Triforce! - Triforce! #280: It's Time for New Things

Episode Date: March 7, 2024

Triforce! Episode 280! We've got a healthy dose of game chat with Balatro, Helldivers 2, Baldur's Gate 3 and My Recycling Centre while Flax gets ready for a work trip to Sweden! Go to http://auraframes.com/triforce to get up to $30 off Aura’s best-selling frames. Go to http://expressvpn.com/triforce today and get an extra 3 months free on a 1-year package! Support your favourite podcast on Patreon: https://bit.ly/2SMnzk6 Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pickaxe. And welcome back to the Triforce podcast. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Triforce podcast. Podcast. Wonderful to be here with you. So wonderful to have you here. We've been enjoying your company for many years now, but every time you come, it fills our hearts with joy. So sit down, take the weight off, and have a cup of tea. And we're going to inform you greatly about

all the happenings of the world with with fabulously informed opinions and zero gibberish yes as is our way the hottest of takes the hottest the coldest takes why does it sound like churchill we shall give them our hottest takes and our coldest. We shall give them takes on the beaches and in the fields and in the landing grounds. Yes, that is a perfect summary of this whole podcast. Yeah. Flax, you're going away soon, aren't you? I'm going away tomorrow, brother.

I will be away for just over two weeks in sveria in sweden oh to uh do dream league series 22 damn so yeah it's been going a long time um i think they they generally do like two a year so it's been going for okay just over 10 years um i i was there for the very very very first dream league season um way back in like 2013 i want to say um which was the sort of unnumbered one they called it the kickoff season and that was me bruno james and draskell and it was in a really tiny studio um but pretty much all those people that are that were in that studio have gone on to do greater things or move up in various companies or yes or still in esports so it's pretty crazy yeah wow they've done well for themselves yeah me too folks because you know i think you

time you know it's been a long time yeah it's been 12 years yeah like it's been a long time it goes without people have gone to different things haven't they some people are doing like different games some people are doing different levels of esports yeah it's a little bit like sometimes because you know some players who've sort of become coaches and stuff yeah or stayed in the industry and become casters or or now just streamers yeah it's an interesting it's interesting yeah because i've just been pretty much the same all the time a guy who doesn't really know what he's talking about uh and he's old and he's generally been the oldest person on the scene just sort of bumming around and enjoying things

and just being the voice of the everyman. Whereas, like you said, you've got people who were like TI winners and huge, you know, amazing players, and then they become casters or they become sitting on the sofa types. And yeah, it's like people have come and gone and I've just persisted like an old rock. Well, there's something stable about it, isn't there? I mean, we're the same.

Like, you know, we've carried on pretty much doing the same thing for a long time. Yeah. It is funny how you see some people sort of progress, right? You know, they get married, have kids, they change jobs, they're always doing something different, and, you know, they're advancing up. You know, they're sort of, I don't know their linkedin has got like a different job every two years you know and you can see them climbing this ladder right going from they're not they're not settling their their career focused their career minded um in a way that i've never wanted to be no i've never enjoyed i don't i i would i'm happily speaking for all

three of us here when i say we hate that shit like that is not the vibe of the triforce podcast is this career minded uh you know switch switching jobs and moving countries and all that we've all pretty much found a place settle down and enjoy doing what we're doing and god bless it i i think i consider myself these 12 years have been 12 the 12 best years of my life basically yeah an awful lot of fun traveling all over the kids have gotten older now to the point where you know it's fun going out with them and stuff so yeah yeah it's great been a good life oh i agree and that's that's the end of that's the end we'll see you all next week

probably not going to make it past today so it's been good it has been a good run um so just quickly i've been playing a game called balatro uh which is an indie game that came out very popular um and let me just describe it to you why i like it in particular okay uh you guys know i play poker i love poker i i've played poker for longer than i played dota this is like if you could cheat at poker and that was the whole point like that's the game so as a poker player getting five of a kind all of the same suit feels very good so it's basically this weird game like that right and i recommend it if you have any interesting card game yes the way it works is like you have

your 52 card deck and it's like a roguelike deck builder where you can take cards out add cards you can like upgrade the jacks and the queens of the kings to aces and things you've got all these different yeah um jokers you can you can sort of have which can let perk cards oh they're like the biggest part of it i'd say the joke it's. It's quite weird because you're sort of not... There's no boss. There's no enemy. You're not playing against anything. It's kind of you're trying to score high.

Yeah. And so it's quite thoughtful in that sense. I mean, the bosses will come along and say things like, right, you can't use hearts this round. And it's like, shit, my whole deck is built around hearts. So some of the bosses will just stop you dead. Or they'll just halve the value of everything that you've got. And you're sort of like, shit, my whole deck is built around hearts. So some of the bosses will just stop you dead. Or they'll just halve the value of everything that you've got. And you're still like, ah, shit.

So stuff like that is pretty damaging. But it's great. It's a great game. I'm also Helldivers 2. Apparently we're playing that this afternoon, Sid. Yeah, we are. Yeah, 2 o'clock, baby. Okay, sweet.

It's fun. I've been playing it a lot. It's got a nice... It's not like... I'm trying maybe okay sweet it's fun i've been playing it a lot it's got a nice uh it's not like i'm trying to think what it's like it is a little bit like uh that's just fun it's it you know what it's not overly complicated it's just a bit it's a bit wacky you know like there's lots of lots of really big abilities that you can kill all your friends with accidentally and there's like you know you can call down like gatling guns that will shred everybody up and there's these massive nukes that you can call down that you inevitably accidentally kill somebody with but you get about 15 lives

between your whole squad so it's it's all these little like there's all these little sort of like quick time uh like key combo things that you you call up from a menu to like drop all this stuff down including rezzing your fellow man who is who has perished and uh it's it's really punchy it's exciting it looks great it's got like really nice music you know um you start off in your ship and you dive down to do a mission and you've got like 30 minutes to do it so it's got like some like kind of like you know pve tarkov kind of vibes to it but it's all space marines sort of i mean i like the idea it's awesome not against people like i quite like the idea of just shooting yeah yeah i feel like this or whatever yeah this game kind of scratches that itch for me for sure

it's like it's not too sweaty you can play with three other people so it's really fun um you can you can play seriously if you want to or you can just fuck around and stuff it's it's neat yeah this is this is a sort of genre at the moment which it has been really it's the hot stuff isn't it four player co-op versus yeah and it's really easy to yeah hop in and hop out. It's not like Tarkov where you have to queue for 20 minutes to finally get into a game and then die and then wait and stuff. And you're not playing against players either.

There's always something to do. It's really quick, punchy. It's pretty casual in that it can- Well, it's AAA. I mean, I think it is unexpectedly a success, even though it's made by- Oh, it's unexpected. Yeah, no, they were not ready. Their servers were not ready for it.

No, but they never are these sort of games that are done by people like EA. You know, Palworld- Well, I mean, if you remember World of Warcraft when it first launched, it was the same. Palworld, Indie Game, made in Japan, not expected to be a success, but they just upscaled their servers as needed. They were like, well, we've got a server provider, we'll pay them as much as they need, right?

Whereas Helldivers, it's not like that. It's run by, you know, PlayStation or whoever. Oh, really? Yeah. And so, obviously, as a result, they're just being really stingy on paying for servers and really slow. And they've just, they did not expect this many concurrent players, apparently.

