#just a really really great podcast.

[notbecauseofvictories]

good morning, I've been up for hours and already had my plans completely derailed by THIS IS CHICAGO, a podcast that's just 7 minute snapshots of various Chicagoans talking about their jobs, or something that means something to them, no voiceover or even framing device beyond the bing-bong sound that the El doors make when they're about to close.

I've been sitting at my kitchen table with a cooling cup of coffee for hours now. Who knows if I'll get back to my actual paying job today.

[quicksilversnails]

Took some notes from the Wild Life retrospective episode of the Imp & Skizz podcast featuring Grian because I thought the behind the scenes info was really interesting!

(3:15) The wild cards were all kept totally secret from the players (apart from Grian), with the exception of the superpowers and finale (as they required the players to set keybinds)

(3:45) The players were given files containing the required mods each week, which were named things like "creeper rain" to throw them off

(4:12) Wild cards were a combination of data packs and mods

(4:38) Grian told them not to read the folder name to avoid spoilers (which is kind of impossible), so everyone fully believed there would be creeper rain lol. Grian was saying it in jest but everyone took it seriously and were apologetic about having seen it, to which Grian told them not to worry

(6:58) Grian originally contacted a data pack dev called Brace for help with programming the wild cards. Some, like the shrinking/growing could be achieved with minecraft attributes, but the snails were too janky and unusable. Grian still liked the idea though, so he reached out to mod developers Henkelmax and Breadloaf, who designed the pathfinding/behaviour from scratch

(8:49) They had a debugging mode used to test the pathfinding of the snails, shown in the podcast and in Grian's credits

(10:09) Grian wants most of the credit to go to the development team and artists, as he was mostly in charge of ideas & organization!

(10:39) Grian's only regret with the snails was that they were too fast in session 3, leading to unexpectedly many deaths. They were apparently not so difficult to get away from during testing, but perhaps the testers were more used to them than the players were

(11:44) Grian: "We did develop to the lowest common denominator" ie. prioritizing how players would struggle over how worrying about if players would do too well

(12:56) Oli's voice for the snails was iconic. It cost Impulse a life because he intentionally stayed closer to it to hear the voice lol

(13:42) Danny was in charge of the snail models and animations

(14:11) During testing, the snails just sounded like Oli, which made it feel weird. They pitched up his voice so that it'd be less immediately recognizable

(15:18) The snails' jumping attack was meant to be clearly telegraphed: they would stop, wiggle, make a "ooeee" sound before jumping. Many players had their friendly creatures volume turned very low/off (as cows and other mobs are loud), which made this attack much less obvious for them

(16:57) The growing/shrinking had the least testing done for it, as it was the simplest conceptually and to program. This meant that the falling off of blocks due to the shrinking hitboxes wasn't anticipated

(17:55) Before the 1st session, Grian told them that he didn't think anyone would die to the wild card. Pearl's death made Grian pretty nervous, as he didn't want everyone dying too early in the season

(19:29) 6 lives were given, knowing that many of the death to the wild cards were unexpected/unfair. The intent was for ~3 lives to be allocated for wild cards, and ~3 for PvP.

(21:13) The developers were all fans of the Life Series!

(22:43) The shrinking/growing was intentionally pretty simple to ease players/viewers into the concept and build up toward more dramatic wild cards like the snails

(25:38) In the hunger episode, Grian didn't know which foods would be good

(25:58) Grian thinks that "it's unfair that Grian already knows everything" is valid criticism, but that it's important for him to be involved with the ideas. Having someone else do that is like having someone else record his videos: Life Series is his brainchild

(26:35) Well before the season began, while they were still developing the concept, Grian asked the other players for wild card ideas that would meet a few criteria. All of them ended up being unused for one reason or another. Impulse thinks his ideas were very "inside the box" because he was viewing things through what was possible in vanilla Minecraft. His idea was to have a scavenger hunt where the players would search to find a relic. The first person to find it would get a buff. Skizz's idea was for every player to turn into a random passive mob for every given interval of time. They would have to find every other player of the same mob type as them or else the whole group loses a life.

