Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Final Fantasy 14: Why Do People Love It? - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 64

Episode Date: March 10, 2021

GameSpot's Michael Higham travels far to explain to us why Final Fantasy XIV is so dope, and Andy tries to makes us all PC gamers. Time Stamps - 00:00:00 - Start 00:04:00 - Housekeeping 00:07:50 - Super Mario 3D World 00:13:35 - PC Games Roundup 00:30:56 - Star Wars: The Old Republic 00:39:50 - Ads 00:42:20 - Getting into MMOs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast. As always, I'm Tim Geddes joined by one of the coolest dudes in video games, Greg Miller. Hello. The new face of video games blessing at AEOIA Jr. When do I evolve into a coolest dude? When does that happen? You know, the thing is, it's like I already don't like that I have two introses that are of video games. You know, because you're the new face of video games.

He's one of the coolest dudes in video games. And like, don't get me wrong, bless. You're many things. I don't know that I'd put cool on the list. And again, remember, Wow. Compared to Greg Miller? As an insult,

I'm just saying, my cool, you have to be real damn cool. Compared to Greg Miller? What has Greg Miller done that's been cool? Don't fucking say something you can't take back young kid. All right over here. Call us when you host an award show.

You know. That's true. Less guy you. I don't want to stay for this. I don't have to stay in for this. I don't have to listen to this. Hey, daddy, yo. Hey,

you beep a little bit of pumpkin. You be boobled. I do want to say that I stand by that I don't know if I can give you that nickname, but I also do regret giving Greg the nickname if I'm trying to play by my own rules there. I'm not saying, because I would not claim myself to be cool.

I wouldn't put myself in that category. I think I am adequately warm. I think you're cool. I'm in a very warm place. But I'm definitely cooler than Greg Miller. Because we've talked about this before on the kind of funny podcast, but there are very...

How many things you need to take from me, blessing? All right? You want to take Halloween for me. The game awards. You're getting the game awards nominated,

you know, honors now. I mean, apparently I'm trying to take the Mario thing away from Tim because Tim, it's Mario Day and you're not even wearing

any Mario wear. You know, I was going to do. No idea what my socks looked like. Blessing sat down. We set everything up

and then he ran off camera and he came back in this shirt and I'm like he's up to something. What is he doing? I didn't run on camera. I just slowly stood up and then scamper away like he always does. He cartwheels off camera.

That, That beautiful voice is the Nitro rifle, Andy Cortez. The one and only. We don't see what in video games you are. You're just the Nitro damn rifle. I'm just who I am. I'm just who I'm at. I'm in an apple. He's the number one video game journalist.

Yeah. Fuck, you're right. Video games are in there too. So many sources. Name it up. Name it. I would never name your sources. Andy's like me.

Andy's cool. Yeah. If anything, I think me and Andy should be the two coolest dudes in video games. That's what I'm saying. That's what I've been saying. What's my name is? Does the motion carry, Barrett? It cares.

Greg is one of the tallest. Greg's one of the tallest. That's the best you can give me. Yes. Like one of the slowest. One of the tallest. Okay. All right.

All right. First off, I'll admit, blessings cooler than me. But I will never admit that Andy's faster than me, all right? Trust me. I can outrun Andy any day of the week.

He's one of the tallest dudes in video games who wears glasses. We're just adding like Reggie Feesmeet doesn't exist right now. Reggie Feasmey is very tall and very much... That's why I added the... That's why I added the... wears glasses. Bless one.

Reggie Fisemay walked to buy me at E3. I felt like I was in shadow the colossus. Like I was going to try to climb him and just hug him. When we were in an elevator with him during the switch like reveal event, it was me and Kevin. And I've never seen Kevin more starstruck in my entire life. Kevin stopped functioning and not in the normal way Kevin stops functioning. Like just like a real crazy ass way. Why can't I not find out how tall he is?

Reggie Fizema. It should be on his Wikipedia. That's what I thought to. He's 6-2. 6-2. No. Greg got him. He has to be taller than that.

Greg's taller. There's no way, Reggie Fees May 6-2. He strikes me as at least 6-5. Yeah, I don't know. I have an ungood authority. I can pick him up and throw him off of rage. And he has a millions of Britschazino where. Wow.

Well, he was about to join but not anymore. This is the Kind of Funny Games cast each and every week right here on YouTube. com slash Kind of Funny Games. We get together to talk about video games and all the. things that we love about them you can watch it on youtube or bruce dutie.com you could also listen to it as a podcast to search your favorite podcast service for kind of funny games cast and we'll be right there for you if you want to get the show ad free with the exclusive post show and be able to watch it live as we record it you're going to need to go to patreon.com slash kind of funny games just like our

many patreon producers did the nato biologist tyler ross joy aka joseph o ysouc trent berry muzuki man bear Paradox, Julian the gluten-free gamer, Alex J. Sandoval, Sancho West Gaming, James Hastings, Elliot, and Casey Kern. Ain't that right, bless. That's right. You're muted, but I appreciate it anyway. Wait, I heard him. Yeah, we all heard him.

Am I? Is everyone muted for me? Something's wrong with you, Tim. Yeah, no, it's you, too. Well, this is weird. I can't hear any of you. I will not real quick. While we don't have to worry about Tim what he's saying, we got to, let's stop being mean to me. All right, let's all turn it around on Tim. This is our change. All right, because it's rough. He's going to come back in a second,

but we're all going to need the same page. Blessing you say it for it. You started it. You started. Okay. Let's make sure you can hear us. Tim, do you hear us? He doesn't hear us.

No. I said anything you would know. He's wearing like a, he's wearing like a laker's look on the shirt. Yeah, I can't tell. I can't tell what his shirt is. Can you hear us? Now I can hear you.

Okay, good. Don't know what happened. But where was I? This is the games cast, everybody. What fantastic things. Greg wanted me to say mean things to you. And I, No, I didn't say that at all.

I was going to say a very mean thing, but I couldn't muster it. I was going to be like, where did you get? What thrift store did you get that shirt from? But I could not muster up the strength of thing. That's how much I respected. I mean, you did say it though? Softest shirt I have ever owned. I don't understand.

Did me undies make it? I don't even know. What is it? What is it? It's just a band that I like, built to fade. The new album shirt. You know what? I take it back.

What thrift storage you get that shirt from? I'm not kidding. For me personally, when it comes down to a blessing, you can add this to your repertoire. Everybody listening, you can add this to your repertoire. There used to be a show called The Mighty Morphan Power Rangers. And at the end, when the episode was over, they'd then do a little PSA at the end, kind of G.I. Joe-like, right? And it was supposed to teach you how not to be a bad person and how to be a better person. But one of the greatest insults I ever heard came from like the before, like when the guy was being mean and then the Power Rangers had to step in and be like, hey, don't be a jerk.

But I like the insult so much I kept it. So I actually took the wrong lesson from it. the lesson goes something like this if you saw Tim walking down the street right you see when this clown ass off shirt right you want to fucking dunk on this clown you look at me go oh hey Tim that's really role play hey Tim yeah yeah yeah got it we're doing improv now we're right we're we're walking walk I walk I walk then I saw you oh hey Tim okay we're stopping a walk hey he's jogging that's a really nice shirt

Thanks, Greg. Yeah, I used to have one just like it until my mom got a job. Holy shit. You walk away. That's what the Power Ranger said? The Power Ranger insult. And then the Power Ranger step in. They're like, hey, don't do this.

And I'd be like, screw you. I'm going with the putties. They look like they have a lot of fun with Rita. You guys suck. So, like, how many times have you used this? Like, you said this inspired you. Like, have you, are you just like destroying kids' dreams out there? No, I mean, it's usually something I say in a similar context to what we're doing right now.

or you with your friends, you know? When I see somebody in a shirt I don't like on the street, I'm like, God's already taken care of them. I don't need to insult them. But when I need something, you know, funny for you guys, that's when I go. Wow. Speaking of insulting, today we played some Mario 3D World on stream. Andy, how would you describe that experience?

