Video Gamers Podcast - [Bonus Round] A Farewell to Paul - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

Gaming hosts Paul, Josh and Ryan are back with a very special episode where we say goodbye to our dear host Paul by talking about some of our favorite gaming and podcast moments from the show. We drive down memory lane as we talk about our favorite video game episodes, in-game moments, favorite podcast moments and more. It’s a lot of video game chat, and even more Paul love as we say farewell. Join us as we say goodbye, have a few laughs (and maybe a couple tears). This is one episode you can’t afford to miss! Thanks to our LEGENDARY Supporter: Ole Jake (and to everyone who supports this podcast) Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q   Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. Hello, fellow gamers. Welcome back to the Video Gamers Podcast. Please make sure to rate our show five stars, join the free Discord community, follow us on socials at Video Gamers Pod, and consider supporting the show starting at five bucks a month through Patreon over at MultiplayerSquad.com. I am your host, Paul. And if you didn't know, if you're a little bit behind

on the news, today is actually my last regular episode here with the Video Gamers Podcast. If you want all the details, you can go back a couple episodes to the Black Myth Wukong Deep Dive. And I might show up here still every once in a while. I know that I'll be here for the end of 2024 awards. I'm getting some very big frowns from my co-hosts, so let's get them introduced. Joining me, I believe it's been settled that he is taking over main hosting duties. He is an OG of the Video Gamers podcast, all the way back when we were the multiplayer gaming podcast. It's Josh. I'm the last of the OGs.

That's true. What's that speech that the guy gives at last to the Mohicans? I can't remember that guy's name, but he's like, I'm the last of my people. Yeah, that's me. That's you. Yeah. Yeah. The last of the OGs. That was very impactful. You can't even remember his name. I haven't seen that show in a while. Paul and I, Ryan and I'm distressed over Paul. You can't expect him to remember. Yeah. Yeah.

Uncus. Is that it? Isn't Uncus his name in Last of the Mohicans? I'm pretty sure. That sounds about right. All right. And then joining Josh and me, he is our podcast editor. He said that he has never wanted to record an episode less than this one.

I assume he's saying that because it's my last episode and he's going to miss all the eye candy here in our video Discord feed. It's Ryan. No, I had to get off Space Marine. You kidding me? I saw you buy the regular edition. Did you end up refunding it and getting the more expensive one? I 100% did. Oh, you did?

Yeah, I put it on there and I'm like, wait, what the heck? I can't get on. And then I'm like, oh. Wait a minute. We're getting the early edition? Yeah, bro. I'm already in. I didn't know this.

Did you charge that to the podcast round? Hop on the train, brother. It's just me and you now. What the heck is this, man? Ryan's playing Space Marine early. I'm sitting here waiting for the knife to save $30. Paul's leaving. What's going on around here? Everything's changing.

Yeah, it's funny because I get all those notifications with our podcast debit card on my phone. Yeah, where they fail every single time. Where they fail a lot, famously. Yeah, you guys hate it. Hey, you're free to go to any bank you want now. But I did laugh because I saw your cards been successfully charged like, you know, $60.80 or whatever. So I knew Ryan bought the regular edition and I saw him post, oh yeah, I'm on my

way to play right now. And I'm like, no, you're not, Ryan. You got to pay the extra 30. So then I was like, I wonder if Ryan's going to pick up the deluxe edition. I did. Nice. How much time have you put in so far, Ryan? Oh, maybe only actually about an hour. I ended up, family came home, went and got the kids, and then made dinner and stuff and whatnot after work today. But I'm definitely going to get in and grind this weekend.

Although, I still got Astro Bot tomorrow. So I don't know what the heck I'm going to do. You know this weekend. Although I still got Astro Bot tomorrow. So I don't know what the heck I want to do. You know what I don't have, Ryan? I don't have Astro Bot and I don't have Space Marine 2. So why don't you share? Oh yeah. Sad times for Josh. All right. Well, this is a little bit of a different bonus round than what we normally do. I don't even know how long this pod will be. Maybe it'll be an hour like normal. Maybe it'll be less. I really don't know. We don't even really have any structure. I did think this was funny because you guys know me. I am Mr. Structure, Mr. Outline. I like to know what's going on. So Josh thought it would be best for my last show to say, let's just get

together and just record, I guess like are we just kind of going down memory lane are we just talking about things in general i will remember you i'm gonna put that on here at some point just just be ready there you go i was gonna say sprinkle in some sad music sarah mclachlan whatever you're feeling i do love that for paul's last episode we put him in the most uncomfortable position possible, where it's like, Paul, you don't get to prepare for this episode. And we're probably going to talk about you directly a few times in this episode as well. Well, it's very easy to not be prepared or have any structure if you're not the main host. If all you do is answer questions and give some thoughts here or there, it's fine. So I'm like, I don't know what we're going to talk about. I don't know if you guys have any