Which strikes me as very strange, because it's made by the biggest people in the world. This game could not be made by a bigger person. Really? Do you know what I mean? Who made it? Paul Bunyan? PlayStation. For PlayStation.

Someone will like that, dude. The guys that made Magicka back in the day make it, apparently. Oh, wow. And that's why you get all these cluster bombs and all these interesting ways to basically kill all your friends. Yeah, apparently. That's what I was told. Amazing.

I haven't actually fact-checked that, so I might just be looking like a bit of an a-hole right now. But yeah, that's what I heard. Let me fact-check it right now, in fact. Live on the podcast. Chris, you carry on chatting. I'll do that for you. I'll be your fact check.

Thanks so much. Listen, while I'm doing that, because I know Flax is not going to want to hear this, but Lewis, I feel like you'd be very interested in hearing this. I played an indie game this week as well. Probably the best indie game I've ever played in my life. And it's called My Recycling Center. And guess what? You create and run your own recycling center, and it's awesome.

Oh, this sounds great. Quick update. Sips is correct. This was the guys who made Magic. When I Google my recycling center, the first thing that comes up is Bristol City Council find and reuse your nearest rubbish. Yeah. And then BristolWasteCompany.co.uk.

So you open up- And then BristolWasteReuseAndRecycling. And then- The game. The game on stage. uk so you gotta you open up bristol waste reuse and recycle and then game the game you gotta label up all your bins and then people turn up with all their crap and you gotta sort it and you get paid money do you know how much you get paid for recycling one glass bottle in that game uh a hundred dollars 30 bucks wow so when somebody turns up with a with a car trunk full of loose

bottles your heart sinks because it's a fucking ball lake to get them all out of there because they don't they should put them in boxes or bags or something they don't they all just come loose you gotta pick them up one by one and put them in the glass disposal but it's huge money and you can eventually get compactors and shredders and oh man it's great it honestly like for i'm not even kidding when i say this like it i like for the like a foundation of a game that could potentially have like some stuff added to it it's pretty good it's like if you like that sort of thing expand your own recycling recycling sense yeah loading sorting and compacting the waste this does sound fun it is it's like that

simpsons clip where it's like uh lawn chores simulator and they have the VR helmets on. Yeah, it is that basically. Well, that's all games though. It is all games. Power wash simulator, mowing your lawn simulator. Like they're all great. All right. So hold on. Just play two months of farming simulator for fuck's sake. But we can get ahead of the curve here. What is a dull everyday task that we could just make a game and bosh the word simulator on and and we'll fucking clean up well looking after your kids um cleaning up your house but they've already got like house flipper simulator take your kids take your kids to school simulator take your kids to school simulator drive your kids to school simulator

you're just stuck in traffic for like an hour driving them. Yeah, you've got to find like the secret rat runs that you can take the back roads, you know, maybe you get them there on time but you damage your suspension going over speed bumps a little too quickly, that kind of stuff. Yeah. I guess all the chores as well, like washing up, filling and emptying the dishwasher. There's a couple of- Stay at home dad simying the dishwasher there's a stay-at-home dad sim yeah there's a stay-at-home dad sim there's a crime scene scene cleaner cleaner

simulator sorry i can't speak crime scene cleaner simulator yeah um there's this yeah cleanup detail that's existed for quite some time i'm talking really banal day-to-day shit running chores for old ladies that kind of shit. You know what I mean? Going to do some shopping. But the thing is, if it's in a game and there's some progression, it's fine, right? And the thing is, if you got paid like 600 bucks to do that in real life, you would do it, right? Like it would all of a sudden it would be like, holy crap, this is great.

All I got to do is go buy like a pack of worthers originals and like you know some soap powder or whatever 600 bucks you've got to get to the shop and get the stuff before they die yeah the progression and the economy in those games has to play a part in you wanting to do the right because it's like they're easy things to do but you know off the back of it you can kind of create an empire which you obviously can't really do in real life you're not going to really get an empire running off the back of well i suppose you could if you really tried but you know what i mean think of like like flack said you know helping an old lady cross the road or doing her shopping or something like that you know like i don't know

i guess it's just like it's a it's it's fantasy right it's not for everyone but i don't know i guess it's just like it's a it's it's fantasy right it's not for everyone but i don't know i find i find games like that kind of fun if you help when you help the old people the amount of money they gave you was not modern day like do you remember in the simpsons the way bart did all that work yeah and he got like a nickel here you go by two quarters and he's like two quarters two quarters goes now Bart you didn't say thank you I love that episode so much I have to spend it on penny whistles and moon pies I don't know though those games are pretty fun I played a couple of different games this week actually I sort of I finally kicked my uh my farming sim addiction and I played Tower.

Was it Thronefall? Thronefall. Oh, yeah. It's like a They Are Billions kind of little TD tower defense game. It's good. It was fun. I played that. And I've been playing one called News Tower, which is like sim tower, but you run a newspaper.

tower, which is like Sim Tower, but you run a newspaper. So you have to like send reporters out and you got to try to like combo stories to like, you know, get like, you know, more sales. You know, you got to put hot topics on the front page and, but then you have to organize your tower so that there's like a nice workflow and supplies and everything. It's pretty fun. I've been playing that. I watched, I was watching a couple of things. The True Detective, most recent series of True Detective finished. Yeah. And it was excellent.

I really, really, really enjoyed it. I recommend it. Yeah, we'll watch it. But there's a thing on Apple called Masters of the Air. I wanted to ask you guys about it. I don't want to do a review of it. It's meant to be really, really good. It's okay.

Yeah, it's okay. It's not as good as Band of Brothers. No. Band of Brothers is like a kind of a, you know... I like Band of Brothers the best out of Band of Brothers and the Pacific, but I still really like the Pacific for different reasons. Like, I just thought it was a bit grittier and I don't know. So, Masters of the Air is like...

There's two places. They're either on the base talking about how many lads they lost on the last mission, or they're in the air. So it's quite straightforward in that regard, because it just kind of is. That's the nature of what they did. But of all the jobs to have in World War II, you can be anything within, say, the British or the American military. What is the job you're choosing?

And it can't just be the lad back home doing recruitment i'm saying you've got to be somewhere over there and you've got to be doing something what job is the worst job do you think um oh which one is the worst well anything involving combat that would have to be the worst yeah but some of them i mean like if you're a mortar team yeah you're in danger you're a prime target people are always you know yeah but some of them i mean like if you're a mortar team yeah you're in danger you're a prime target people are always you know yeah but you're behind a bush that's the whole point yeah but they they're still in world war ii even that there are still ways for them to fuck you up they're gonna get the door this is old school i wouldn't want to be um i wouldn't

want to be anywhere close to the front line in a war if I could help it, whether that be on land, sea or air. They always say whether it's land, sea or air, G.I. Joe is there. Land, sea or air, Sips is not there. I will not be anywhere close to any of those theaters of war. I would like to just be at home doing the potatoes or, you know, whatever, like just not involved at all. Maybe I got bone spurs or something. I can't get involved. But yeah, I would try to find a way all. Maybe I got bone spurs or something. I can't get

involved. But yeah, I would try to find a way out of it. It's too much, man. I think it ruins your whole life too. Even if you survive and you come back, I don't think you're ever the same. You've just seen too much shit, you know, like it's, people come back and they've got these crippling addictions to like, you know, self-medication through alcohol or drug abuse or whatever, because they just can't handle what they've been through and the loss that they've witnessed and everything. Like, I just don't want that life, you know? Like, I don't want my mind poisoned by all that, you know?