I'm the most physically and mentally drained that I've been possibly all quarantine. It was really, really tough out there. These final levels, Tim, I don't even know how they expect four players to do this and be perfect. And we're going to get it, Tim. But my God, it was a battle. It was a mental battle.

Let me tell you, Andy, it is much easier with four players. With this, the one where I right now, much easier with four players, because you're allowed to cover the grounds, get all the, you know, sure, okay, yeah, that makes sense. So let me just explain to both Greg and blessing right now what we're dealing with, okay?

me, Mike, Andy, and of course, Nick Scarpino. Oof, that's where you get out. Oh, it's real. It's hard. It's hard. Yeah. Been trying 100% this Mario 3D world, doing a bang-up job. Today we finally beat the second to last world, 100%.

We're in the final thing, three levels to go. One, Captain Toad. One, the green star crazy insanity, like endurance run. And then one, champions road. One of the hardest levels in Mario history. All right. Captain Toad. Done our bitch over with.

Okay. Number two. Figure it out. Couldn't like, you know. You got to do this thing, Greg, where you use a little waggle, right? You hold the controller. You just kind of waggle it for motion controls. So all these jerks are like kind of just walking around the little, it's a little cute little diorama almost.

And you got to go get the green stars. Meanwhile, I am controlling the motion. My little hand is up on the screen. If there's a piranha plant shooting fire, I can rub it. I can fucking rub that little motherfucker. Sure. And he'll like, he'll maybe a little coin will pop out of it. But he'll just get right.

Maybe he'll spit a bit. Yeah, yeah. But you do that. And then I also control the blocks that move up and down. I can go like activate him. And it's a, it was a tough one. But we worked as a team and it was a beautiful thing. There were moments where we stopped acting as four different units.

And it was one hive mind with Kevin yelling at us. But we got through that. A bodyguard situation. But we are now on our second to last level. And after like an hour and a half of. trying this one level. We failed and we're going to have to come back next Tuesday to make it right. But the way that this level works is it is one of the little purple like challenge rooms

where you go in and you have 10 seconds to get a green star. But the thing is normally you have to get 10 of them in a row to beat it. For this final one, you have to get 30 in a row. And it is pure insanity. And I don't know that we can do it, Andy. I'm feeling a little, feeling a little worry. If you fail, you start right back over. So right now, I think we're what,

20 deep? I think we're 21 deep. But it doesn't matter. Got to go back to zero. Do it all. So like you get towards the end. And obviously we're taking a long time to kind of get the ones that we've been needing.

And once you do, we don't know what the next room is. And then it pops up. We're like, how the, they expect us to do that. So it's pretty challenging, Tim. And I'm really worried about it. It's stressful. But bless the reason I bring up Mario 3Degger World is you've been playing it as well on your own with your friend.

Yep. How's that going for you? Yeah, I've been enjoying it more and more, the more I play it. I think last week I talked a bit about it. And my overall attitude on 3D world has been that Bouss is been a fun, unique thing to jump into and kind of see a glimpse of them getting very experimental with Super Mario Brothers, which I really appreciate. Super Mario 3D World, I think I was towards, I was approaching maybe the last world in it

of like the main game. And I was kind of like, yeah, this is more Mario. I like Mario. The levels are polished like Mario. The game feels like Mario. And I didn't, I didn't really feel like it was that special by itself as a Mario game. It just kind of felt like another one,

which I appreciate, but kind of is what it is. And now that I've completed the game, started doing a little bit of the bonus worlds. And then also going back and trying to 100% levels, because you guys put me on to that. Because I went in and I played with you guys on Friday. And I realized that you guys playing a way where not only do you get

the three stars that are in each level, you also go for the stamp and then you also go for the top of the flag. That kind of opened my eyes up to like, okay, no, there's a whole other level, layer of depth that's in this game when you try and do every single thing that's there. And so since last week, I've been playing a lot more, and I've been growing to appreciate it more and more because last week, I kind of felt like it was not necessarily the best bits that I love from the 3D games, which is the exploration. being able to kind of tackle anything you want, nor the tightness of the 2D games.

The thing that I've pulled now that I appreciate a lot about 3D world is the level design is great. The level design, especially coming off of new Super Mario Brothers, New Super Mario Brothers Wii, and New Super Mario Brothers Wii and all that stuff, the level design in 3D world feels so fresh and so creative

and so I guess innovative compared to those games in a way that has kind of reignited my love for 2D-ish Mario, even though I know this is 2D slash 3D or 2.5, whatever you want to call it. And so, yeah, I've been having a blast with it. I'm right now I'm trying to get enough stars

so I can get to the second bonus world, which has been a fun process. And some of the, dude, some of the levels in that first bonus world, the way that they homage earlier Mario games, I just love. I just find it so endearing. Very cool stuff. But Mario's not the only game we've been playing recently. Blessing and Andy, both of you, have a little PC shooter roundup you guys want to talk about.

What do you want to start, Andy? Well, I mean, this song first. Bless wanting to be, he was curious about PC gaming. And he was like, I kind of want to get into it. I want to try it out. And I keep, they help me help you sort of situation. PC I love you XOXO1, you know. Exactly.

Thank you, Barry. PC I love you. All tab, all tab. If I never record for it, like, you know, have other stuff going on or whatever. But I told Bear, I told Bless, dude, help me help you. I can do this. We can figure this out for you.

Bless very, very worried about getting caught up. And oh, there's so many people that are out there that are way better than me. Of course, that's every game. You're always going to experience that. Yeah. It's the main favorite PC of a mouse and keyboard because I've been so used to playing on console with my dual shock, my dual sensor, my Xbox controller, or whatever, that whenever I do play,

even when I play games that are crossplay, I get nervous because I know that inherently mouse and keyboard is going to give you an advantage, an accuracy and all that stuff. And so switching to PC, like PC solely for a game like Overwatch or whatever other game has been a little bit nerve-wracking because I'm like,

I don't want to get caught up with these folks that I've been doing this longer, and then I get demolished, and all of a sudden I stop having fun with Overwatch. Yeah, but I understand that, but again, I feel like anybody has been in the same boat. And so was I a year ago.

I was in the same boat, Bless. And Blas hopped in and said, I want to play Overwatch on Thursday with Snowmike Mike on the stream, on the kind of funny stream. And we hopped in, and we dialed down his sensitivity. It took a while, right?

You got to download, you know, all these programs, drivers, printer drivers. You have to download a webcam driver as well to track your hand movement. Just kidding. Greg already fell asleep. He already fucking fell asleep.

This guy. I'm just trying to get. him to like do the joke but he's just in a different world it's okay. I'm messaging to him something very important about the show but I didn't want to interrupt the show so don't worry about him. That's fine. So Bless ended up hopping into Overwatch and at first kind of worried right

but then you start seeing the kill feed light up. You start noticing that Bless is getting more and more comfortable and it was Hanzo right that in Hanzo and Overwatch I kind of changed it all for you. Yeah like Overwatch has been a game that I've adored since it released in 2016

and I've I've hopped between quite a few characters in Overwatch. You know, Reaper was my first love, and I still love Reaper. Reaper is still my number one when it comes to Overwatch. But yeah, I'll do Reaper. I do Farah, Hanso, and quite a few others. And Hanzo has been a character that over the last couple of years, I kind of lost it with. Early on, I was killing it with Hanzo, especially when he used to have the ability where he would do the scatter arrow, where you would shoot at the ground and all of a sudden it split.

They ended up nerving Hanzo and taking that out and replacing it with a different. different move. And I feel like ever since then, I stopped being as good with Hanzo on console. Playing on PC brought me all the way back to where I really enjoyed playing Hanzo. I had a few games with Hanzo where I was like, dude, this is awesome. And it's all because of the precision of being able to have that mouse and keyboard. And the more I played, it only took me maybe probably like seven, seven games. It sounds like a lot before Overwatch that goes by pretty quickly. It took me about that amount of games before I was like, okay, cool. I feel very comfortable, at least playing with this character. It has been a learning experience per character

because you realize that each character has their own abilities, which means that shift or E or whatever the button is might not inherently be what I expect it to be, right? It might not always lead to L1 or R1 or whatever the button correlation is on console. And so I kind of have to relearn that per character. But yeah, I know, Hanzo I've been falling in love with. And I think I can easily foresee it being the case where specific characters I have the preference with on PC versus other characters I have the preference with on console. Like, Reaper, I still think, you know, Reaper, I'm not playing at max potential with on PC. That'll change for you, Bless.