(29:44) The food qualities were weighted by the rarity of the item, so very common blocks like dirt and cobblestone would never give anything good. The other items were randomly selected

(30:23) Regular blocks/items cannot be made edible normally, so they had to circumvent that and custom code a fix for items not stacking correctly

(32:41) While a lot of players do want to win, the main priority is creating entertainment, which prioritizes playing recklessly

(33:20) The food wild card wasn't included in the finale because it would've felt like "too much". There was a higher risk of technical issues since it changed the data values of items, and Grian didn't want someone's last death to be because they ate their sword. In his mind, it was a good and fun wild card, but didn't need to be repeated in the finale. Impulse points out that they all would have collected more rare items by that point, removing the incentive to search for blocks to eat

(33:46) The wild cards in the finale were nerfed from their original sessions. The shrinking/growing had a smaller height range, the snails moved slower, etc.

(36:21) The personalized snail skins were a late addition by Danny, who made 18 skins very quickly

(36:49) Grian did not anticipate the snails becoming as popular with fans as they were. After the session released, they had the idea to release the snail merchandise, which directly funded the rest of the season

(39:20) Grian spent what "felt like every day" testing with the developers. They'd record the sessions on Tuesdays, meet up with the dev team, talk about what need to be done, testing, bugs, etc, edit and upload on Saturday, and would get a few days grace before starting again

(40:01) After the snail session, Grian was worried that the season would be very short due to all the deaths. They were considering toning down the later wild cards but ultimately didn't change them too much

(40:36) The time wild card was carefully balanced. If it had gone even a little faster, many players likely would have died because they wouldn't have time to react to threats like baby zombies or creepers.

(40:57) While sessions normally run for a variable amount of time, session 4 was hardcoded at 2 hours. Grian ended the session ~10 minutes early, just after they hit max speed, because he felt like things were getting dicey

(42:46) When the wild card first activates, it looks a lot like the server had frozen or crashed. Grian told the players before the session started that it would look like the game was broken, but that it isn't broken. Skizz tabbed out anyway and missed the beginning 😔

(43:30) Having the rain start just as the wild card began was a good visual indicator of time slowing down. This was a suggestion from the dev team (probably Brace)

(44:41) Impulse and Grian "cheesed" the end of the session by going branch mining. Grian wanted players to take advantage of the wild cards (eg. mining quickly, helping to kill someone), and not have them just be an annoyance.

(45:30) Keeping the client and server-side time stay in sync was challenging. The sky's motion was changed to be smoother on client-side. The players were also not as fast as the server (around 2x faster), the server was going faster than that, and the time of day was even faster

(46:56) The sounds were pitched up/down based on the speed to add to the effect

(27:46) In testing, if the players were made 7x faster, it would be basically unplayable, which was why it was capped at 2x speed. This made mobs very dangerous, as they were now faster than players and could catch up to you and kill you easily

(49:01) On several occasions, they had to extend the fuse duration of creepers to make them more fair. In the time session, their speed was only increased by ~10%

(49:39) Usually, Grian was the one to test the wild cards and notice when things like creeper speed would be an issue, since he was the one with experience making videos

(50:50) A challenge with balancing wild cards is accounting for the playstyles of so many players: reckless players like Scar and Skizz, "kind and gentle" players like Bigb who would stay off to the sides, and "the sweat squad" (Scott, Impulse) who play very cautiously

(52:48) Trivia Bot was the only wild card that was not planned in advance. Grian was struggling to come up with a wild card for that episode, and wanted to have a wild card available that could give people lives in case many people died to early wild cards without it feeling cheap.