subjects or anything to bring up. It'll be interesting. But Josh, I do know that you've got a review. Someone left the show you're going to read. I do have a review. If you have not left us a review yet, please take just a few seconds to do that. It really, really helps the podcast. If you are listening on Spotify, it is just rating us five stars. We are actually getting close to a thousand reviews on Spotify. That's the number. Come on. It really, that is what we are really like pumped to hit. We're at 905, I think at the time of this recording. So tap that five stars on Spotify for us. If you listen

on Apple, you can still head to Spotify and rate that five stars on Spotify for us. If you listen on Apple, you can still head to Spotify and rate us five stars because it only takes a couple seconds. But on Apple, you can also leave us a written review. And we like to read those on the show, like this one that comes in from John Bytely. And it's titled One of the Greats. And it says, I do a lot of driving for my work, so I love listening to podcasts on the go. I feel as though I have gotten to be a part of something special. As a suggestion for an episode, I would love to have an episode where you guys bring your three wives onto the show with you. You could talk about family, games your wives play, and how you guys balance your life with everything you do. Great idea.

Good idea. Never going to happen. Not a chance. well great idea good idea no we'll never happen my wife plays mario and zelda games and that is it uh she loves she's also she's also like the most introverted person i've ever met i feel like the idea of her getting on a mic is inconceivable she would never her or me i came in picture her never if i even if i was like listen nobody will ever see you they She'd still be like, nope. I don't even know if I've ever seen her. She just goes from shadow to shadow when you guys move along. She's good, man. She's stealthy like that. Oh, yeah. Very funny idea. I can't picture any of our three wives

actually wanting to do it or doing it but i i love the idea kids would be a lot easier my kids would probably hop right on and start talking video games if i gave them the chance jackson jackson will be on here in a heartbeat he'd be on the podcast yeah he's gonna get on here he's gonna talk about fortnite and he's gonna get um oh gosh not magneto what's the spider-man guy with that's doc no with the with the helmet that's like the okay ryan is making the green goblin crab claw no the fish helmet the fish helmet oh mysterio mysterio that's why oh yeah what does mysterio have to do with i know i was i wasn't clamping my lobster maybe i was a little bit i was i was trying that was as i was thinking but i was trying to do the the helmet thing listen it's paul's last episode okay we have no structure drinking early oh goodness well you know ryan since you brought up space marine 2 i mean

we might as well it's i guess it's sort of like news but we're recording this right before astrobot releases tomorrow the review embargo has lifted we talked a little bit about it in our discord it's sitting at a 94 on metacritic like this is definitely must play territory if you have a PS5. And then Space Marine 2 reviews a little bit lower, kind of like Black Myth Wukong came in at an 83. Not terrible, but not great. I was hoping it would be 90 or higher. But this next couple of weeks, we're all going to be very busy playing our various games

yeah well i won't be playing astrobot but i'll be playing a lot of space marine too and then maybe wishing i was playing astrobot hey i sent you some links for playstation 5 and i gotta give a shout out because i know he's always around even though he doesn't talk a whole lot phelps reached out to me yesterday and said, hey, are you in the market for a PS5? My girlfriend is selling hers, and we could probably get you a pretty good deal on it. And I was like, I love you, Phelps. I know you've been one of the OGs. I appreciate the offer. But I did tell him, I was like, I'm just going to wait. I'll borrow one of y'all's or one of our other buddies' PS5s,

but I will be playing Astro Bot. It may just not be in the next week or two. It'll be in 2025. No way. No, that game's getting played before the end of the year. Game of the year. I got to know what it's like, right? I sure hope so.

That'd be amazing. Could you imagine Astro Bot game of the year? It's going to be so good. I can't wait. All right. Well, what do you guys want to talk about? What should we do here? Do we want to talk about favorite episodes? I know Paul has no idea and he's just winging it. So the thinking for this episode

was that we would just kind of talk about some of our favorite moments from the podcast, maybe some of our favorite interactions, maybe even favorite game moments of us playing games together, or just things that stood out to us. Since Paul is leaving, this is kind of the changing of an era. What's the... Changing of the guard? Yeah, changing of the guard, the closing of an era. I don't know. Dude, I'm so bad with these sayings. No qualms about it. Yeah, see, that one I have learned, Ryan. It only took three episodes we did think it would be fun to just kind of free flow like hey some of our favorite episodes maybe just reminisce a little bit that kind of stuff so i'll start off just to get this

thing flowing here so paul i want to go back to tears of of the Kingdom and our Tears of the Kingdom episode. Sure, you want to reopen these old wounds? Oh, this is why. I'm going to just start it right now. So I'd love, like, one of my favorite parts about having the three of us is that we all have very different game takes. And while sometimes those takes align very well,