So, like a chef then or something? Yeah, probably. Yeah. Yeah. Just make some really fucking banging souffles maybe like home for the boys could just do whatever the dad stuff is you know you could be the washing up guy yeah yeah clean laundry i used to when i was younger i used to think like oh maybe i'll join the army you know it'd be it'd be cool to like you know go be in uh you know like involved in the army or whatever and then when i

got like even just a little bit older i thought no there's no fucking way i do not want to do actually both of you'd be fine you'd be great you'd be dropping the uh the kids off at the front line yes have a lovely day okay guys yeah let me know how it gets on be careful yeah no i i'm going to, go and kill some Germans. I feel like- From what I could tell in the Masters of the Air, being a bomber crew seems to absolutely suck. Well yeah, well, the Catch-22, if you've ever read Catch-22, the book, is all about

how much it sucks to be in a bomber crew as well. It's awful. Oh, it's gotta be the fucking worst man because that's what i was thinking because the first of all you can't miss you everyone on the ground is completely focused on getting you out of the sky at all costs because your payload is just too devastating right they can't risk it so they are they are chucking explosive shrapnel up at you. They're trying to hit you directly. They're scrambling fighters up to intercept you. They got the search lights and everything. It's got to be the worst. It's got to be so nerve wracking. Like you must just be

crying and shitting and farting the whole time. Being the pilots and whatever, that's one thing, but the belly gunner seems to have the worst time of it god the little dome ball thing yeah though you you get so like it sucks too because you get probably get shot up a lot every run you go on and and inevitably one or two people just don't make it back but you're stuck with them in a flying coffin basically oh yeah until you get back and then you have to like scrape their guts off the inside of the plane and get it ready no it's true though like who the fuck would want to do that oh but i mean like oh i think everything could be horrific though like the true the the submarines are pretty bad oh my god don't even get me started the thing is at least with the

submarine you're fucking dead in an instant when things go wrong you know like with a with a bomber crew you're not necessarily like i said you know like you might you might be making it back with a submarine you're probably just fucking dead like there's a whole breach you're going i think my hot tip is always going to be is this your hot tip to survive war the chef be the chef everyone loves the chef you have access to the food i think everyone hates Mommy food, fucking hell, it's not gonna be great. No, but that's the point. You're making like- What about-

If you're making like gold out of shit, you know, people are giving you their shitty rations and you're adding a little bit of spice, you know, tasting it, like mixing it up, making it into soup and broth, like, you know, changing their everyday boring shit into slightly different shit. What about, uh, what about David- There's a game right there. You're like a wizard. David Schwimmer's job in Band of Brothers

would not be so bad. The training officer. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You can't have those jobs. You've got to be front line. But he does turn up to the European theatre at some point, doesn't he? Yeah, but I don't think he's in charge of a unit or anything.

He doesn't see combat or anything. He just sort of drives around on a jeep. Once it's all wound down, he goes over. Salutes's it fails to yeah yeah that's right they don't even well they outrank him because they get all the battlefield promotions don't they back home being a pussy yeah well i think that's why he's back home in the first place though because he because he wasn't he was a liability right yeah he was yeah on the battlefield and the men hated him that's right yeah he couldn't command properly right? Yeah, he was, yeah. On the battlefield. And the men hated him. That's right, yeah. He couldn't command properly, right?

I'd be a detested officer. I'd be dreadful at it. I'd be like, right, let's go this way. They'd all be going, what is he doing? I haven't got the gumption and the guts to be like, a guy that's like, right, follow me, and just charges into battle. I'd be like, I'll be back here directing things.

You lads go. Maybe I could have been a general or something. In the command tent. Back in the old tent days, you know, when if they did turn up, they'd be like, oh, sorry for troubling you, sir. You'd be like, that's all right, chaps. You get on about your business of war and you'd sort of drink tea and push things around on a board.

I wouldn't want to be in the front lines at all. I'd die in two seconds. Yeah, same. Terrifying. Same. Or even worse, I would survive and then I would just be fucking miserable for the rest of my life. So either way, you lose.

Well, I mean, there's loads of other like kind of loads of other sort of more interesting jobs, though, isn't there, around battlefield logistics? You know, you've got scouts and you've got you're going to get drone pilots now. You know, you've got artillery. I do. I want to be in charge of a munitions factory where only women work ladies ladies i know you miss your husbands but guess look who's right here that's right mr stud buffing himself you know it's like that sounds like that stockholm syndrome that you get when you work with somebody like if you work with somebody on an oil

rig and they're the only uh the only possible person that you could be attracted to you just become attracted to them sort of thing i think that's what would happen with all the ladies at the munitions factory there's no men around except for me so i win right like everybody would would fall in love with me that would be the best oh well the opposite or the opposite i mean the opposite would probably happen yeah just be like restraining orders left, right and center. I'd be chased out of the town. I'd lose my job. Tartan feathered in seconds.

Drawn and quartered. And yeah, it would be awful. There must be hundreds of different battlefield roles. Not just a miserable. But then again, I think just it's kind of inevitable that you're always at risk, you know? Even if you're in the backlines, you know, it's not safe. Not in, like, modern war. Or even World War II, you know? No, no, there's like drone strikes and stuff now, so nowhere's safe. It's like war

games now, right? Even if you have a backline job, you could potentially be targeted, you know? It's like, even if you have a backline job, you could potentially be targeted. I mean, it's monotonous and mundane as well, but at least it's not factory... I always think back to What Remains of Edith Finch, where one of the stories is about this guy who works in a fish factory, and he's just in front of him. You have to play the game of his day job, which is move fish into chopping machine and fish gets chopped in half get another one you don't mean like do that but it's so monotonous and so boring like he makes up this sort of fantasy world in his mind and so you're having to play both the fish chopping game with one hand and the fantasy world with the other hand and it's

kind of it's so cleverly done because it's almost like what what people do with their imagination yeah while they've got some because i think sometimes monotonous can also be um meditative right a lot of people do uh something like like painting warhammer models yeah repetitive stuff right a very a very tedious thing to do in principle um but actually quite relaxing. I'm not saying working in a fish-cutting head factory is relaxing. It probably is after a while. Oh yeah! You're just lobbing them off, like...

I'm not even saying it's good, I think doing repetitive things is terrible, generally. You know, I think you have to rotate and keep things new, but oh my god, that's what my whole life is about, but... Well, rotating. I think it's just... Yeah, I think... and keep things new but oh my god that's what my whole life is about but um well rotating i think i think it's just yeah i think that's yeah like like try to try to do stuff that's different you know try and make new experiences i'm all for that yeah you know before we continue i would just like to tell you about one of my favorite things in my house and that is my aura frame we absolutely

love it i have it set up on the breakfast bar where the kids have their breakfast and eat their dinners and it cycles through whatever pictures you've uploaded and get this, this is the best part, you can upload pictures to other people's AuraFrames and they can upload to yours. So you can share pictures with your family and friends. Can be a little risky so make sure you're careful about who you give access to your AuraFrame to but it is so much fun to see pictures that my mum's taken of the kids uploaded to the aura frame and she loves it when we upload pictures to hers and she sees new pictures of the girls so it is a fantastic thing i absolutely love the aura frame my wife loves the aura frame and we give them away presents

as well and now those people love them too right now you can save on the perfect gift that keeps on giving by visiting auraframes.com a-u-r-a frames.com for a limited time listeners can get 20 off their best-selling frame with the code triforce that's auraframes.com promo code triforce terms and conditions apply before we continue using the internet without express vpn is like forgetting to mute yourself on discord oh and everyone hearing you trash talking uh your friends my worst nightmare happens all the time it happens all the time it might just be a bit of harmless banter but what happens if your boss overhears you talking about his receding hairline so yes your internet provider or whoever owns your wi-fi network can see every single website you visit incognito mode won't protect you your

activity is totally exposed so you should definitely use a vpn i do period does i do expressvpn sends all your traffic through a secure encrypted server so people can't peep on your online activity. It's very simple to use. You can just fire up the app and click one button. It works on phones, laptops. You can even put it on your router. I personally use ExpressVPN. It does make me feel more comfortable online and more private.