(53:33) Trivia seemed a little boring on its face, so presentation was essential

(54:34) This one made Grian the most stressed due to all the moving parts involved in making it (coding and pathfinding mostly by Henkelmax, visuals by Hoffen, audio/music, questions)

(55:08) Trivia Bot's design was based on Grumbot and Mettaton from Undertale. Hoffen drew concept art shown in the video

(58:32) They show Trivia Bot's custom animation for becoming a snail and it's really cool

(59:12) The music was the most stressful part of the project. Grian spent 2-3 days looking through Epidemic Sounds for a Trivia Bot theme song and couldn't find anything good. He commissioned Zera @hopepetal for a theme song, which is played in the podcast. However, Grian realized he needed a full audio package, so he commissioned Oli late in development, who created the final soundtrack and many audio variations

(1:01:38) Grian wants to send appreciation for everyone who worked on the project, even if their work ultimately went unused

(1:02:58) Skizz was happy to give back however he could by staying on standby in the final episode as a zombie, as the players were able to "reap all the benefits" of the hard work of the development team

(1:05:21) Grian didn't know any of the trivia questions beforehand, which were done by fans of the series. The goal was for ~50% of the questions to be answered correctly, which was approximately met

(1:07:11) Players couldn't get questions about themselves because it would be too easy. This would encourage players to leave their bot, allowing other players to mess with them

(1:07:57) Grian felt a little left out from the discovery element of the wild cards, and decided to mess with Scar by hiding his bot. He wasn't expecting Scar to die from it, and could tell that he was genuinely a little upset by it. Grian felt bad about it, which led to a genuine in-game alliance between them

(1:12:32) Grian was very close to letting Trivia Bot give lives as rewards, but decided it would feel too cheap

(1:14:38) Mob swap was slightly toned down, with more camels and sniffers spawning

(1:15:07) Evokers didn't drop totems anymore. Instead, there was a minuscule chance a warden or wither would spawn, which would drop a totem if killed. Grian was a little disappointed that the warden got cheesed in the end

(1:17:45) Having the mobs start passive and turn hostile was mostly for the presentation, building anticipation, and so players could predict where mobs would spawn and react accordingly, making things feel less unfair

(1:20:32) There was no superpower made for Skizz (or Mumbo presumably)

(1:20:38) The superpowers were another late addition. There was a large design doc where Grian created all the powers, which were handed over to Henkelmax and completed over 4 days

(1:21:42) Grian avoided superpowers involving strength, that could cause someone to die easily. Most of the powers were social or movement-based, which couldn't be used for offence as easily

(1:22:25) Some powers were randomly assigned, others weren't. Impulse's was random. Cleo's, Bigb's, Lizzie's, Grian's were assigned.

(1:24:25) Grian gave himself the mimic because it could easily backfire (like in Grian's fall damage death), and because it would've been confusing for a player who wasn't aware of the other powers. They likely would've spent the episode just figuring out how everything worked and not actually using the power to its best ability

Lots of discussion about the superpowers and how they interacted in the episode itself, go watch if you're interested :)

(1:33:38) Talk on how the series "standard" rules evolved since 3rd Life. There was no keep inventory, and no restrictions on enchanting levels or potions, which created slow or unbalanced fights

(1:36:23) 3rd Life was designed to be an experimental series, which made Grian eager to improve it. For example, some people just weren't dying in 3L, leading to the boogeyman in LL, and so on

(1:37:17) The goal with the seasons isn't to one-up the previous one, but to create a different experience every time, which keeps things engaging for the creators

(1:38:31) At the end of each session, Grian would ask the group if they had fun and how they felt about the wild cards. According the Skizz, the answer was "a resounding yes"

(1:39:08) Grian had moments throughout the season where he personally felt like things didn't go well for him, and was anxious for the rest of the group's episodes. Things worked out while editing the raw footage, though. His issues were never with the wild cards themselves, but his own actions (traps not working, spending too long branch mining), but would always find funny moments in his footage

(1:43:41) Everyone in the Life Series cast genuinely likes and genuinely respects everybody else in the group. This allows them to make the show and get mad at each other, because they know it's all just in-character