That'll change for you. You think so? Yes. I hope so. Absolutely. Because I have my go-toes now for each of them. And now you're going to get to the point we're like, I wish I could just play everything keyboard mouse. It's going to get to that point, Bless.

And you're going to be hardbroken when you can't join up with Greg in Division Crossplay. Go ahead, Tim Getty. Speaking to Greg, he did send me the important messages that I will read to you because he said that in bullet point form. There are three bullet points that are all questions. Playing PC games.

Afraid to play games. Talking about keyboard and mouse. Is this really someone you're considering cooler than me? Then there was a point dexter came out of the college computer lab over here. Well, I've been playing as hamso and let me tell you, I was very, I was very scared to pick up my keyboard to go do do. You know, come on.

I've never scared when I do my take. taxes with this machine. It's great. There was one more follow-up bullet point talking about Hamzo and then, parentheses, question mark to like, you know, check the spelling of, yeah, well, his is Homzo. Yeah, okay.

Now, I do have a follow-up question to this because I am a tech PC nerd. I am not a gameplay PC nerd. But if I, with Halo Infinite coming out and all this stuff, am I really about to play this game on, on freaking controller while Andy's playing on mouse and keyboard. Like it feels a little fucked up. You know what I'm talking about, Andy? Of course, yeah. No, you don't want to be left behind. But here's my issue is the mouse,

obviously, way more precise. I love it. I feel good with it. The keyboards where I start to lose my ability to really feel confident. I start getting some cramps going on in there. And I just never feel as good as the controller. So my question to you guys is how stupid an idea is this? And has anyone in the world done this before? Where you move with the left stick and then you mouse at the right. my, what? You can't. Like, no, that's not possible.

No. You can't have two different inputs. Because there's my thing. No, we know. Just put a jump button on, you know, one of the triggers, and then I'm good. That's all I need to do. I just need to jump and shoot. Yeah.

Yeah. No. Honestly, like, I kind of like where Tim's kind of going with this because I'm holding, I'm holding my pro controller, my switch pro control in my left hand right now. There's not enough buttons, dude. There's not enough buttons. Get more buttons on your mouse Figure it out

Andy There's a lot of buttons on mouses nowadays Anyway I'm sure someone But I don't want one of these World of Warcraft mouses With like 30 buttons on the side I don't want that sort of shit Now I'm holding it more

I'm like this is ridiculous This is too much I like I like where your Where your heads at him though Because you immediately turned around And it was like no This is stupid as shit At first I was like

Hey this feels nice But then 10 seconds later I'm like no this is stupid What am I doing right now This is ridiculous I'm telling, hey, here's the thing. Let me tell you guys something. It is possible.

And I know because I did it for cyberpunk. Okay, bitches. Jesus Christ. With how? You had two inputs at the same time. They just both worked. Yeah. There's plugged in.

So you're sitting here holding you're sitting here holding this thing and this thing. And this is how you played the game. Yeah, I need to hold the mouse up the mouse is down. Well, no, I know. I love that. That was me dragging it into visual effect of what makes sense. You need like the little we moat. You need the left side of the Wii mode.

How did you reload? I don't remember. Like your gun. I don't remember. He used the... But I got a lot of buttons. I got a lot of buttons on this. Never reloaded.

To be fair. I only did this for a little bit. Just kept up picking up you guns. That's absolutely ridiculous. But yeah, I'm so excited. I'm excited that Bless has shown... Immediately kind of started picking it up and is excited to try more of it out.

Yeah. No, I'm hype. I've been playing a lot of wars. Zone 2 recently with Nick Scarpino and Mario Not Bros. Fran Mirabella, which is like a very random group of people for me to hang out with, but it's actually been a very awesome time. And I've been playing mainly on console, whereas they've been playing on mouse and keyboard. And slowly I'm like, maybe I should just pick up the mouse and keyboard because it seems like they're...

And let's be clear. Nick is also playing on console. Nick is also playing on console. Yeah, but he has his keyboard hooked up to his PS5, which I feel like is just a step too far. That's cats and dogs living together in a way that I'm not talking with. PS5 inverted mouse. That's cats and dogs living together. Who could imagine?

No, I'm never, I'm never plugging in my keyboard into my PS5. That's going too far. It's wonky. It's weird. Yeah, but I can just, you know, play on my computer. I have my widescreen. I'm sure that I'll add in some, some, some, uh, flare to the experience. And yeah, I might go for it.

Like, I'm opening up to things. Warzone runs like shit if you don't have like an insane computer on PC. I mean, it doesn't run that well on console. either. That's true. And you're used to. You won't know the difference. Yeah, I will not know the difference. So besides Warzone and Overwatch, Andy, you and Mike are really hyped about Valoran. What the hell happened? You were kind of down on it. I mean, I've always been down on Valorne ever since I tried it. It's just a very, very tough game. It is the epitome of needing to be patient with your shots. This is not the type of game that you can, this is not Fortnite or Call of Duty where you can

just run into a room and jump and just shoot or else your bullets are going to go everywhere. You have to be really, really precise and you have to be just insanely patient, a little too much because if you shoot three bullets, they'll go perfectly straight, and the fourth one is like up here, and the fifth one is like way the fuck up there. So you have to really like know what you're doing. And it immediately turned me off when the game launched. And well, when the game launched, I was really into it and then just got really,

really frustrated when I started playing more and more difficult players. And a lot of that was due to the fact that I would play with Alfredo Dia. and he's so good that I'm playing against people at his level and it was just so discouraging and I'd go into every match and just get destroyed

and then I'd be playing with Fredos, France and they'd be like, why did you look that way when I told him, I was like, I don't know what I'm doing, man, okay? Like, you all play Rainbow Six

all the time, you know the call. I don't know what I'm doing in this shit. And that was at the beginning of sort of my keyboard mouse adventure because I think Valor came out and around April like at the start of the quarantine or something like that?

and I decided to hop back in because a couple of homies in a couple of Mike's homies and a couple of personal friends of mine had been playing it and I decided to hop back in and I'm having a lot of fun with it. I feel like I've definitely improved over the year playing on keyboard mouse and luckily we are playing some players that are on our level this time since I'm not playing with Fredo and his crew. Sure. And it's been really fun, and it's still insanely difficult, and you have to know a lot of the callouts. But I think Valor, it's just a great mixture of what makes games like CounterStrike really impressive when you can be good at them and when you have team coordination. And games like Overwatch, when you have really unique heroes with cool power-ups. And power-ups that don't necessarily decide wins. You know, I think that was one of the big things that Wright was doing when they were developing Valoran is.

they don't with overwatch it is such a game dependent on characters ultimate's ultimate abilities and riot said we we want gunplay to be king we you know teams with better gunplay will beat teams that are using their their abilities or whatever and i think that's absolutely true and it's been a lot of fun going back to it and kind of making my way through it i'm hoping that we get everybody in our squad to play enough games to where we can then jump into the competitive of ranks and see how we fare there. But it can be very, very tilting when you are aiming at somebody and your bullet tracer are above their heads.