So yes, look after yourself and protect yourself today by visiting expressvpn.com slash triforce. E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash triforce and you can get an extra three months for free. Do it now! Do it now! Do it now! You know what? I was listening to the radio the other day.

Often when I'm driving, if it's a short drive, I'll just stick the fucking radio on. Even though it's half adverts. Man, I've been listening to a lot of Radio 2 in the car recently, and I've actually kind of enjoyed it. Yeah, it's not bad. It's not bad at all. It's like a potluck, like you just sort of, you don't know what's gonna come out of everything.

But so I'm listening the other day, this ad comes on for Southeastern Rail, alright? So anyone out there that has to use Southeastern trains, I am so sorry. So the ad comes on. It's this upbeat jingle with music, like sort of like, and this girl comes on and she's like, hi, we're from Southeast Rail. And she's like talking about it. She goes, blah, blah, blah. And we'll be putting the prices up by 25%. Andy, it's another reason to buy. Southeast Rail, your favorite provider. I'm like, hold on, hold on. Did you just tuck the price increase into this advert, this jolly jingle? Because they probably have to inform people, by the way, the price is going up, so they can't complain. But Southeast Rail fucking

stinks. And they're still putting the fucking price up. And it's not by like a quid. It's a lot. And lately, I want you to ask anyone who has to take a train, anyone listening to this, maybe you're on a train right now, or you use the train regularly. I want to hear your worst train travel stories, because I've had a few from friends of mine, including, and this must be new. I do not remember this being a common thing a few years ago. You get on the train, it's your train. It is going to your station. And as it's trundling along, an announcement comes on saying, hello, just to inform you,

we will no longer be calling at Frimshaw Station. The nearest station is Quiverhaven. And you're like, what? You wouldn't mean you're not stopping. They just whiz through your station and stop at this other place. A friend of mine the other day got this announcement. We're not going to be stopping your station. We're

going to be stopping here. It's not far away. And he thinks, fuck me, whatever. And then they announced after five minutes, we're not stopping there either. Now, first of all, anyone who knows why they do this, defeat my conspiracy theory on this, OK? I reckon that in order to meet some target of delays and being on time and shit like that. Sometimes if they just drop a few stations out, they'll make up the time and then they can say we left our station and arrived at our destination on time and slip under some government statistic gathering thing. That must be, there's no reason for them to say when you're on the train, we ain't stopping there. Also, even weirder, I was at a platform the other day.

I'd booked a train. I was at Clapham Junction to pick up this train on the way from Waterloo all the way down to Salisbury. And... Winchester, sorry. And the board shows this train is not stopping at Clapham Junction when my mates get on it at Waterloo. They're on it ahead of me.

They're like, according to the fucking thing and the announcement, this isn't stopping at Clapham. I'm like, well, it fucking better do because it's on the board here so it made like a secret stop at clapham to pick up a bunch of people it didn't tell anyone it's going to stop at clapham what is going on with the trains how are they putting the price up how the fuck are they putting the price the worst thing i think is when you're on a train and you're like this train separates. The first four carriages are going to Wadham, Twattingham and Postman Green. And you're like, oh, I don't think I'm going to any of them.

And the next is the back four carriages. And it's you are in carriage H. Right. How does that help me? Am I in the front four or the back four? Because you guarantee there's an A to H on this train? Like, what if you've just gone A, D, how am i meant to know i know it's nonsense and uh you know i'm always like and i you always sort of look around and everyone else is like on their

phones or with the headphones on they all just seem like to know exactly where they're going like this is normal for them that there's like a train that breaks in half you know yeah like half of the train sort of overtakes the other one i'm just not sure if it's going to be some sort of wacky racist situation or whether you know it's incredible and the price of these tickets now has reached the point where it is it is inconscionable so hang on it sucks is what i've got a story for you I read this week. This is a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. Yeah.

Okay. A Delta flight. An hour into takeoff, some of the passengers started noticing there were maggots falling onto them. Okay. That's disgusting. From one of the overhead lockers. And so it turned out that one passenger had brought on the rotting fish no okay in his suitcase the maggots had like wriggled out of the packaging of this rotten

fish and were like falling out of the suitcase falling onto people uh why why did this guy have rotten fish in his luggage i i have no idea um but it turned around went back landed good god uh and they they apparently it was destroyed uh however all passengers on the flight were given as compensation 8 000 air miles hotel room comp and a 30 meal ticket um so you know but hopefully it wasn't fish you know because i don't think they could stomach that but yeah like what that's a bad flight to be on right that stinks that's a stinker to be on for sure that is a stinker i can understand this though you know more people are like you know having weird pets that eat maggots and you could you order insects and things on on amazon

you could just get deliveries of live bugs to feed your lizards. Really? Yeah, I could order you some crickets right now, live ones, if you wanted them. They'd be here tomorrow. Oh yeah, for your pet snakes and stuff. Yeah, and you can get all sorts of gross things. You can get frozen dead mice as well, if you want. I mean, I've never seen, on the very long list of things you're not allowed to bring

through to, in your hand luggage, I've never seen live maggots on that list. No. No, usually you're not allowed to really bring anything like that on the plane. Maybe I've just glanced over that because I've never considered. Have you ever seen the border control Australia? There's always somebody trying to bring that shit into Australia. But also, they're always Chinese. No offense to any Chinese people out there, I'm just saying.

It seems like there is a big thing with Chinese people going to Australia- Hey, look, you got a ton of raw meat in your suitcase. What's up with this? Um, I've never seen that meat before in my life. What are you talking about? I think it's just because they they don't trust the food or they got dietary requirements or they think they want to have their right they want to bring their own yeah i guess that's a big thing like you you

travel to to somewhere like australia and maybe you're like shit i don't know what the food's going to be like here i'm gonna is it just going to be tarantulas and scorpions just going to be kangaroo yeah well australia weirdly though australia one of these places that actually would be fairly independent as a food producer right you'd imagine they've got a lot of land yeah i guess but how much of it is arable i i imagine they make quite a lot of beef at least on the old arable land australia i reckon it's i reckon they're a food surplus nation, generally, right? Probably? 4% of their land is arable.

