citizen Kane, you do go in with certain expectations. - Who doesn't like Morb in time? Come on. - Yeah. - Like Morbius for what it was, okay? Morbius was a really fun B movie. And we got a lot of good memes out of Morbius. Not everything has to be, you know. - Mm-hmm.

- An amazing cinematic masterpiece. - It's not yet. It doesn't have to be high art. I mean, that's why what Fast and the Furious is on like Fast and the Furious, like 15 or something. You know, like people don't go into Fast and Furious and go, yeah, this is gonna be high art. They go, no, there's gonna be. Yeah, there's gonna be cars. They're gonna go fast. There's gonna be, you know.

- I literally just watched an Onion short like last night with like their fake news interview, like fake news team interviewing like a kid who's like the writer of Fast and the Furious, Fast Five, and it's like this fucking like six-year-old. It's like, and then the car smash, and then the car goes through a train, and then this happens, and it shows like his crayon writing on paper, like he's the writer of Fast Five. It was fucking hilarious.

- Be like, yeah, there's, you know, they hit on that formula and it works. - It checks out. I believe he wrote that movie. - Yeah. It's like, what is it? It's, I saw that recent argument before when it came to like romance movies, and people were like, well, romance movies aren't that well-written, and it's like, yeah, but you don't need it to be. Like you don't go into like a horror movie and expect it to be a sappy romance. Like, no, you get a romance movie, and you expect a sappy romance.

Like you expect the romance aspect. Like, you know, you go in with certain expectations, and when people say like, oh, but it wasn't a horror, and it's like, right, 'cause it wasn't a horror. - Okay, yeah. Well, you are correct. Princess Bride. - It is excellent, yes. - Fucking classic. - Yeah. - That is a bonafide, died-in-the-wool classic. - I've been watching that movie since I was, I don't know, like six or something, seven. Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, according to my child.

- I don't know. - And who for some reason calls me an old pancake? I don't know why. - That's an interesting one, okay. - Yeah, I'm still not really sure what that's about. - Yeah, old pancake. - I don't remember, old's a pancake? An old pancake? - You're like, is it a, yeah, am I just, yeah, is it just a, like, is it a-- - Yeah, I'm a pancake, Waffle's a waffle. I don't know what Ochoa is. - Some sort of breakfast bread of some kind. Would I be a bagel? Am I a bagel?

All right, next podcast we'll have bagel pancake waffle. - All right, I think that's good for tonight. On that note. - Bagel signing off. - Agents, this has been the Zero Point Report, strain 99-AFT, which means the next one's gonna be 100. Holy crap. - Holy shit, that should be for Valentine's too, right? - It'll be for Valentine's Day. We'll have to, well, it sounds like a Rosenbrall event. - We should schedule it for the Valentine's event. - Yeah. - Like somewhere in there, I think.

So our 100th is actually in Rosenbrall. (clapping) - Let's see. - Let's go. - What is the second Thursday? The 13th is the second Thursday. - Oh, that'll be rough. - We can move it. It's the 100th, we'll move it. - We can make it the 20th. - Yeah. - February 20th. - We'll just skip, we'll skip one. - I'll say 13 is rough because it could start on the 13th and it could not start on the 13th. We don't know.

- Actually, we would know long before the show actually starts, we just wouldn't know ahead of time. - Right, right, right. - We'd know like Thursday morning, probably. - Yeah. - Yeah, we definitely should save our 100th for when the event's active so we can do Rosenbrall. We can do our love match shit for the 100th. I think that'd be awesome. - Yeah, no, that sounds like good times.

So yes, our next one is going to be Strain 100, which it's, considering the fact that we only basically do this once a month, it's a lot. (laughing) - Been a hot minute. - It's, yeah. You can catch us recording live, generally the third Thursday night of the month. Maybe the first, who knows?

When we can around 9 p.m. Eastern time here on the Zero Point Report Twitch channel, where you can also join us and chat with us while we do the show live, or download our show wherever podcasts are found so you can listen to us on the go. Jimmy, where can we find you online? - Jimmytherabbit.com will take you to all my thingies. - Including your OnlyFans. - I'll touch on their line. - And Waffle, where can we find you online? - You can find me at twotonewaffle.com.

All my stuff is all there, spread out inside my little container. - Very nice. - Gross. - Some people like it. - They like Waffle's container. - Yeah. It's all spread out in your container. I don't appreciate any windows here. - I'm Ocho, and you can find me on Twitch, Blue Sky, Macedon, all links at linktree/bigmikeyocho. I haven't got around to making my own website yet. You can get in touch with us by engaging with the show on X, @ZeroPointReport, or Blue Sky. We are on Blue Sky as well.

What is our name on Blue Sky? Is it The Zero Point Report, or is it just Zero Point Report? - I believe it's The Zero Point Report. - Thezeropointreport.bluesky, or no, dot, did bsky.social? - If you just search Zero Point, the Zero Point Report, we'll come up. - We'll come up, yeah, we're on there. - Blue Sky's pretty good that way, actually. - Yeah. - I agree, Blue Sky's just pretty good in general.

Checking out previous shows on our YouTube channel, and joining us on our Discord server, both named The Zero Point Report. So from all of us here at The Zero Point Report, we wanna thank you for tuning in, and wish you all the best from the secret world. Have a great night, everybody, and we'll catch you next time. - See you. - Bye. - Bye, everybody.