a lot of times they do not align at all. And it was funny because I knew Paul was so excited about Tears of the Kingdom. And I was like, I know this is instantly going to be up there for one of his favorite games of the year. I liked Breath of the Wild pretty good. And I was hyped for Tears of the Kingdom. But then I kind of just started playing it. And I was like, yeah, I just kind of feel like this is more of the same thing. And to me, that episode is where like Paul got some of the most heated, like in an argument about like me saying I didn't like this game. And then Paul just being like, dude, what the heck, man? Like you're an idiot. You climbed the mountain like solo,

like you didn't use any Zonai devices. I kind of slammed the game a little bit, maybe a little bit dramatically. But I remember Paul getting so mad at the way that I played this game and the fact that I didn't love it. So great. And it's rare because we will disagree and bicker playfully, but it rarely ever goes beyond that but paul was just adamant dude that i was just a big dum-dum and could not see the glory in this game rightfully so yeah okay you were a big dum-dum with me back then ryan not as much i did not climb a mountain just using stamina like food and stuff like that that That was the thing. Obviously, no game is beloved by everybody, right? There's people out there who hate Ocarina of Time or they hate Mass Effect or whatever.

I get it. The problem was that I felt like you just played the game so incredibly wrong that you were almost going out of your way to try to make the game as bad as possible. And that's where I was just more mystified. I 100% came into that deep dive thinking that all three of us were going to say, it's the best game I've played in five years. I legitimately thought we were all going to come in with that take. I was so thrown by the fact that you were like, yeah, it's not that great. The underground areas suck.

There's less to do than Breath of the Wild, which is still incorrect. I didn't say there's less to do. I said there's less new content. It's the same map. It was just Breath of the Wild 1.5. It was the same map. There it is.

You can't argue that it's not this. Just because pieces are blown up into the sky doesn't mean that it's a different map. There it is. You can't argue that it's not this. Just because pieces are blown up into the sky doesn't mean that it's a different map. Yeah. I just could not believe that you guys weren't on that same level as me. There are certain games that we've always known that were in different areas. I know that RimWorld and Stardew Valley are not your cup of tea, Josh. I totally understand that. And I get the fact that Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are not hard games. And you tend to like more difficult games. And I know that the game doesn't provide a lot of challenge per se,

but I did think it provided so much fun and almost like self-imposed challenge with building fun, creative vehicles and doing all this stuff in a giant sandbox world with some of the best physics I've ever seen. And getting that on a switch is like so incredible. And then here's Josh, free climbing mountains, just eating food and complaining that his weapon broke. I was going to say say i was very busy replacing broken weapons the whole time maybe that's the problem you used weapons you got zonai dude you can just use your your ultra hand for everything i i know i personally i've never argued with my young child more than playing that game because i i was trying to like jump to this

one area and he's like dad just do this i'm, I'm going to put these eight springs on each other and try to jump that way to launch this device up over and around. And no, you should do this and that. And neither of us were wrong. There's just so many different ways to do stuff on that game. It was just unbelievable. And I was late to the party. I was definitely not as down on it as josh was like after we played but the more i played it the more i got what paul was was saying

throughout the whole thing part of the problem is playing games for the podcast we all have felt incredibly rushed at times oh yeah and it changes how you play games. Ryan, I remember you very succinctly saying that early on in the pod when you were like, I was so focused on running missions that I wasn't just enjoying the game. I'm playing it different because I have a deadline. And a lot of times that's not the best way to play a game. And I feel like for better or worse, we are all so used to now, oh, this game released. I have to play it four hours today. I have to play it four hours tomorrow. I'm hating it, but I'm forcing myself to play in this time, not letting it soak and marinate and play the way I want. And I do wonder

if there are certain games that if we revisited aside from the pod, maybe we'd come away with totally different opinions. And that kind of goes both ways. Like Elden Ring, I got as far as I could. I think I beat six of the bosses. And I was like, well, I'm kind of just going to project. I see how I'm on this trajectory. I think I would love the rest of the game. And I kind of gave it like an inflated score at the time. And then later, I was like, I'm never going to go back to Elden Ring. And I kind of pulled that rating down. But if I did jump back in and just took my time and played it over the course of four months, maybe I would come back and think it's one of the best games ever. But when I'm so focused on, I've died 38 times to this boss and I have to record tomorrow, like that provides that extra stress that's not fair.