(1:44:50) It'd be hard to top Wild Life in spectacle, and Grian doesn't want to start an arms race with himself. The next season could potentially be closer to 3rd Life, but Grian's not sure yet. For Grian, Wild Life was the most enjoyable

(1:45:20) Grian: "As long as people keep enjoying [the Life Series] then I'd love to keep doing it"

(1:49:35) With the finale, Grian knew how the wild cards played out the previous sessions and was able to adjust them

(1:49:56) Grian's goal was to create safe chaos where everyone knew what was happening and wouldn't die to them, which didn't go entirely to plan. The snails were 60% of their original speed and people still died

(1:51:03) Grian made a precise timeline of when each wild card would start/stop, it wasn't randomized.

(1:54:16) All the superpowers were randomized, with Bdubs' power being removed from circulation because it didn't have much use in a finale setting

(1:56:10) It was important for Grian that in the final moments, the wild cards were removed, so there were no interruptions. The timing worked out well because there were a few people left and it ended within ~10 minutes (this implies that the change wasn't based on # of players alive, as people had speculated based on Gem's death)

(1:58:48) The players all randomly switched to zombie skins throughout the session to mess with people on NameMC. Well-played :)

[dizzybizz]

sleepy gill and gill with the bubbled evil cat

[lilaccatholic]

Man, I feel like every clip I see from Pints with Aquinas lately Matt Fradd is demeaning women. Really sad to see it, I used to love his interviews :/

[navree]

i will say, john apparently having memory issues is genuinely putting me in arthur's headspace in a way nothing else has yet because i feel blind now too. i can't trust john's descriptions as factual, i can't know that we don't really know who noel is and that he's just a newcomer (and harlan voicing literally every character doesn't help at all), i can't even have a firm idea of what's going on, because the person i'm relying on to be my narrator, the same person arthur's relying on to be his eyes, is demonstrably no longer reliable (and for me as a listener it's actually worse cuz unlike arthur i know john's lying about something and that he's got an ulterior motive due to his deal with kayne that arthur is entirely unaware of). it's very good, and it also creates a sense of unease and dread which is good for a horror podcast.

[feyshed]

"Oh he's eefo, he's that stupid little Canadian man"

Says Joel whilst smiling/giggling

[koszmarnybudyn]

So i listened (basiclly binged in 3 days) find us alive, and it was great (i think i have 3 episodes left till i catch up), so here are my designs for the main cast :)

Also close up to that Harley drawing cause i think its neat:

[behold-the-daybreak]

been listening to sherlock & co and i've only had archie for one episode but i would commit unspeakable crimes for him

[dreamings-free]

“So studying drums is not for everyone [..] but for me when I was young that’s what I needed to do because I kinda.. I could play loud rock drums and that was it. And I needed to learn other skills, be it arranging, scoring strings, production.. just touch and grace on the drum kit, so you’re not just playing like crazy loud all the time. Turns out I ended up playing pretty crazy loud on this latest gig but you know.. it’s fine. Being a hired gun and a session drummer and an MD [..] it’s all about playing for the song, playing for what the song needs.. just keeping your head down, I think. There’s a lot to be said for that and knowing when to kinda sit up and play something of interest and when not to. And usually it’s 'don’t.', you know, certainly in the pop world. As I said before I’m playing with a guy called Louis - playing with Louis Tomlinson - and it’s quite a fun gig at the moment because it’s.. to be honest, it’s not that. It’s kinda some pretty bold drumming and it’s kinda like a sort of rock band, not too dissimilar to something like this, something like Biffy [Clyro] or Foo Fighters or something like that.. it’s been really good, to kinda go full circle with it all, you know.”

— Steve Durham talking about being Louis’ drummer and musical director.

Big Fat Five podcast 10/5/24

[starvinginbelair]

"We're close yeah. Especially with our songwriting thing. I really love writing-I love writing with all the guys, they have different muses that you engage with, and we all write a specific kind of song together but...Luke and I have a special relationship with our songwriting stuff. It's kinda like we don't allow anything to touch it. Like even if him and I had a disagreement or something, we'd still write a song together the next hour cause it's compartmentalized in a space that's safe. And just creative and respectful."