I'm gonna say very much. The UK arable land. I love this, the sort of weird fact check. Yeah, we gotta do our fact checking. But they have these massive cattle ranches, don't they, in Australia? Although I don't know how many actually- So we have 18 million hectares.'s a lot in the uk apparently australia has oh this would take me some some work to figure out how much farmland is in australia so australia has

427 million hectares i wonder what the u.s has they gotta have TONS of- Australian agriculture accounts for 55% of Australian land use. That's including timber production, so they have a lot of fucking land. You know how much the US makes by exporting corn every year? Like billions. 17 billion dollars. It's fucking nuts, and most of it's to China. I guess they can't grow it there, but they need it for livestock, they buy tons of it. Oh, the US corn exports in 2021 were 18 billion dollars, that was not far!

There you go. Yeah, exports to China were 5 billion. It's fucking wild, eh? What are they doing with the corn over there? Well, they use it for livestock, they feed it to livestock. But they can't grow corn in China? Well, no, apparently not. I guess the climate's just not agreeable, or they just don't have the right... I mean, you can fucking grow corn here.

Set up. You can grow it here. You can grow it in China. Yeah, you can, but I guess it's just like, I don't know, maybe there's just more space for it to grow in America, and like, I don't know. I don't know what the... I assume it's just cheaper. It's probably cheaper. That's why. I don't know what the- I assume it's just cheaper.

It's probably cheaper. That's why. I got another question for you. It's cheaper to import from America than to grow. That's how the whole economy works. Right, but there's also something else to it. And I could be wrong about this, but I read a book about economics a long time ago and this stuck in my mind. And whether it's been twisted or not, I don't know. Write into us if you're an economics student. Or you know how to say economics. Or you know how to say economics. Yes. Write in. if you're an economics student. Or you don't have to say it in words. Or you know how to say economics.

Yes. Write in. So as I understand it, and again, this could be wrong, when you have exports to a country, like China obviously exports a lot to the US, they get paid in dollar-y dues, right? They need to buy some- That's the Australian dollar. That is the Australian. So the American dollar is obviously different. Dollar-y dues is Australian, yeah. Sorry. So, they get paid in dollars-

Cold hard bucks is the currency in America. Greenbacks! Greenbacks, yeah! So you need to buy something with that money, otherwise you can't really do as much with it as you'd like. Because like, if we buy stuff from France, we give them pounds, and they buy stuff from us, they give us euros, we then need to use that to buy shit from other countries. So if you're selling a shitload of stuff to the US and getting dollars in return, you're

gonna buy shit with those dollars, and you may as well buy them from the US. So buy corn from there, it all works out. And I guess it comes towards balancing your import-export shit. It's not like a barter system, though. It's not like, oh, we got all these fucking euros sitting around, what are we gonna spend it on? They've got a lot of wine, let's buy wine. That's not how a barter system though it's not like oh we got all these fucking euros sitting around what are we gonna spend it on they've got a lot of wine let's buy wine yeah that's not how it works why not well because people just buy what they need and what's the cheapest people yeah there's a lot of different companies and stuff everything's organized chaos and everyone's government isn't saying we're buying seven billion we want a seven billion

dollar order of corn and and we're ready to receive the corn. We've got the money. It might be a government-owned company, if it's China, who actually is buying it, but mostly, yeah, it's just people satisfying needs. It's like, this thing makes us money, people want this thing, we can make money if we sell them this, therefore, where do we get it it where's the cheapest place to get it and then that's just what happens year after year after year um and so that's why farmers are like well you know this

thing the price of this corn is more expensive so i guess we're gonna go grow corn again you know i think it's all micro decisions right um and people kind of betting a little bit on the future as well because the farmers i guess have to like kind of bet or gamble, like what's going to be good next year? Well, most of them- What's the hot new thing? For farmers, yeah, there is. But for farmers, they're selling it to like, you know, like in the UK, you're selling your grains to a grain merchant, right?

They kind of act as like a wholesaler, so they will go on to then say, deal with, you know, like an international. Fucking big grain strikes again. An international company or whatever. But like the farmers themselves don't have to think much past, you know, how much per ton can I sell of this crop? Okay, I'm going to grow this one because it's more money. You know what I mean? Like they know that they can sell it because these these merchants will always buy it they're they buy it all up and then they just sell it on to whoever is is buying it in bigger bigger quantities you know what i mean yeah i think the

average size of a farm in the uk is like uh 200 acres or something like that so yeah how big is an acre um i can't remember. Pretty big. It's quite big, I think it's a couple kilometers squared, I think? I think an average country garden is probably like a quarter of an acre. An acre is... An average garden. ...about the size of the inside of the baseball diamond.

Right, so maybe not even a kilometer. No, sorry, so it's like, from the home plate to the edge of the running track, sort of, so it's- Oh right, like the- okay, so it's nowhere near a kilometre. So not the diamond between the bases, but if you include the infield area, that sort of dirt area, it's like half there. I think a hectare is a couple of acres, and therefore probably like, you know, a kilometre or something.

So, one acre, this is, I love it when they put things in these kind of, one acre is 0.43 baseball fields. Right. Okay. So 208 feet on a side. Right. 208.7 feet on a side, which of course- And then what's a hectare?

One hectare is one billion acres. No, okay. What? It's one hectare, according to this, is very simply 100 meters on a side. That's a hectare. It's two and a half acres. Two and a half acres. One hectare is one hundred metres on a side, is one hectare.

Apparently. Right, okay. That's in the metric system. So how many baseball fields? That's equivalent to 2.47 acres in the British imperial system. Yeah. Oh, I see. So on average, a British farm is comparatively pretty small.

Like, if you watch Clarkson's farm, he's got a thousand acres, which is, you know, four or five times the size of an average UK farm. But his farm is quite big. And even then, his farm is quite big. He doesn't necessarily use all of it. And, you know, he gets big enough harvests, but he doesn't get big enough harvests to, say, fill up a container and send it to China. You know what I mean?

Like, he's just got to sell it to a grain merchant or a mill or something. Of course they will, because they're buying in from everywhere. It's the same over here with potatoes. You look at the average size of a field over here they're tiny most of them are like on hillsides and stuff um but then you've sorry you've been playing farming scene for the last two months yes i've just realized yeah but you didn't but all these potatoes then um kind of go to like one central place like there's there's one big farm they're kind of like a conglomerate and they have sorting packing everything you know so like most of the farmers over here will just sell their

potatoes to them and then they will then do then they will package them off and send them to the uk to you know wherever sainsbury's or waitrose or whatever yeah and they will make their money on top of it right like to pay for all the millions of pounds worth of equipment and and other shit that they that there is a push to like kind of thanks not thanks to clarkson but due to something part to clarkson to sort of try and encourage more local farm shops and local selling yeah and people people who i think people are more aware of the things they're growing but i I think the reality is often that Clarkson did one field of potatoes. He sold like 1% of it in his farm shop. And he had an unbelievable amount of a completely weird system where people are still driving from the entire UK to come to this tiny farm shop.

Yeah, but he's very influential. They love Clarkson, isn't he? Yeah, of course. They're going to go and go to his shop, his restaurant. he's very influential. They love carts and everything. Yeah, of course. They're gonna go and go to his shop, his restaurant, everything. But it's such a weird microcosm, right? The reality is that you can't- so many of these systems aren't built for just the people in the local area eating the potatoes that grow on this farm, you know? You've gotta get it into the cities, where that's where all the people are. Yeah.

By the way, you're going to- did you said you were going to Lulea in Sweden. Lulea? No, he said he was going to like Sve- Sve- Svea is Swedish for Sweden. Sveastage. I'm going to fucking Stockholm, bud. What's the weather like there? Oh, you guys are going to Stockholm.