You know, it's like, I'm aiming at the fucking person. Why isn't it shooting them? And that's where the frustration starts to set in. But yeah, you just need, you just can't have, you can't be too impatient with it. But it's been a lot of fun. And I think it's also a great game for people to hop in if they've never played a PC game and maybe want to learn. It's a free game.

and I think it teaches I've been trying to think of a word this whole time that I cannot think of Just like the ballpark Give me the ballpark A ballpark, a ballpark, Greg Like you know You know, um

You just can't be too horny You know what I mean? Like that's that's kind of patient I mean not really not really patience though It's um Like let's say there's a lot of food in the table And you wait Pace restraint restraint restraint restraint restraint is good

Restraint is real good I think it's close I think it might be it Let's go with the rest of the table Yeah, you got to show a lot of restraint when you're out there because, or else if you're, if you see an enemy and you're walking left and right to try to avoid bullets, your bullets are going to fly everywhere. You have to stay there and be disciplined is the word I was looking for. You have to be disciplined and just nail your shots. Hit those shots, baby. And it's a great game.

Drain the buckets. Drain the buckets. Drain the buckets. Plus, I think you would love it. I want to hop into it. I was talking to Nick a little bit about this last night when we're playing war zone. I asked Nick, I was like, hey, have you ever thought about playing war zone? or not words have you ever thought about playing valerant and he was like uh no like that doesn't seem like

my kind of thing but that i you know asking asking him further right like like have you played counterstrike or have you played these other games rainbow six siege yeah sees like it seemed like nick it seems like nick it seems like nick might be in the right uh i guess people group to be exposed to valer right yeah for sure yeah right right rome of gamer for that type of game and i know for sure i am right because i like siege i like overwatch counterstrike has never been one that i've fallen into but that's Neither had I, yeah. Yeah, that's more so just me not historically being a PC gamer. And so now that I'm starting to turn that corner,

Valerite might be one for me to try out because I hadn't tried it out just because I didn't want to play on mouse and keyboard. The great thing about Valon is that it runs on like the shittiest of computers. Riot built this shit to run on 10-year-old GPUs. Like it is very, very light. It does not require anything at all to run it. speaking of which i got this slack message from game over greggie in our in our slack that says i don't want you to become another statistic and then he links a screenshot to a bunch of different leaks

that are man killed during meeting to sell computer las Vegas police police arrest man in killing over computer sale man charged with murder after a fight after fight over computer uh i know what people want to act like you know my distaste for PC is unfounded. But I just, I don't hear this about switches and Xboxes and PlayStation's. It seems like there's an underbelly to you guys with your graphics cards and your motherboards. And you, oh, I need my RGB lights to glow on the face off my keyboard. Like, it seems like you have your own problems.

And I don't want to see Blessing fall into a bad crowd. It's just, it's just the fact that you sent me a screenshot of like Google searches. And I want to know what you search to get these results. They killed over computer. Okay, so it was a targeted search. Do you have any final thoughts on PC? Yeah, hold it. Before that, I do want to bring one up earlier.

Somebody caught it in the chat, but I think it timed out perfectly where Tim made another joke, and so it was appropriate to laugh. But I lost a split second, like 15 minutes ago, because I was trying to find, I was trying to do, I was looking for the same thing to do this, right?

What I wanted was my PC killed my dog. but I forgot the PC part so I just said my killed my dog and all the articles were about other dogs killing other dogs and that called me

out guard final thoughts on PC just don't do it you know what I mean I think this is everybody's chance to not fall for the siren song of Andy over here

I understand it he's cool look at him look at that chair look at his face look at the cool Twitch presence he has on Twitch.tv

slash Andy Cortez you know what I mean he's a cool dude so I understand one of the two coolest is in video games One of the coolest dudes in video games, they would say, right? But like, don't fall for it.

You know, stick with your consoles. They'll get you through this. Stay with your consoles. Don't be your blessings. Stay with your console. But great, I'm not a banning my PS5. The future is now. I can have multiple.

The crossplay future is here. I know. So we can play fine and you don't have to draw a line in the same where you steal blessing for me. But look, you stealing blessing for me. You know what I mean? Also, apparently I could have multiple wives. I was like, when I got, when I got there, I was like, that's not the best comparison.

You're still committed. You pause. I could have multiple. Fuck it, I'm doing it. Wives. We've all been there. The train's out of the station. You're not going to think of another word in time.

You might as well see where it goes. It's funny, Greg. The other day, I forgot what show we were doing, but I was talking about how I was trying to get Mike to play. Oh, gosh, what's it called? World War Z. And then Barrett goes, did you listen to PSI Love You? I was like, no. And it was like, yeah, they mentioned how they had been wanting to jump into World War Z because they had that back for Blur's E.

because they had that back for blood itch. I was like, oh my God, me too. We're doing it on a Thursday stream. It's full crossplay, dude. It's full crossplay. You know, no excuse that. I don't realize that. The future is now.

Thursday, we're streaming at twitch. Twitch.com. Future class. Played on console. Greg Miller, speaking to the future, what video game have you been playing? Oh, I've been playing Star Wars, the old Republic on my PC.

Wow. So yeah, yeah. Got you fuckers. I got you fuckers. Video games are games. Play video games. enjoy yourself. Don't care where they're played, you clowns. No, yeah. So like, uh,

for a long time. You piece of shit. I swear to Christ. You're a fucking. Oh, cool student video games. Come on. Yeah, I've had a hankering for old republic for a while. If you remember way back in the day, Tim, I played at Star Wars Old Republic at launch.

I started a character and was playing in the, the old spare bedroom that would become the kind of funny studio. And, you know, fell off super quick and got distracted and yet, yeah, yeah. And so now that we've been doing more and more stuff from home and the PC's been in the living room, whereas before I didn't even have a PC at home, you know, I was using Jen stuff. I didn't want it to kill my spouse. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I didn't want it to kill anybody or my dog. You know what I mean? That was my thing. Because originally I was like, am I was like, what could the PC kill that would be funny and weird? And I was like, well, how? And then I was like, oh, like if it tipped over on Portillo, that would kill him. There has to be at least one headline like that, but could not come up with it in time. I apologize. Maybe I'll be, maybe I'll be, maybe I foretold the death of Fortilla. You know what I mean? To really give me a backstory on why I don't like PC.

Anyways, though, so yeah, with the PC in the living room and PC gaming being more accessible than ever, I had been like, oh man, I want to get back in the old republic to the point that I'd been thinking about it right around the time, uh, Rahul Cooley, friend of the show, uh, started up and was playing it. And so I messaged him after he had been playing for like a week or two. I was like, is it worth it? He's like, yeah. And so I downloaded it, but it was a lot, huge ass download.

So I let it go forever and then never actually got back to it because I think it was right around the time. PlayStation 5 or some other review was coming out we had to do. And so the other day on stream, yeah, me and Mike were shooting the shit and we were playing Outwriters and enjoying it. But, you know, being my thinking like, oh, man, this is good. But I still want to wait for the full release of that. Like, I don't want to just keep putting time into the beta.

I already played what you're playing. And it was that question of like, oh, well, what else could we play? What else could we do? And I was like, wait a second. I've been wanting to play Old Republic. Would you be down for the Old Republic? And Mike would be like, I'd be very much down for the old Republic. And Kevin Coelho was like, I'll download it right now.

And so he downloaded it. we started it up, I jumped back in. You know, it's been however many years since I originally paid Old Republic. My Taylor Swift character was there, but I did re-roll a new Sith, Taylor Swift. We call her Taylor Sith this way to be a little bit more clever. Somebody in the chat, he shouted that out. And so it's still really early. I'm only a bit past where I played with Mike on stream, and that's only a bit past where I actually left off with the other character.

But even today, before this show, you know, I finished my episode of The Blessing Show coming out next week. thank you for support on patreon.com slash kind of funny. And I was like, man, I got a little bit of time before we jump on gamescast. You know what? Let's get in there because I'll be doing it tomorrow. Went in there. Answered some questions. Answered the real evil way.

So I got super Siff points or whatever. Killed the dude, took his hand back to my, my new Sith commander. I was like, this is how committed I am to being a Sith. And they're like, awesome. You got the dark side. And you're like, I know. I know. Cool.

Cool. Yeah. That was it. Oh, did Tim go? Is it ever been muted again for Tim? I thought I was. That confused you for a second. It was just that moment of silence.