— ashton irwin on his creative relationship with luke hemmings on artist friendly

[sisaloofafump]

Planning to visit Metropolis? Here's what you need to know:

Metropolis is the shining city of tomorrow, and well worth the visit. You can pick up brochures and newspapers at any street corner, or from one of our many news-kids cycling around!

Navigate around the city following the maps and history on our website! With in-depth guides to all our neighborhoods and their attractions, you'll always find something exciting to do.

In preparation for an emergency, turn on notifications for our City Alert page on Chirper. You can find this page through the red alarm buttons in our website, or through searching for @mtp.alerts online.

Pay no attention to our neighboring city, Gotham. Despite its guise as the perfect summer destination for thrill seekers and clout chasers alike, the mortality rates are high enough that our experts can guarantee you will die out there.

You may have heard influencers like those on Coast City Craniums, famous for their viral quotes: "Everyone is so scared of Gotham, like no one wants to survive anymore, man. Go on, throw me in Gotham. Watch me come out a millionaire," and "anyone who takes the grindset seriously is moving to Gotham." Words like these contribute to the misconception that Gotham is the best tourist city on the East Coast.

Rest in peace, the Coast City Craniums crew. The team at MetTravels extends our sympathies to their families. We will miss you, and hope you reunite in the afterlife with your late friends at Rogues Remember.

In any news, Metropolis is a beautiful city this time of year (and any other time too) and we cannot be more excited to welcome you to the city of tomorrow. Make sure you stop by the MetTravel booths throughout Senneville, Newtown, and the Superman Museum!

[bibleofficial]

god bless sleeping 12hrs nightly

[wonderfulworldofdarklords]

https://redcircle.com/shows/the-wonderful-world-of-darklords/ep/5e77d671-2e05-400c-8d02-409b0e200ef4

Welcome to Wonderful World of Darklords! In the spirit of Thanksgiving and of thankfulness for you, our listeners, we're presenting the domain you chose in our Listeners' Choice poll: Spirited Away. Yubaba is an excellent villain, Chihiro's parents and No-Face give us some phenomenal horror moments, and we actually see the bathhouse's borders close in the first twenty minutes of the movie...but the bathhouse feels more like a Domain of Delight than of Dread, and Yubaba doesn't have much of a backstory even in ancillary materials, so we had our work cut out for us. Topics discussed include:

An Act of Ultimate Darkness and element of tragedy/relatability for Yubaba that plays into some themes we might not have been able to work into the domain otherwise;

Why Zeniba and Yubaba hate each other with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns, and how to play up that rivalry in a way that lends itself to more traditional D&D antics than Ghibli movies typically allow;

How to get your PCs to seek out jobs in the bathhouse and sign their names away to Yubaba even though there's no way in the Nine Hells they're going to think it's a good idea;

The sorts of adventures one can have in a setting that doesn't lend itself to combat, puzzle-solving, or the disarming of traps;

and more!

The full write-up for the Bathhouse of the Spirits is available for free on DM's Guild: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/501385/The-Bath-House-of-the-Spirits-A-Ravenloft-Domain-of-Dread?affiliate_id=241770

Timestamps

0:00 Introduction

06:20 The Lord

53:02 The Land

1:09:29 Dread Possibilities

1:32:32 Parting Thoughts

2:02:12 D’s Parting Thoughts

All music recordings are in the public domain (mark 1.0) and are licensed through https://musopen.org:

Chopin Nocturne in B-Flat Minor, Op. 9 No.1 (main theme), performed by Eduardo Vinuela

Chopin Etude Op. 25, No. 12 in C Minor: “Ocean” (darklord theme), performed by Edward Neeman

Chopin Nocturne in F Minor, Op. 55 No. 1 (land theme), performed by Luke Faulkner