Stockholm, where it's probably four degrees. It's three degrees. Yeah, it's going to be cold. Oh, I love Stockholm, man. The last time I went, it's such a nice city, isn't it? Yeah, I love it. It's still going to be cold in Stockholm. Yeah, it's going to be cold as fuck.

The key is to wear a coat, a hat, and gloves. Yes. And be able to go to the beach. Yeah. I love Stockholm, man. Last time I went, it's such a nice city, isn't it? Yeah, I love it. It's still going to be cold. It's going to be cold as fuck. The key is to wear a coat, a hat, and gloves. Yes. And thermal underwear, which I do have. If you ever, if you ever, little travel tip, go to Sweden.

Stock up on their shit there for staying warm, and you will never be cold again. I'm sure the same is true if you go to any cold country. Yeah. You want gloves. You want hats. You want coats. You want hats. You want coats. You want thermal underwear. You can get it all there because they have to fucking buy it all the time.

They do. They need that shit all the time. They know what they're doing. Why don't you try it out, Mr. I want new experiences? Why don't you go get yourself some long johns and hit up Sweden? Don't go to Stockholm, though, this time. Why don't you go out and check out some of those cool forests where they use those fucking crazy king scorpions to cut down all the trees in like two seconds.

Give us some news. Give us blooners news. Lego doing a collaboration with Dungeons and Dragons. Oh, nice. Finally. God, I've been waiting. That is hype. That's pretty exciting, isn't it?

Yeah. Like, I'm not being funny, but if you could have terrain for miniatures like there was Lego, that's fucking gold right there. Well, here's what they need to do is like you can build whatever scenery you want in Lego and then you've got all the miniatures. You got the wizards and the orcs and this is the most obvious crossover that's ever been. Why hasn't this been a thing already?

That's incredible. You can build anything. It's like the most customizable terrain imaginable and characters yes exactly it's all the minifigs you can make your minifig look like you and yes whatever you want oh my god change its gear easily that sounds so cool one thing they need to do is to put hexes on the terrain that would be hype if i could get on the on the basic floor plan like you know dungeon floor and it comes on like a tile with hexes because that way you could still you know and if the little holes some like you know what i mean if it's sort of if the hexes were aligned in such a way that you could still count distances and hexes that there you go i don't think hexagons and lego are really good friends

they're very blocky oh lexicon okay keep keep working on that yeah lexigo we'll figure that one out there was a twitch streamer streamed in public this week and uh in london yeah and he was a he was aggressively attacked uh in a heated altercation this is about the chinese communist party isn't it i don't know so is this the guy that was playing the piano i think no oh because that was a different one wait so what happened he was streaming in london and somebody attacked him he was streamed okay so he was streaming there's a lot of content creators who are streaming live now, and people in public don't really like it. No.

With good reason. Because I personally think, if your day job is IRL streamer, and you're, you know, just- Hitting the streets. It's pretty obnoxious seeing them out and about. But also, it's kind of like, you know, if you're filming other people as well,

or like, you know. Or even accidentally filming them. Or like any of these channels that sort of make their money by talking to random strangers or approaching strangers or pranking them in some way,

you know, unless it's actually funny. So I don't agree with going up and fucking with people in public. I don't think that's ever cool. No. But if you're IRL streaming in a public place

and people have a problem with that, they can get fucked. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is. You have no expectation of privacy in public. Now, if people are in your face, you're like, please fuck off. And they keep bothering you. I understand.

What about those people who film themselves at the gym and then somebody comes in to use the gym and they're like, sorry, can you not use that i'm filming and then the other guys that's bullshit obviously well i need to work out they give they give every they give everyone a bad name people like that yeah i mean you i don't know if they're a type though do you think that that just happens you know like you you happily go to the gym and record yourself working out at the gym 99 times,

and then the hundredth time there's like an altercation with somebody? I don't know. Or do you think this is a regular occurrence for these people? Because they just think that they- I think there are a couple of different kinds. They are the only people in the universe and therefore- No, I think there are a couple. I mean, you've got people who want altercation because that gets views. I suppose, yeah.

And there are people that will, I mean, I've seen people will do this thing where they, oh, sorry, no, I'm trying to film. I'm using that. And they're like, you weren't using it. And they're like, yeah, but I'm going to in a minute. It's part of my filming. That can fuck off. Yeah. Also, a gym, whilst you are essentially visible to anyone else in the gym, it's not

a public place. They can tell you to fuck off. It's a business. But if I'm in the street and I'm filming myself or, you know, anyone else in the street, they don't have, they can't complain. It's a public place. Yeah. Well, exactly. I think this is it. Like these, these, these,

you're welcome to go ahead and stream outside and walk around and that, that, that be your job and your livelihood. Right. But like any job where your job is walking around outside, you have to kind of be aware of your surroundings that other people live in this world it's not just you like if someone like he tweeted this thing if someone tries to touch you or break your streaming gear you're just meant to run away or let them do it i'm like well what that's what real life is like you know like if someone else like come and comes down into the street you've got two choices right like i guess you could your third option is

fight back like but i mean what what's what's the yeah there's really no specific laws about uh live streaming yourself in the street like that with oh they treat us differently that no the rules are very simple if you're in a public place anything you can see from that public place counts as beyond privacy like if you're in your house and i anything you can see from that public place counts as beyond privacy. Like if you're in your house and I'm outside filming myself and I can see you through the window, I could do that camera or not. Close the curtains, put blinds in. If you want actual privacy in your home, you can have that. But for example, if I'm sitting in my window, downstairs, someone walks past and sees me i

can't say that's the invasion of privacy hold on he's crying i'm joking that's an invasion privacy you can't say that if they have to go and peek specifically that's different but anything that you can see from a public place or in public is by definition excluded from anything to do with privacy that's just the way it is. And people really misunderstand this all the time. And think about this. What is the major difference, do you think, between me being out in public and looking at someone and me being out in public and then filming me? Why does that trigger people so much? Stop filming me. So what do you think I'm going to do? Edit it to make you look stupid like what what you know if i fuck with people in a public setting that's different and people are rightly going to say can

you please stop fucking pranking me and leave me alone and you might well have have a decent complaint there but if someone's filming and you just happen to be in the background you can't fucking complain about that you're in public if they're unless they're doing some weird like filming up your skirt or something in which case that is against the the law. You have no expectation of privacy in a public place. I guess you're right. It works both ways, right? You're in public, which means everyone is. I don't know.

It feels weird, doesn't it, that there's this trend of live stream people getting into these altercations in public because well that's what you're gonna get like they want to do it as well if you want to do this if you want to go viral start a twitch stream walk around some shitty area and you know look vulnerable yeah and be like oh my god i can't believe it goes yeah that's what you came here for it's like people that go and that's what happens when you're outside yes a lot A lot of this YouTube shit, it was a few years ago, is inherently quite racist as well. In fact, not even quite. Openly. Like, we went to the

ghetto and pranked people, and they'll go up and like stamp on people's trainers and shit, get beaten up, and get like several million views on their video. And by the ghetto, what they mean is they're going to go to a black neighbourhood, and fuck with people there, and get beaten up, and then post about it, and it's like, it gets views. That's despicable. And I'm sure that they're going to go to a black neighborhood and fuck with people there and get beaten up and then post about it. And it's like it gets views. That's despicable.