I was like, oh, no, what the fuck is going on? Yeah, you know, I, it's a couple different things for me, of course, of like, I am in the mood right now for a big game, something to jump in and tackle and be committed to, I think, and have that leveling and have those journey choices. And, of course, personally, I wish it was Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. I wish there was a reboot of that or a third one of that or a modern day one of that. But I don't feel like going and playing something old. So this fits.

And it's like, you know, it's MMO, of course. So it's like, I don't find the combat all that engaging. But it's super early and I need to unlock more skills and do more things. So it's been scratching that it's right now. It's also kind of just mind numbing, right? Like, you can just relax and just level up. It's very much that MMO thing, right? Go down here and kill six of these things.

Set these bombs. Do this thing. Okay, cool. I can do that and talk to the chat and talk to Mike. What's the status of the game now? Is it done or is it still being added to it all? I think they're still putting stuff out for it. Yeah, I mean, they're still, they're still developing, I believe, at Bower.

Pretty sure. That's crazy. What if you all got into an MMO, like the same one? Like Final Fantasy 14. Can you imagine if all of us just got into Final Fantasy 14? Or like, fuck it. Let's do 11. Mike hopped back into Wow.

Wow. He's really deep into it. Yeah. I've just heard, I have quite a few friends that are super into Final Fantasy 14. Yeah, the guy who lives in your house. Yeah. including Michael Hyam, my roommate. And whenever I hear people talk about Final Fantasy 14,

it makes me so jealous that I'm not also the biggest fan because they're having a blast. I'll read Twitter threads and they're like, oh, I can't believe this shit happened. This is the best Final Fantasy story. And I'm like, damn. I didn't know they were doing it like that. And I tried Final Fantasy 14 for like a week and I fell off it

because I didn't realize they had to pay regularly for it. I thought it was a one and done thing. And I was like, fuck, I'm not paying monthly to play this game. And I bounced off. But, like, the more and more I see people talk about the new stuff that's added and people get hyped and these world, world events that blow people away, the more I'm like, man, what am I missing? You know, I've not had an MMO that I've actually committed to all the way, aside from something like GTA online, which doesn't really, isn't really an MMO, but it has MMO, like, qualities. Like, honestly, the only one for me where I've fallen into you. And I want to know what that's about.

I'm always, plus, I'm always hesitant whenever people throw out the, this is the best Final Fantasy story. I'm just like, is it just because you really like the game? game like I don't know you know what I mean Tim like oh I totally know what you mean it's like if you made fun of like agents of shield they're like oh this is the no no it's the fucking best man like it started all pretty bad but you got to get to season five first of all it's telling the best stories ever I'm using agents of shield as an example is an assault to me me specifically age of shield not the best marvel story by any means not the best i'm sorry right but a pretty damn good one damn it I'll use a different analogy dude star wars rebels did you just

got to get past like the first 12 seasons, 13 seasons, or whatever, and then it gets real good, dude. Thank you. Star Wars Rebels is fucking great from the first episode, Andy. Do it again with Smallville. Do it again with Smallville. It's only four seasons, Andy.

I will fucking die by the fact that Smallville Season 2 is fucking amazing. A lot of crap, a lot of crap, a lot of crap. I'll admit about Fashley Wars is the best Star Wars thing ever, but only watch five episodes. I'll admit half of Clone Wars Absolute Garbage, but that was a different thing. for an era of Star Wars, man.

Other half of Clone Wars, some of the best Star Wars out there. Star Wars Rebels, all four seasons? I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is. The thing that Final Fantasy is that Final Fantasy is 16 is a single player game that is a single player game. So I love that I'm hearing so much praise about 14. I've heard it's the best story ever.

Because then I'm like, if we take that and apply it to a single player game, I'm like, okay, cool, we're about to get some of this. We've got to eat good, hopefully in 2021. We can get warmed up, man. Final Fantasy review Tim, don't you want to experience the best Final Fantasy story? Why would you not hop into it?

Because it sounds like to get that story would be a lot to do. I don't know about all that. It's also just seems like it's difficult to but also, you know, retention. Not great up here, right? But playing destiny, playing borderlands, playing any games with friends,

it's so hard to absorb the story in the plot when you're a party with friends fucking around and NPCs are telling you stuff and if you miss one of those things I'm just out right like every other NPC I talk to you I'm like yeah whatever let's just I'm trying to get

this fucking cool shield or whatever this is what I keep talking about with Outwriters right that we started my Outriders play through on the stream and you're like I'll just skip everything to do it which I'm like okay yeah better content of course but now that I'm into it I'm like I got to start this game from scratch on my own and just with you know not talking to anybody because I even if the story isn't good and the acting isn't good

if I don't have that basis like why am I playing it And that's like, this is the Achilles heel of all these games, right? And I think, you know, to blessing your point of like you want to get into an MMO, like the problem is I think that for most people getting into an MMO has so many different if this than that's or, you know, if it has to have like, you know, the only MMO I've ever connected with and stuck around for an insane amount is DC Universe Online. And I don't know how that would drag you guys into it for a long term thing. Tim Gettys from kind of funny.com. Greg Miller, once again, I am loving this conversation. So we're going to pivot what the topic of the show is going to be to do. Pivot!

MMOs. And what could it could possibly do to get gentlemen like ourselves into them? But I'm going to talk about that after I talk about our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Honey. If I told you once, I've told you a thousand times. If you're not using Honey, you're missing out on free money. You can be saving so much money and you don't even need to be doing anything. All you do is install Honey once.

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God, if we, if I, if we lived alone and, like, it was like, if I was going to soundproof and it wasn't going to destroy everybody else, what I would say is we come back, and I'm on the ground screaming by computer crushing for terrible. That's how I would have been out of that aspect. I didn't think it'd be like this. Why did you curse me with this vision of the future? Bless, I want to hear about your history with MMO games. Oh, I have very little history.

Like, I played like RuneScape back in the day. And then, yeah, I tried out games like Final Fantasy 14. And then also I got very deeply into JTA online. But again, GTA online is that line where I'm like, I don't know if I'd call this an MMO. And I don't know if most people consider it an MMO. The only reason I bring it into the conversation is because it is this expansive multiplayer online game for an amount of time for me,

I spent so much time in because the whole appeal of it was that I can go through and just do whatever I want, whether it be racing, get into co-optitions, build up money, grind for that, grind up levels, do all that stuff that I associate with MMO-ish type gameplay, but in a game that was tailored toward me as a fan of GTA. The Final Fantasy thing, I think you touch on something that I think very much speaks to me in terms of when I hear about people talk about Final Fantasy 14 and hear about people talk about how great that game is. It is very much from the place of, yeah, there was this big reveal. Oh, yeah, the story moment here was awesome and all this different stuff that seems like it takes a lot of

investment and a lot of deep understanding of what's going on in the story and the world to actually get into. Whereas Destiny is another example of a game that I played. I played a probably about 80 to 90 hours of beat the Leviathan raid and was kind of like, cool, I beat the game. You know, I'm done here because even as they added more expansions, I never. really got that much into the story, even though I'd played that much of it. And the reason was, I was playing that with friends. And so I'd talk through the cutscenes. I'd, not, I'd, I'd, I'd jumped in in Destiny 2, so I didn't even know much about the previous game going in. And, like, I was just there to shoot stuff and, and play through these levels, which was really fun for me.

But not enough for me to get really invested. And I don't know. I think that, I think that's the big, that's been the big barrier for me is not, not, not feeling like I'm able to put in, I guess, the work to get into a story that deeply. Yeah. I mean, that really is a good way to put it. You have to put in the work to be able to have the reward actually be worth it and be the best thing ever. I want to do a little definitions here because MMO and MMO RPG and all that stuff.