Rachmaninoff Morceaux de Fantaisie, Op. 3 - 2. Prélude in C sharp minor (Dread Possibilities), performed by Sergei Rachmaninoff

Chopin Nocturne in E Minor, Op. 72 No. 1 (parting thoughts), performed by Luke Faulkner

Dialog for Yensid was written by Azalin Rex himself: @darklordazalin

The Wonderful World of Darklords logo was designed by Halite Jones, whom you can find @halite-jones or on  Instagram at http://www.instagram.com/insta_halite

Contact us on:

Gmail: wonderfulworldofdarklords@gmail.com

Facebook: @wonderfulworldofdarklords

Tumblr: @wonderfulworldofdarklords

Patreon: www.patreon.com/WonderfulWorldofDarklords

YouTube: @wonderfulworldofdarklord

[skayafair]

The fact that Kayne critically misjudged John's true feelings and how much their relationship with Arthur have progressed, brings me so much joy.

Not that all-knowing and all-powerful anymore, are we?

It'd do him good to be brought down a peg or two.

[vivacia-18]

I'm about halfway to two thirds through You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, and asdjasdlkajsadjal

The reveals, the implications, I can't even - mentally I'm rolling on the floor frothing at the mouth. I want to go back and listen to season 3 and season 1 all over again, holy shiiiiit

[ratatatastic]

"When you guys are playing and, like, we all got podcasts and there are big podcasts out there, you know, are going from series to series, and they're critiquing teams and what not—like, at the end, do you know who's chirping you? Do you pay attention to that shit? Do you know who's on your side? Do you know who's, you know, rooting against you? Do you guys pay attention to that kind-of stuff? I'm just curious." "Yeah, I think this might be the first podcast I've ever done—I'm not the biggest fan of podcasts to be honest. I think—I'm friends with that, you know, [Shane] O'Brien, and [Scottie] Upshall (2 out of the 3 cohosts of the Missin' Curfew podcast), I love those guys... so if they ask I would do it but... again they, I think—I think negativity flows through media so much that it just kind-of disgusts me and I want nothing to do with it to be honest. So I hate the negativity, I think it's crazy, I think negativity in media steers guys away from certain teams... it's like, 'Why do you want that?' right? So I don't know, I'm a huge fan of the positivity, finding the positives in players and not putting guys down especially in podcasts and stuff like that where it should be for the players, right? It should be a positive thing, something that we rally around. Especially as ex-players!" "Yeah! We're gonna pump your tires!" "That's it!" "Well, you still gotta be real though!" "No, I know!" "You know if you have a bad game—" "It's gotta be real! For sure!" "—You gotta be real! You can't fake out your audience either so it's still a business." "One hundred percent! One hundred percent, one hundred percent... and I get that but—Yeah, I mean, I saw all those Spittin' Chiclets guys all over Edmonton's bandwagon so..." "That really bothered you guys, eh? Like, I mean, you guys were paying attention to that. I mean, as evidence as well on what took place on the ice after the game... you guys weren't, like, fucking around, you were being serious, right? You guys—that really bothered you guys?" "Hundred percent." "What was it? Like, the most that bothered you about it? Just the fact that, 'Hey, you guys are rooting for them... why are you trying to celebrate with us?' I mean, was it—is it that simple?" "Exactly. Yeah, get the f—we won, get off... right? Get out of here. That's uh, yeah. I don't know, I don't want to be too controversial or anything like that. I'm a happy guy, I like everybody so... whatever." "They're all good dudes, man. Listen if they're into hockey and they're talking about hockey thats a positive one way or the other!" "Oh, they're growing the game! They're growing the game! Huge! And they're doing a great job and I've spoke with Biz [Paul Bissonnette] a few times and I know Whit [Ryan Whitney] (Cohosts of Spittin' Chiclets) and I've got no issues with any of 'em. Truly."

The Cam & Strick Podcast | 7.30.24 (x)