And I'm sure that they're breaking some kind of common law or something like that. I'm not saying it's like a federal offense, but I'm pretty sure that if you tried to press charges, people would be like, no, like, what the fuck? You can't stamp on people and then claim it's just a prank, bro. Like that's, you're going to lose that case, I'm pretty sure. So, okay- If I'm just filming, you can't complain. Here's something Mr. Beast did this week. I thought you were gonna say Mr. Bean.

This is something that Mr. Bean has done this week. He's got his own- Hot news! He's got his own line of candy bars. Oh, candy bars! He's got his own line of what, sorry? Chocolate bars. Oh, chocolate! Mr right mr beast bars which i'm sure are uh definitely sustainably sourced and all that crap um and inside every one there's a million

pounds but so i always am like surprised by the weird stuff he does, but he went to actual Walmarts to see if his chocolate was there. And when it wasn't, he went and talked to the people at Walmart and he went into the back and he found a box and he brought them out and he stacked them on the shelves himself, right? As a stunt, I imagine, right? But having the gall to do that, right? right but like having the gall to do that right kind of like and thinking like it's thinking around like what would make a weird video tweet something viral something that like people will talk about like like just pushing it to the pushing it a bit too far you know he he spent a

whole day driving around different walmarts to see whether or not his chocolate bars are on the shelves that's quite funny and if they are if they're not going in the back or giving them a box do you mean on the shelves so i don't know if you guys have seen this but people complain a lot about someone like mr beast obviously he's very prominent and i saw a complaint the other day about him where someone was saying oh i fucking hate his stuff because as soon as it's popular that's all you see is other people posting this same kind of baity content. Like it's some new thing.

But this has been the case in television, radio, movies. Someone puts out something successful. They're the first to do it. It's a success. And then everyone copies that person. Like that's not their fault. I don't watch his content. I've got to say it doesn't feel marketed at me.

I don't really enjoy those kind of videos. but I don't like hate the fact that they're popular because at least it's original and creative. And if other people are copying it and that winds you up, just don't watch those copies either. Like I know it's tedious and annoying and it's all click-baity stuff, but I never see these videos popping up on my feed. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah i know that's because it's not but the reason i thought this was article was because it's sort of i i know there's this thing called like stealth signing right where if you're an artist or a writer and

you've you go into like simon clark did it with his book in um you know going into waterstones he like sees that his book's on the shelf he gets off the shelf signs it puts it back you know that's that's fine right but i mean it's not so much stealth siding as he's telling people he's doing it so tweeting about it do you mean it's kind of like a little publicity thing as well yeah in a sense right um no i don't actually know if simon clark did actually tweet about it do it publicly i'm just using him as an example but i think do you mean i don't know who you mean do you see i mean i feel like who are you talking about dr simon clark dr simon clark thank you sorry phd is his proper name and maybe if but i think like that there is this general idea of the internet

that you're like it's just it has things have to be stunts right and you can be very everything is like everything is a stunt like i was thinking today one of the reasons why all this gate three also games that came before it in a sense have have been successful is because there's so much in borders gate three right there's so much love and so much attention to be put into all of these side quests and side missions and options and oh you know you can do this oh you can fuck the bear all these all these things all those little tiny bits have all made tiktoks and youtube shorts and fed into the infrastructure that we have um to promote things these days right and obviously you had to get to a certain level of success before it you know these really the snowball started rolling but i feel like

with a game like that with so much stuff that's that most of the audience will never see you know it's like did you know you could do this and i think if they look at the stats like only a tiny percentage of people who have actually saw that or made those choices to see this discovery right but all that just sort of it's it's all clickbaity things it's like oh what if you what if you talk to this guy after killing their family it's like you know like this this stuff is so yeah virally exciting right it's like it's stuff that i want to you know it's stuff like oh i've played this game and i didn't um see that bit right but i think it all derives it right and you like sometimes it's like advertising for the game as well like you'll click on a thing and you'll be like oh oh this is cool that you could do this in this game and then you know it just

feeds in to the whole thing right so i guess what i'm saying is games like this back in the day like fallout new vegas used to do this right and and and put in all of these little secret like kind of not not secrets necessarily but options for players that they didn't expect would ever cater for a large group of the proportion of people playing right it's like what's the small off chance that some crazy lunatic does all of these series of events we've still put a voice line in for it or some reward or some reaction or something right like it's like how much of that by the, do you think is them sitting down and literally thinking, right, what are all the options from this decision?

They must have some vast design document where it's just like a branching tree of all the different things that, okay, if they kill this guy, we know that he's in all of these other things, so we need to change all of those lines so that they reflect what happened to this one character back here or do you think it was just in play testing every time it came up someone was like you know there's a line here that references so and so but i killed him so why does it you're like all right yeah make a note with that like you think they literally planned this out meticulously i think it's the first one. You think they literally planned this out meticulously? I think it's meticulous, yeah. Because I think otherwise some of this stuff wouldn't have even been in.

Because otherwise they just think, oh, this is so much faff. Let's just have all of these joined together. Or just not bother. But I think it's a design choice. But I think it serves them well in the modern climate. No, I agree. I went to a birthday party on Saturday. I'm getting to that age now where

I'm going to 50th birthday parties, which is what I did. Nice. And it was great. I hadn't seen the birthday girl in a while. It was great to see her. Oh, hey! Oh, hello! We've got lawn bowls to start with and then a nice

sit down for the rest of the party it was great it was really great uh and i saw a friend of mine there i was at school with him like i've known him since we were like like you shared your medical complaints that is a big thing actually like one of the um the the birthday girl's boyfriend had a busted knee like there were a lot of people with bad backs you know it's like we're just getting to that age and everybody talking about their kids and stuff but um he he doesn't really have much time for games my friend um because he's got a young young baby and all the rest of it but he was like he asked on facebook can anyone recommend any games and i recommended boulders

gate 3 because i used to play dnd with him years ago uh and he loved it like he's still on act one he's only playing it a bit at a time but every time he plays it he's like i fucking love this game and i think it's one of those games that if you've done any kind of role playing or any games like that doesn't matter like that if you have it'll make you love it because you think oh this is so perfect but i know people haven't even played really many games when they played boulder's they loved it. Do you think it's just because it's so slick and fun or because it really does, because of the voice acting and everything,

you really do feel like you're in another world? I think the game is good. I mean, there's an element of feeling like you're in the world for sure. Yeah, the immersion element is definitely a big part of it. I don't know if the immersion is like a big seller for me like like if i if i'm playing a game like balder's gate 3 i like to know that my my decisions matter i don't know if that is linked in with immersion or not but like i i like knowing that i can make

a decision and the outcome will be different to somebody else's decision you know what i mean like i feel like i'm really i feel like my my story becomes unique with you know my my choices sort of thing more so than feeling like i'm i'm in a world and you know like i'm getting into the characters i think i have to galvanize myself for it i have to be like okay let's think let's let's let's take a second to put myself into this world you know yeah so i'm gonna be this character and this is gonna be my little backstory and then i just need to like give myself a little reason to be there and then i can be swept up on swept away in it so i think so often you are this like empty vessel um your character if you're not careful i like that i just like uh i like that my character becomes the product of my decisions in the end so i can go back and and and tell the story you

know like if i'm playing the game and i'm like 20 hours in and somebody turns up and they're like you know oh what what are you doing i can be like well you know this happened that happened this happened and we're kind of on this path right now and you'd like i like, you know, this happened, that happened, this happened, and we're kind of on this path right now. And like, I like that, you know, like I like that. I like that your decisions matter and there's consequences. And, you know, I just think it tells like a more interesting story. I like the story that I make more so than the story that's presented to me, you know? Yeah.

