Spam Spam Spam Humbug 127 – Kung Fu Bunny Engines
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Podcast Topic(s)
This episode of the podcast begins with a discussion of Draxenath’s ongoing project, Record of the Dragon Goddess, as well as some stories from Harmony Dragon’s many and varied Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. That said, it will not surprise that the topic – get this – shifts to other things, including sibling squabbles and the latest disappointments some of us are feeling with Shroud of the Avatar.
From there, the discussion turns to cutscenes, with Golem Dragon offering up some thoughts on cutscene design. Thereafter, the recently-launched World of Warcraft Classic gets some attention; it’s a marvel to see how many people are lining up — literally, as the server queues have been terrible — to enjoy this older, more punishing version of the popular MMORPG. Also amusing is the fact that for as punishing as Classic is regarded as being now, World of Warcraft at its launch billed as a more casual take on the genre, as compared to EverQuest.
My, how casual gaming has changed.
We talk a bit about Dragon Warrior 3 and its various ports, how Ultima Underworld outsold Ultima 7: The Black Gate, and then WtF Dragon brings up his “hot take” assertion that the ascendancy of Wolfenstein 3D (which was inspired by Ultima Underworld, in that John Carmack took a look at the game and decided he could build a faster renderer) set 3D gaming technology back by about five years.
Borderlands 3 merits a brief mention during a larger discussion of the pros and cons of game preloading, and then we discuss how the recently-launched Gears of War 5 brought the Xbox Live servers to their knees. It’s one thing for a game to crash its own servers at launch; it’s quite another for it to crash an entire gaming platform.
BioWare recently moved to a new studio in Edmonton, Alberta, and we look at why this shouldn’t be taken as bad news. Their new offices are located in what is called the ICE District, which is the newest (and most high-tech) office space in Edmonton’s downtown core. This is not a downgrade for BioWare; it’s a significant upgrade, probably costs more than their old office space did, and communicates confidence in the studio by EA.
Finally, we discuss a number of board games as the episode wraps up, including Kingdomino, TROGDOR the Board Game, Exploding Kittens, Crononauts, and then finish up with a few more observations about WoW Classic and Microsoft’s resurrected Windows Power Tools.
Community & Patronage
And, as always, this episode of Spam Spam Spam Humbug is brought to you by our Patreon backers; thank you to everyone who supports Spam Spam Spam Humbug and the Ultima Codex by that means. And, as always, a hearty thank you to our co-producers: Seth, Goldenflame, Chris, Brickbat, Dominik, Violation, Cranberry, Christopher, Bruce, Dark Wraith Dragon, Helgraf, Gronkh, Pascal, and Thorwan.
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Music
Ultima VI Gates of Creation by OC ReMix
Ultima V – Stones 2001 Remix by DJ Lizard
Wolfenstein 3D set 3D gaming tech back five years; fight me!