Is MMO RPG still a thing or was that like a relic of an old time and now it's just MMO? I mean, that's what MMO is, right? They just dropped off saying an MMO RPG. But then like, so destiny, right? That's MMO. than GTA online When I think of When I like I think

Destiny started the world Shared World Shooter That was like that term Kind of got coined With Destiny Uh sort of becoming a thing or whatever Shared World Shooter started that I think of all these other games

It's just online multiplayer When I think of an MMO I think of Warcraft A World of Warcraft rather Of Final Fantasy It's like It has to be this thing

that you, I guess I'm always thinking of it in third person terms, right? You're always third person. You're leveling up. You're also crafting. You don't even necessarily have to progress. Sometimes you might just want to role play and be a person that crafts things for other people in the area. I think of it as being a top down sort of experience.

I don't really think of it in terms of like what would GTA be an MMO? To me, that's just like an online multiplayer game. Well, so what about like a Marvel Heroes? Marvel Heroes was, I would put into the Diablo sense. That's what that became, right? Online multiplayer. Yeah. And I think honestly, the conversation's interesting and fascinating.

And so I want to have it as we can gauge. But I would make the case that, you know, when I started at IGN, it was the beginning in 2007, 8, 9 of games bringing on RPG. elements and you going, oh, this game has RPG elements. Oh, it's an RPG light. You're doing this. You're leveling up. You're unlocking a skill tree. And now that's kind of just bled into action adventure games. And it's everywhere to an extent. I think MMO as obviously technology and online gaming has matured and changed. I think that's the same thing here where you can sit here and go when I say MMO. I, I of course think of DC, but I think of World Warcraft. I think of Final fantasy. I think of that kind of game when I look at it. But

I could think, you know, destiny, you know, infamously now that they're out of Activision. Luke Smith stopped shying away from saying MMO and calling their game that, right? Because even though it's not what I'm talking, when I think of EverQuest or when I think of, wow, when I think of Guild Wars, it's not that. It has so many elements of it that you could make the case it is. And so I think in this conversation I would include that. I would bring that in. I honestly think there's a chance kind of like, I don't know, like, you know, again, like I have Avengers

on the brain, first off, because I'm a broken person who can't get away from this game, but number two, like I'm doing the blessing show about it next week and next week we're getting a new content for it. I would go as far as I think you could make a case that they have a bunch of MMO elements involved with it, even though I would not say it's an MMO by any stress

to imagination. But that's again because of skill trees and level ups and powers and grinding and working on your gear and all this stuff that all sorts of games do and have crafting and this, that, and the other. But where do you draw those lines? anymore in a 2020 world where everything blurs together. But no, Marvel Heroes, I wouldn't have said as an MMO

R-MMO RPG, right? But it would be a Diablo game that is massive, you know, an online and has all the things that or has many of the parts you'd think about for an MMO. I don't know how this is possible, Greg, for as long as I've known you. Like, I've always associated you with both DC Universe Online and Marvel Heroes. And I thought they were the exact same type of game.

And I'm looking at a YouTube video of DC Universe Online right now, and I'm like, what the shit? How have I never seen gameplay of this? Please tell me you want to play tonight? You want to play tonight? No, I definitely don't. Definitely don't. You want to roll a lot more sense on you play in the game as much as you have now.

Sure, because that's the game that I made a Christmas lay for when I first interned. I interned at Sony when they were working on this game back before they changed the daybreak. And then I was there for two weeks interning in it. And after one week, they had massive layoffs. yeah I was just the I was just the intern sitting there like with a little bag of hot cheetos

when people were cleaning up their desks I was like, fuck making a slash, weird man but no I think you know that's one of the reasons to why DC was able to suck me in obviously the world and a million other things

but if it was just the world right why didn't uh fuck DC not infinite crisis what was that MOBA they made a moba they made a Moba.

Crisis? Oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about. There's a DC MOBA that I'm sure that chat will remember one of you will find while I talk about it. But like, I remember being like, oh, well, you know, infinite crisis. Infinite crisis, it was. I remember being like, you know, D.C. Universe Online sucked me into my first MMO, you know, in a true sense.

Maybe that'll happen here. And it was like, oh, no, I still don't like mobas. One of the things about DC Universe Online that I really appreciated. And now that I'm playing on a keyboard and mouse with the Old Republic that is, you know, there was like they were very uh uh proactive that like hey dc is going to be an action mMO meaning that like when you jump in there of course your your your button presses are responding in the moment you're making you're doing combos and punching on top of your special abilities on your hot hot bar but you're actually you know feeling to an extent that it is a third person action game

which something like old republic doesn't give me right because it is clicking and watching the thing play out and then you know you know going one two three one two three for as i just go through my powers and cycle and fight there or whatever. Whereas in a way DC didn't do that, it felt more like a third person action adventure than in an MMO world, which I'd never had before. Do you have that cool leaping lightsaber attack though? I was always quite.

I haven't unlocked it yet. No, I haven't allowed to. I will, I will. Don't worry about it, don't worry about it. And so yeah, I think that's, you know, again, where you start seeing bleeds and chains and changes and the definitions and terminologies and criteria for the genres grown

evolve into this conversation and where they go with it. Yeah. I remember my first Final Fantasy was Final Fantasy 10 and I was enamored by it totally loved it. And when they announced 11, I was like, this sounds crazy. It's an online game and I'm oh, I've never played one before. Like I'm so excited. I had to buy the network adapter for the PS2 and the hard drive for that one. And then I'll never forget hating it as much as I did. It was just like this is absolutely not what I'm looking for from Final Fantasy. And I just totally wrote it off. And so that's everything when 14 first came back. I was just like, there's not a chance I'm to play this, especially after not loving 13. And then it got horrible reviews. And I just like can't believe it turned around as much as it has. But like, that's kind of a luxury that these MMO games have when there is continued support. Like you tell me earlier that Star Wars, uh, old Republic still being supported.

Like that's awesome. That shows that there's, you know, all it takes is a community to be there and to be engaging with the game for the developers to be like, hey, we should keep on pushing this, you know. It was actually funny. It was funny, though, when they first started up the game, and Greg was in there. And I think Kevin was looking for Greg or Mike was looking for Greg. And one of them was like, hey, are you so-and-so? And then some random person in the game with them in their little realm was like, oh, I think you're looking for this person.

And they were referencing Greg because they're like, yeah, we just saw this new guy asking for something and where to find. a thing. Yeah, he went that way. Really? That's awesome. Yeah, because I shouted out. We were playing. It was Kevin. And we were shouting out because we didn't understand I was, you know, what server I had made my account on or whatever. So like, we were in there. And Kevin was like, what server are you on? I was like, I don't know. And I just put it in a chat. I'm like, what server are we on? And they were all like, you're on this one.

I'm like, thank you. And then Kevin shows up five minutes later. Have you seen this person? Yeah, she went that way. Thank you. Like, dude, that's, I mean, part of why MMOs are insane and awesome. it is that idea. That was always the thing that struck me, you know, about DC, you know, is, you know, my, what, 900 plus hours, probably even a thousand now of that game. Like, everyone was always so helpful. And it was a community. And it was, you know, running around the watchtower and people shouting out if they were looking for exobytes or looking for a group on this or needing a healer on that. And then when I would fall into groups or have people join ours, how awesome they were.

And the friendships I would start there. And, you know, the people who, even when it came back, when it came to switch this last time around, I remember going back and digging up like Trex Light, who was like somebody who had done a whole bunch of stuff with me back in the day and was like a big voice in the community, you know, here we are, Jesus, I'm getting loose with the math here, but it would have been like seven years later, six years later,

and Trex is still a big part of the community. And I went and watched his Twitch stream and popped up in chat. He was like, holy shit, hey, Greg. And it was like catching up about all the shit I had missed that was going on in this game. And if they were excited, brought it coming to Switch and so on and so forth. Like communities that build up,

around MMOs are there. And again, to what we're talking about earlier, of what defines an MMO, it's so cool to still see that right now with games that are online and service, or online services games, right? Of like the way that Fran is still synonymous with destiny. Today, you know, talking about Paragon coming back from the dead for all intents and purposes, right?