I like that about Baldur's gate 3 and any other game that has that sort of you know really long branching the dialogue systems and stuff like that because otherwise if it's too much like watching a movie i think i'd just rather watch a movie you know like it doesn't matter what you say like the outcome's always the same and just it's completely on rails yeah some games are great but like i i find like because i've streamed for so long and and made videos for so long i can't play those games by myself now like i need like an audience like you know to to be there with me for it because otherwise i just find it too boring i don't know well no but that's like i mean that's playing games with other people

watching is a different way of playing games, right? Yeah. It's a lot more, you're going to do silly things on purpose. You're going to kick the dog and jump off the mountain. Yeah, Baldur's Gate 3 was, half of the fun for me was the fact that people were watching and I was doing stuff and I could see people reacting to it like, oh, I didn't do that. You're a monster and stuff. And I like yeah well exactly i think the thing is when you're playing for as a showman it's a very different experience because you're you're on this sort of ludicrous zany clown adventure where it's like i like that though clicking the most dumbest options every time

oftentimes if you're playing the game to immerse yourself and actually enjoy and try and experience in the world you kind of think well what would i do yeah and you don't you don't like casually murder the children you know you don't when you're on your own yeah i take that very seriously i don't know i think i would casually murder the children on my own as well it depends on the day i'm having yeah it really just depends i feel like there's but then again like baldur's gate and all these games do a very good job of making it grey areas, right? So every sort of quest is kind of like this. You talk to one group of people and they're like, well, these guys did murder all of our families. And the other one's like, well, these guys are summoning the devil.

So like, you know, which one do you like? It's like, well, okay. Yeah, I just don't know. You have to choose the lesser of two i love those games i feel i feel like gta5 no matter what i would have played through it was fun like uh you know like even just playing playing through the story of gta5 i would have done that by myself i think i think it was uh fun enough and and whatever immersive enough or whatever but like looking back Baldur's Gate 3

I don't think I would have just played it on my own I don't even think I would have played Fallout 4 or Skyrim or Star any of those games I don't think I would have just played on my own I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much because I mean a lot of it mods helped to uh to make it make them better Starfield not so much because it's newer but like i don't know just having the just just knowing that there's people along with you on the ride and stuff it just it makes it more interesting for me at least i don't i don't know if i could play these games just by myself the games that i would would more tend to play by myself were kind of like i would play like hell divers too by myself you know something that had like a repetitive loop

that was grindy or whatever you know like i i would grind a game quite happily by myself you know something that had like a repetitive loop that was grindy or whatever you know like i i would grind a game quite happily by myself you know if there's progression and rewards and shit like that but story games not so much i don't think i'd play them by myself red dead 2 i would play by myself as well it's fucking awesome that's the one i couldn't stand playing on my own red dead 2 really man i would play red dead 2 no matter? I did stream it. It was so boring. I played red dead 2 no matter what, it was so good. Boring? It was like watching the hateful eight in slow motion. Oh my god.

Yeah, it was great. That's probably what I liked so much about it. I can't stand that opinion of yours, really. I just couldn't stand it. Like it was so boring, it was like here's a little bit of a story, now walk around for three hours. I know, but the problem with- my only complaint about red dead 2 was that there was no way to really commit a crime uh without kind of aggroing every law enforcement in

the land to your location i did see a video about a guy complaining about that that every time you're about to do something yeah like they kind of gamed it yeah as you're doing something someone walks in or someone walks in, or someone walks past, and it's like, instantly everyone in the town knows. Yes. It doesn't really make sense. No. Like, I get it.

But also, can you imagine if it was easier to commit crimes? Well... You would be doing it constantly. Like, you think games like Skyrim and stuff, where you can get away with committing crimes, you would be doing it constantly. But if that's the way that you want to go, you know, you have the choice of doing it, which would have been a nice choice in Red Dead as well. I agree with that, but I guess there needs to be a payoff for being a good guy and not doing it. And more often than not, you just want that ammo or that

gun. And it's kind of like, nothing is locked, You know, you don't need to do quests for money because it's like, well, I don't care about money. I can just steal whatever I want. Okay, but you know in Red Dead 2, you know that part where you go to that- you find that shack in the middle of nowhere? It's like just outside of Saint Denis and there's that yokel sitting on the porch and you go talk to him and then basically he drugs you and has sex with you. He drugs you and has sex with you. Well, presumably, because you wake up and you don't know quite what's happened sort of thing. But like, okay, well, where's the aggro law enforcement in that case? Why didn't they turn up at that point?

Like, he's committing a crime, much like any crime I would commit in the game, but they're nowhere to be seen. So, you know i guess it's just if like it is gamified but if you i feel like if you don't have that stuff in yeah it would kind of break the game what they could do is give you the option like when you start of be like do you want this kind of global crime stuff like classic gta and red dead thing yeah or do you want a more realistic take i just well you know i just feel like i think that's my gripe with all the rockstar games in that it's kind of a yeah it's a core mechanic but it's just a it's kind of a lazy one because everything just devolves into a massive shootout and chase every single time gta was the same you turn up somewhere and it's like oh this is so cool I actually like the story

I like where this is going or whatever and then it's just like fuck you bam like fucking five star helicopter cops are coming in to get you you're running away you can't possibly fight all of them and and Red Dead was the same right it was just constantly yeah evolved into this just this mindless big shootout and i don't know i would have appreciated uh some more just like story stuff you know like it would have been cool to just have a dialogue with somebody and then shoot them and then not have to kill 120 cowboys off the back of it you know to just to get out of there alive sort of thing you know like i think it could have just been done a little bit better but having said that that's my only gripe with the both of those games yeah i'm also i'm looking forward to uh to the new gta i mean even though it's going to be

probably a couple of years yeah yeah i got a i got a ps5 all set ready to go i haven't got one yet i guess i should get one before because as soon as it comes out i bet people will be buying loads of them yeah well yeah probably i think they're not hard to to get now they're not as rare as they used to be yeah yeah that's true all right i guess that's an hour and 20 we should wrap up yeah okay so you uh you really saving your voice for something you got something on later today i just uh i had a great week i'm sorry sorry, bud. Just not feeling super hot. My start to the year has also been pretty shitty. And I've just tried to basically focus on other things. And just think, you know, you've just got to ride it out.

Like these shitty periods in your life. Everybody has them. It's nice. Sometimes it all comes along at once. It's nice to chat to you guys about nothing for an hour. That kind of stuff. Just relaxing. Just have a chat with us.

I think you've just got to chill out and play some My Recycling Center, Lewis. Just get back to basics. I'll check it out. No, for sure. Yeah, yeah. Hopefully, we'll be back next week. Hopefully, I can record from Sweden. Yeah. Yeah. And hopefully, you'll have a better week, Lulu. I wish you guys all the best.

Thank you. Yeah, you too. Good luck with your stuff. Have fun. Thank you. See you soon. Bye. Bye-bye. You too. Good luck with your stuff. Have fun. See you soon. Bye.