In the vein of "how things are made" I remember a friend telling me that the LotRO devs once admitted that the mounts are mostly just "horse pants" that give you a movement speed buff and different animation. So essentially you're wearing the horse, not riding it.

So how much were you facepalming yesterday at the New World news when you'd just been hyping it up on the podcast ep that hadn't even released yet? 😉😅😳

You'll wanna have a t-shirt on under that hoodie though for when you need to strip down later on when it's hot again in the afternoon.

Oh absolutely. It's definitely very satisfying on some levels and can certainly give you a sense of having accomplished something. But when it's all you're doing, and esp when you're doing it alone, it does get to be a bit empty.

Bree I get you about your feeling regarding the pull of SWG crafting and vendors. It can get to where you feel like you're just logging on daily to do a job you aren't being paid for instead of playing a game for fun. I hit that point back when the game was live. Ain't no one got time for that now.

Speaking of Guitar Hero, here's a blast from the past song for you that features it briefly at the end. I at least still find the song highly amusing, and it's kind of a banger as well. youtu.be/a2R5Mx9Jp6c?...

You two are giving me serious Palia FOMO 😛 I really want to get back into it again but already struggle to carve out enough time to keep up with the games I currently have on the go. And Sims 4 just started another limited time event... Gah! 😅🤪

I'm sure that Justin is totally not wrong about how un-lucrative playing games for a living generally is, nor is the "do the fun stuff on the side" comment wrong per se, but the implied "find something not fun but that pays well to do for work" is kind of depressing. And also true. 😟

The theme of this episode seems to be "Bree doesn't know where to file this in her brain." Palia...what kind of game is it? GW2...what kind of biome are places like Bava Nisos? Bree doesn't know... 😉

Yep. Even though companies can save a ton of money on the overhead of maintaining physical office space if they let their employees work remotely they still can't get over their need to control people as much as possible.

That, and so many of their systems, like companion and mount improvement, are so poorly explained and non-intuitive that I at least just couldn't be bothered to try to figure them out. It's a pity really, because there are things about NW I like better than DDO, but the negatives far outweigh them.

I know our group with MJ that was alternating btwn DDO and NW ended up dropping NW because it's become so PTW. Quests beyond a certain point are locked behind item lvl requirements, and except for hours of grinding there's no way to improve IL without paying which was a hard pass for most of us.

It really does. I'd probably be willing to argue that in many ways it has more of an active and passionate community than many MMOs do. And yeah, I'm not going to do the math either because I know I'd probably be horrified at how much I've spent on a game I don't actually play a lot.

Love when you guys mention playing stuff like Sims 4 even though it's kind of off-topic since it isn't multi-player. Although I rarely play it lately for various reasons, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit I own all of the content for it except the 3 kits that just came out a week or 2 ago.

I think EQ1 also had arenas with bleachers where you could watch others battle below, though I don't recall doing that as much except once or twice during a guild event.

One thing I don't think you touched on was those who can enjoy spectating PvP but don't necessarily like to participate. Back in the day in SWG I often had fun as a neutral or unflagged player just watching battles play out during fortress sieges or flashmob battles in Theed or whatever.

I need to expand my library though because it's really a bit limited still and I find myself getting tired of listening to the same stuff all the time, even when it is good music. Just never find the time to devote to finding, downloading, and organizing more though.

Most recently I've been listening to some of the later soundtracks from LotRO since I finally got an MP3 player that works well in my car so I have room for more than what fits on a CD. Finally getting to listen through some of the recent-ish stuff that Bill Champagne has been doing.

Reading this back again I feel I should clarify that I don't listen to VGM only in my car, but VGM is mostly all I listen to while driving (some show tunes have worked their way into the mix when I'm in the mood for songs with lyrics.)