And like, immediately that's an Andrea Renee thing that you gotta talk to Andrew about. Like, it's cool that like there's the games that define all of us and what we are and who we play, but then also there's these communities that go on and that, you know, Fran can still be talking about Destiny this long and Fire Team Chat still can be a thing

in the same vein as a podcast beyond or whatever. It's so wild to me the idea that somebody can be so stuck on a video game like that. Like, I kind of envy that. I'm also glad I don't have that feeling so I could just feel free to play other video games or whatever. I mean, you kind of have that with Overwatch, right? Yeah, but, you know, Overwatch, you're constantly having to level up

and upgrade, or no, rather, Destiny, I'm sorry. Destiny, with Fran, I was going back because there's a brand new thing, and to always have that interest to go back and check out this brand new, you know, strike or this brand new piece of armor that's being dropped, and you have that. With Overwatch, Overwatch is such a casual experience, because you hop in and hop out for a couple matches and you're done. And that's what I love about Overwatch is that you do not have to be constantly looking to see what Zer is selling.

I don't even know if Zer is even in Destiny anymore, It's just been a while since I've been in that ecosystem. But I envy that about people like Fran, and I'm also glad I'm not like that, because I'd feel like I'd have to be stuck to that world so much, and they would sort of consume me, and I wouldn't be able to, or I wouldn't want to hop into other video games, where now, when I'm done with a game, I'm done with a game. Just like when Destiny has their big releases, I'll play it, and I'm done, and I don't feel the need to sort of stick around. And the sticking around part is always really interested me about those content, creators. I don't, I don't understand it. And I, again, I'm jealous and I'm glad I'm

that either. Eddie, did you ever play well? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um, wow. MMOs were a huge part of my life, sort of at the end of my high, at the end of high school going into college. Our friend, uh, of course, you always hear about Caesar and C.P. are like two of my best friends that I grew up with. Um, but their older brother Orley, who's also a really good friend of mine, I was always going to C.P.'s place over the weekend or whatever, and Orley would always be, he was an engineer student. So he was really, really smart dude. But when he wasn't working on stuff for college or whatever, he was playing wow. And he was playing wild like in 2003, 2004. And he would sit here at the table with his laptop. I just did not understand what he was doing. I would look and he'd be flying a little Griffin like, what is this game? And why are you always playing this fucking weird?

weird game. And honestly what got me into Wow was kind of falling in love with the Lord of the Rings series and once like the DVDs came out and just it was always on TV and I was like super into Lord of the Rings and all my friends and I were really into that fantasy world

that we all decided to download Wow and you know it was $15 a month I was what the fuck I got to pay for this is weird and we just got consumed by wow. We played the hell out of it. It was whenever those Twitter threads go around of what are your most memorable gaming moments, it's always a World of Warcraft moment

for me, where I just, I never understood the world was as big as it is and I'll never forget flying on my first mount and crossing over the burning steps and I'd be like, I'm changing biomes without even knowing that I didn't know that

there was anything over there. Like I didn't know there's anything past those mountains and I'm looking down and there's real players down there fighting dragon It's like, oh, fuck. I thought these were just like a cutscene kind of just to entertain you on the way while you're flying above this sort of lava area. It's always a World of Warcraft area that really blows me away because it was the first time I'd ever experience a massive multiplayer game like that. And just having all these random people and then getting attacked by the horde and having like other players invade you.

Like, oh shit, like it felt like so cool. This brand new experience I'd never had. And once we left the. Rio Grande Valley moved to Austin it was harder to afford wow for the first couple of months so to fight off our ability to to find off our ability to afford wow we got into Guild Wars and Guild Wars was free and it was not wow and we were so did we just wanted it to be wow and we were so disappointed by it and it was it was kind of a bummer but now we have Michael hi I'm here good we got Michael

motherfucker hey look at that haircut bless his setup Damn. It's just looking good. We had to get you in here because we can't just have a bunch of idiots sob about MMOs that they don't play them. You're here with Final Fantasy 14. You have spoken the gospel of all this. What I want to know is because we're discussing how much effort and time we actually need to put in for Final Fantasy 14 to be the rewarding experience that everyone online seems to make of it. All right.

So it gets good after about 40 hours. So y'all got 40 hours in your day. Set that aside. And then you'll get to the good stuff. No, but to be honest, it's... You have to understand that the time investment is going to pay off. I mean, that's the case with a lot of the games I play. Like, most JRPs are going to go on for about maybe like 100 hours.

Like, my favorite game of all time is Persona 5 Royal. That game is 120 hours, so I'm willing to spend the time to get that payoff. So I understand that it's not for everybody. but you should like you can you can expect that time to be worth it and the thing about final fantasy 14 is that it's for me the thing I care about most is storytelling and if you if I look back at my favorite games of all time my top 10 games it's all about strong storytelling and you wouldn't expect that from from an MMRP right like wow has its lore it has a deep lore but do people still kind of talk about like how certain moments impacted them maybe but when you talk to anybody about

final fantasy 14 the first thing they will tell you is that it's one of the best stories in the entire franchise but it works to that point because it's its strongest moments don't really work unless you put in the work because you see characters develop you see them take back their homelands or overcome institutions that have oppressed them for so long in the game's story. And then once you're able to conquer that and the emotional payoffs, those are the things that are going to stick with you

well after you play it. Like the end game content is dope. And I'll do like raids and high level raids and all that and bang my head against the wall to defeat like extreme. Team wipe. We've got to do team life guys. Everybody jump off. Let's die.

Squad wipes. Yeah. Hey, I'm familiar with that. But at the end of day, like you look at any conversations when it comes to Final Fantasy 14. It's all like everything that I've covered for that game has been based in story stuff. So it is kind of a unique thing. I played like Anarchy Online.

I've spent time with Wow. I played EverQuest well after it's time. But I enjoyed those, but I don't necessarily have fond memories of those. You asked me on my deathbed. I'll be like 85 years old. If I make it to 85, be like, yo, what final best 14 Shadowbringers? That shit was so dumb. Go to bed, Papa.

Go to bed. The last time, grandpa, you're not dying. It is wild, Malcolm, because I have like a dyslexia issue. And whenever I see Final Fantasy things being posted online by you or by other people, sort of mutual friends that we have, I always think it's a Final Fantasy 16 reveal. But it's always a Final Fantasy 14 reveal. And usually when it's one of these big story moments, people always say, holy shit, this person's back. I can't believe that. And I always assume it is a 16 announcement that I just.

just happened to miss like Tim why didn't we cover this shit and I realized oh this is 14 and that's when I realized damn people care about the story in 14 and I never had that feeling with any MMO that I ever played I think another thing too but maybe this is just like my bias in terms of storytelling style but it is I personally connect a lot with Japanese media and with Final Fantasy 14 being a Japanese game from Square Unix uh I think the storytelling style works for me as well because it's it is very emotional and it's has a lot to do with feelings you know what I'm saying it gets very personal at times because like I said you'll have the moments where these people who have been oppressed take back their homeland from their old pressers

like hell yeah let's fucking go and you'll have those moments but the damn colonizers dude yeah you take hey fuck colonizers you know what I'm saying you get a little bit of that but do you find yourself muting the discord a lot to not hear your friends so you could fully absorb the cutscenes? I play a lot of it solo actually. Okay. And that's one thing I tell folks, too, who want to get into it, who might have

multiplayer anxiety, because I know I do, especially for something as complex as an MMORPG, but you can play through most of the story moments solo, and you should, because you don't want to be like hanging around, but like, hey, did you get through the dialogue sequence? But like, no, I'm still

waiting and all that. But there are like boss fights and dungeons that you can just match, make into, or bring your friends along. And then after that, there's like a lot of exposition, but there's like cut scenes and just things happen in the game that you don't need people with you. And you probably shouldn't have people with you because it's me and that world of those characters. It's our time together. So that's those are the things I value most. That's always been one thing that's kind of turned me off with playing a sort of shared world shooter and trying to care about this. story is that I know that those things are happening to other players as well, not just me.

