Escapist Podcast: 063: Starcraft 2 Free-to-Play and Bacon Conspiracy

[The Escapist Staff]

063: Starcraft 2 Free-to-Play and Bacon Conspiracy

This week, we discuss Notch's response to Windows 8 and what would make us abandon the Windows OS. We also talk about the news of Starcraft 2 multiplayer possibly going free-to-play and a likelihood of a pork/bacon conspiracy to ignite WWIII.

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[Eric the Orange]

I hope for you guys that Susan is too busy to listen to this.

 

[WMDogma]

I hope for you guys that Susan is too busy to listen to this.

We've already started cleaning out our desks, just in case.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Who keeps telling you all that these podcasts are terrible and boring?
x( They're terrible and boring!

Hope you get better soon Susan!

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

To whoever it was that asked if you could make meth from Nyquil...sort of, some types contain pseudoephedrine which is a naturally occurring (although it's usually synthesised) amphetamine type chemical and one of the main precursors of methamphetamine. Getting from Nyquil or Sudafed to Meth takes a fair bit of work with a lot of other chemicals, most of them rather unpleasant.

 

[Stevey M]

Mike's Warcraft II map story... that's an Escapist feature article waiting to happen!

 

[Frontastic]

Less than five minutes in and a "That's what she said!"... Susan! SUSAN!

I kid, I kid. In fact this is the first "that's what she said" I recall hearing in a podcast. It is an art that just doesn't get used enough any more.

Wait. "Poo-huffing"??? Susan!!

 

[VladG]

This, Susan, is why you don't let children run around unsupervised.

Joking aside, it was a very fun podcast, and "you're one of those void ray people, aren't you" will go down as my favourite escapist podcast line EVER. The hate and loathing dripping from that sentence is priceless.

 

[shiajun]

Why does Paul sound like he's contributing to the podcast from another room?

Oh, I will stick to Windows 7 for the time being. I can't find a single thing in windows 8 to woo me. Even with a friend of mine pushing it all the time (he works at Microsoft). I don't know about other people, but the only reason I remain with windows is games and blu-ray discs. That's it. If it wasn't for that, I'd stick to my Ubuntu installation. For what is worth, the Unity UI on the newest version of Ubuntu does not look at all like Windows or OSX, and I quite like it. Also, there are games that run natively on Linux, but I'll grant you that the AAA catalog isn't there yet. Ubuntu gives you the chance to be as tinkering or as hands off as you want, and it is slowly moving towards a different interface than both the big boys of User OSs but still eveolving towards usability. In my particular case (because I do a lot of programming) the folder structure and system files on Linux are soooooo much more simple to get a grasp of than the windows system folders that I really dare not touch at all since nothing points to what they do.

EDIT: I'd like to thank the man-cast for one of the most hysterical rants on the podcast ever, starting from the bacon conspiracy all the way to the panda porn. It really lightened up a very stressful day.

 

[gardian06]

Why does Paul sound like he's contributing to the podcast from another room?
...snip...

what is probably happening is that they are using either moderate to high end recording microphones for the recording, and he is probably looking to the side when he is saying those lines rather then talking into or toward the mic, so it would be an issue with the person doing the recording not listening, or watching sound levels after the initial sound check to either tell Paul to talk into the mic, or to boost the input volume.
EDIT: it has to do with how higher end mics can get more finicky in that they only really pick up sound from one direction, or a reasonably small arc, and distance. for an analogy take a headset mic, and talk to the back side of it (not the side you normally talk into), and then record the same thing talking into the mic, and listen to the difference. it would be like that, but the difference would be greatly increased. its just something that happens with moderate to high end recording mics

OT in regards to email: I can understand the whole one person is responsible for a task to make sure that is done, and no redundancy, or miscommunications about the task, but why not give like up to 3 people access to the email account, but on the understanding that the other 2 do not touch it unless Sussan is not available. granted it would only ever be needed on rare occasions, and it's not like your hiring someone new for the redundancy, but it would potentially stop the likelihood of things like "panda sex" as a topic (funny, but sorry Susan for you potentially having to see that) when Susan is not around to get access to the email account

 

[Blooper064]

I'm reporting this lack of ham to the FBI (federal bacon institution)

 

[DrRockor]

I really didn't need to know about the whole panda porn thing. It's just something I could have lived without

 

[TheWojo]

On behalf of all Polish Podcat listeners I, graciously, accept Your apology

 

[praetor_alpha]

Mac OS and Linux are totally not related at all. They might fall into the category of 'sort of Unix but not really', but they share no code. Linux was started by Torvalds and helped by the FSF, whereas (what is now) Mac OS came from Jobs' old company, Next.

See also on wikipedia. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix]

 

[yunabomb]

I was bursting out laughing at the getting high/teen scares part.

My personal favorite teen behavior scare is rainbow parties (Look it up. It's not what you think). Drinking hand sanitizer to get drunk comes in second, but that one had more limited media exposure.

 

[Shinsei-J]

"That's what she said!"
"Poo huffing"
"You're caught in a time warp, brother!"
I feel the "Mancast" has been a success tough it may never happen again.

 

[Caffiene]

Arlo Guthrie?! That was random...

See, the problem with that would be if he took that name he would start needing vague backing music ready for any time he started telling a story.

On the other hand, the amount of talk about pickles on the podcast would remain roughly the same.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

Spoiler: pics for Susan

TB's cat apparently.

 

[Tanakh]

About SC II:

- They announced that the price would reflect it being an xpac in NA and EU. For the content I would say it's a very good deal.

- The changes are massive, and especially if you are a toss player. Have you seen the new nexus? Changes all the metagame.

- Why not focus on the apparent resurgence of micro for HotS? Or on the automatization of trivial taks like mining at the start? Or Blizzard ignoring the pleas to reduce the minerals per node? Would be more interesting than discussing the aesthetics IMO.

- Team battles are indeed a different breed to 1v1. I suck at SC II bad, and even then i can get to diamond in a week in 2v2, 3v3 or 4v4 just by baby sitting (or being baby sat), you just need 1 more player willing to cheese; try it once, it's fun for a while, just have your partner go forge cannons and feed you everything to have a massive army of doom. TBH team battles have as much to do with 1v1 as tictactoe with go, but they are soooo much more comfortable, 1v1 it's always tense.

- The biggest change for HotS is probably not made by blizzard, but by KeSPA joining SC II. A shame they won't do GSL this season.

Anyway, good to hear about SC II here, and about the F2P part, I do think Blizz is afraid to loose too many e-sports fanatics to the fantastic job Valve is doing promoting DotA 2 (omg! the first international had LAN?!? Wow, so BS like what happened between the primes and startale wont be a issue?! Was better organized than any GSL or MGL!?!? WTF!); F2P is their only choice, and monetizing is not that hard, skins alone can make the profit and can be done without breaking the aesthetics, you just need to be very careful with which ones you allow. Cheers.