So I feel less special and less important in this story. It's a weird sort of feeling. I don't know. It's kind of a weird disconnection for me. Yeah. And one thing that you mentioned is feeling special in that world. And I think that the thing with wow is that you don't feel special in that world. And in Final Fantasy 14, you are the motherfucking warrior of light.

this is your show and it like you see a bunch of people running around of course and they're all the heroes in their own story but the i think it's the storytelling is so smart in a way that it makes sense that all these people are there but it also still puts you at the center of that and your companions at the center of that so um it it really at the end of the day like i experience it as a traditional jrpg that just so happens to be in the context of an memo and there are moments in which uses its premise as an MMORPG and leverages that for like storytelling that you wouldn't get in any other style of game. So it's just like, oh. I have one more question.

I have one more question. Have you ever, have you encountered any really important story beats that you have to play multiplayer? Yeah. I mean, there's the, there's boss fights and dungeons that are like those, especially like towards the end of each expansion or each, uh, oh yeah, each expansion.

Those dungeons are also part of those momentous story beats. Uh, but again, like you can, but you're playing alone. You're not with friends in a discord or, oh, yeah, I, for those,

oh, well, damn, that's a complicated question because they've also implemented a system in which you can bring AI companions for dungeons instead. And I actually like doing that because you bring the characters from the story. And also, I don't have to worry about disappointing, any real world people.

I mean, I'm pretty good at it, but I'm not that great at the game. So it kind of takes the pressure off. And also, it's like narrative, it just makes sense narratively. But I mean, there are multiplayer moments. And then like the community is very, at least in my experience,

the community has been very supportive. So if I go into a boss fight and like, hey, I don't know the mechanics. There's like, don't trip. Just watch out for this, watch for that. If you die, it's all good, no pressure. and so yeah you will have to do some multiplayer stuff but it's for the like the stuff that's story critical it's not prohibitively difficult got it i got two for you here one from the past one for the future

what's your experience with final fantasy 11 and what are your expectations for final fantasy 16 so i actually don't have any experience with final fantasy 11 so uh that's that on that cool i i i've kept up with it as like as I got more into 14 like oh what was 11 about so I do have some homies I play 14 with who still dabble in 11 I'm just like what's the word on 11 though even if it's not you like what are people still love it do are there people that think of 11 the way that the majority seem to care about 14 I think the the the folks who still have fond memories and still kind of dip into Final Fantasy 11 is because nostalgia factor but that's not to discredit what 11 is done because that has also been successful.

Like there's new story content like either that came out this year or last, I don't know what year is. But it is pretty wild. Like that's just been going on for 20 years and like boom, after 10 years like, yo, we got new story content. So there's, um, I'm probably not giving it enough credit. But that's also because I don't have any personal experience with it. Um, and your second question was about five. 10. Oh boy.

So final. Oh, boy. So final. So when audio listeners, he just backed up in his chair and just kind of like, he did the, he did the holy cross of the thing. Adios me, yo. So I was on with Tam and Lucy during the, because it was 16 was real during the state of play. And I got wild emotional. Y'all was like, the thing that did it for me is because the Final Fantasy 14 team is doing that game as well.

So as successful and as. popular. There's over 20 million players playing Final Fantasy 14. There's still a bit of like, among the fans, like, oh, well, that's the MMO. They either haven't played it or they don't have like a full grasp of what it is or what it does. So when I saw that it's Creative Business Unit 3, which is the very dry name for the team that works on 14, that has been working on 14. When I saw that, I had that moment like, oh shit, this is their time to kind of flex. on everyone and be like we've been the leaders of storytelling in the Final Fantasy franchise for many, many years.

We're going to do another mainline game and it's going to be kind of the, at least what we expect to be the traditional style of single player Final Fantasy. And then this is another chance for them to show them what they got. And I think that they have such, they've proved that they have such a diverse skill set with story-time because they can do the big-scale political drama and have this deep lore with a lot of different factions, entities, and major characters all playing a role, and then they have those revelatory moments to blow you away. And there are also writers on that team who can also tell very deep personal stories, and that is the kind of thing that hooks you into individual

characters. So they have so many strengths and I'm trusting them to knock it out of the part because they prove time and time again that they can. And that's the thing that excites me about 16. Some folks might look at it. Be like, they're going back to the traditional style like medieval fantasy and like maybe you fuck with that and that's cool. But I think the reason why some people are very like myself who are super enthusiastic about 16 and very hopeful for 16 to to be this this huge entry that's going to that that is going to be maybe recognized among the great modern final fantasies is because we know what the 14 team is capable of and I'm like naoki Yoshida who's he's producing that game he's the director of 14

but he's he's producer on 16 but him and that team they know what the fuck they're doing and I think that's why we are hopeful for 16 to be that entry that everyone's going to be like, yo, this shit's wild. That's cool. Last question I have for you before you, we let you go. And thank you very much for being part of this. Are you worried about the future of 14 if that team is working on 16? I don't know.

That's, that's an interesting thing that I think I'll probably have to ask next time. I get to talk to them because they periodically reach out to us for interviews and all that. I just, maybe someone does have the answer out there. Someone immediate probably does have the answer of how they're able to split that workload. But I think the interesting thing is that this upcoming expansion for 14 is kind of an end to a current story arc that has been going on since the start of Final Fantasy 4th. So I anticipate there being kind of a shift in like who is going to be taking care of 14 moving forward because they are going to be or what seems to be they're going to be working with a clean slate after this next expansion. Because they said, yo, this is this is the first time in this game that we're going to take the main story in a different direction. And maybe that's their way of handing it over to something else.

This is speculation, by the way. Yeah. And then maybe putting all their, because they've been spending so much time with 16. But again, I can't comment on how those teams are organized. But, I mean, if there's one thing that now- You could recklessly comment on it if you want. Go for it.

This is kind of funny, Michael, just so you know. Because, like, yo, yo, I know what it's like to, like, podcast. And also that's the thing that's in the headline of like, yo, game spot journalists. Michael Hyams. They're splitting two teams. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, relax, my guy. But yeah, that's definitely interesting thing.

The Tim G-Talel to show that. Oh, shit. That, goddamn. Hey, got to take that up with Tam. Damn. But yeah, it's the future of Final Fantasy 14 is, I think, more exciting than it has been before with seven remake, 14 going strong. 16 upcoming, like, boy, let's go.

Hell yeah, man. Well, Michael, thank you very much for joining us. This has been awesome. can people find you? Oh, I didn't know what I was guessing. You could find me in all of my bullshit at Michael P. Higham on Twitter. Also, peepgamespot.com, you know, the vibes, because all of my coworkers and friends are putting in a lot of work, putting in a lot of great work. Y'all knew who they are. And, yeah, also, hey, since this is an official game spot content, you know, peep my streams, you know, Twitch.com. TV slash brazy Asian. Oh, you're all the Fides if you want

I love the crazy, dude. I love the brazy, man. The area, baby, let's go. Oh, I got to wrap the set. But, you know, if you want original near play through them in the middle of that, Dave, X, Final Fantasy 14 streams, too, if you all want to watch some, some crazy. You want to watch me get white.

Yeah, so, but that's all I got. Thank you, y'all. Thank you, man. See you later. Love you, Michael. Hey, peace out. Love y'all, too. Take care.

You can have your boy back. I appreciate that. Did you say we could watch him get white? Yeah, but it might have been wiped. I don't know. Wipe? Right? I thought, I heard.

I don't know. This, it reminds me a lot of when, uh, when he's one of the coolest dudes in video games. I'm like, whatever. And I, I slacked this to Greg. It's no longer Andy, too. It's Greg and Michael Hyam. There you go. That's what you get for talking shit on Star Wars levels.

That's what you get. That's great to have you back. I expected you guys to share the mic or something, but will you just stand it off screen the whole time just nodding. No, I was in the living room to screwing through Twitter. Yeah, I was like, I'll just please do the rest of the episode for me. Bless, I'm about to make you do a lot of heavy lifting here in the post show where we're doing another episode of Bless who thank you all for joining us for this week of the Kind of Funny Games cast if you are at patreon.com slash kind of funny game supporter at the Silver

membership or above. Stay tuned for Bless Who in the Post show.