Being under a time crunch when you're playing video games definitely changes how you look at the game. And I will say this in regards to Tears of the Kingdom. My wife and I played that game together. There's very few games that she's super interested in, but doesn't actually want to play herself. And so every now and then I'll play it and she'll sit next to me and watch. And that was one of those games. But if I had just infinite time to just kind of relax and play that game, my opinion of it would likely be different. But from a just a, you know, hey, let me play this game. Let me see what it's about. What are my initial impressions? You know, what's my gut feeling on this? I still think it's a good game, but I'm definitely not anywhere near where the two of you are on it at this point. It is funny to watch Ryan totally flip-flop on this because he was very close to

me initially, and now he's just high-fiving Paul going like, yeah, this game's great. But I will say that Paul's shock and awe when he realized that it was not my favorite game of the year, and I thought it was just kind of mediocre mediocre was to this day still one of those memories where it was like you could see his face like the recognition set in and then he was just like are you trolling me right now like are you trying to like and then i was like it did not like that at all i almost i almost felt that a little bit with uh black myth earlier because he's like oh wow brian i'm surprised you're not higher and then he went on to his nine seven with it or whatever and i'm like dude you're lucky this was an eight three for me eight three oh man yeah i was kind of curious like have you guys ever been as mystified as i was at josh just not loving tears of the kingdom like do you guys

remember any deep dives having that kind of response? Oh, for you, you slammed... I was going to bring this one up, but since you brought it up, the Stardew Valley Outer Wilds flip-flop that you and I did. Number one, this was kind of the very first ever

Force a Friend. Yeah, it was. You know, where we both... This came up where... I believe it was just the two of us back then. This was after Todd pre-Michael. And you and I kind of came up with this idea that I had never played Stardew Valley, which is one of your favorite games, and you had never played Outer Wilds, which is one of my favorite games. And so we kind of went, hey, wouldn't it be cool

if you played this and I played that? And we were both like, yeah. And I don't, I I'm an optimist. So to me, I'm like, Paul is going to love this game, dude. It's going to be the coolest thing he's ever seen. The story is amazing. Like the twist to the game, the sense of discovery, the, like the use of time and the time loop and all this stuff. And I was like, it's going to blow his mind, man. And Paul was like, starting Valley is a 9.7 rating off of like a half a million reviews on steam. There's no way that nobody could not like this game, you know?

And then we played, we each played it. We each came to the episode and lo and behold, we were both like, I hate your game. No, thank you. I,

I, I remember like both of us just being like, what? Well, it's funny too, because those are two of the most universally beloved games. We're definitely both in the minority in not liking those. To me, Outer Wilds, and I've said this multiple times, I just didn't care about the story. There are these weird looking aliens playing banjos, and I don't care that these other people disappeared. If they were made humans, and they're telling me like, hey, all these other humans disappeared, there were ancient civilizations, and I'm looking into it,

that might have drawn me in more emotionally. It just seemed kind of goofy to be these aliens that I just didn't really care about. I hated the... I still say it's not like a true time loop, because when I think time loop, I'm thinking like Groundhog Day or the Tom Cruise movie. This is 100% Groundhog Day. You start over at the very beginning, opening your eyes like you do the very first time. But the difference is, like, when you watch those kinds of movies, the characters have to repeat their actions in the beginning. Or like the game 12 Minutes. Like, you hated 12 Minutes, but you had to wake up and you know after a couple minutes, the doorbell's gonna ring and it's the Willem Dafoe character and then you have to do certain things. outer wilds it was it felt it always felt to me like an arbitrary

uh timer and now you're dead and now i just fly straight back to where i was like where's the benefit in having it's because you learn that death that's what you learned but all i did is just fly straight back to where i was so it's just you can learn how to beat the whole game you have to beat the whole game within 22 minutes. Like once you learn everything you need to learn, you can actually beat the game from the very first moment in 22 minutes. Like it was there all along. You just had to figure it out, you know? Anyway, this is the point, right? Is it's like, yeah, that was, but I liked that one because I think it was one of the first episodes where you and I vehemently disagreed, disagreed on games. And it was also kind of the birth of the force of friend format that we

didn't really go to until years later with ryan on the show at that point but yeah that's awesome well let's go ahead and take a short break and we'll be right back all right guys we're back uh me me what what do you want to talk about ryan i want to talk about our viral sensation power world video dude that was what a crazy thing that that happened is when you know, I'm still this was like I'm still kind of finding my way in the pot. I'd been there for, you know, six, seven months or whatever. And we're playing Power World, immediate crazy frenzy of a game that's that's going gangbusters. And we're like, well, we better hop onto this and just check it out. And we're playing and Paul comes up with this just brilliant

idea hey let's just put a bunch of campfires around and run this guy through here and and i'm like okay that's a great idea let's record it and so then long time og ace of shames on there with us and and he uh hits record and i'm looking right now this This was from January 22nd, 2024. We have 1.7 million views on that video. That's bananas. Over 5,200 likes, 450 bookmarks, 147 quotes, 457 reposts. It was just, I remember, and this is probably just a me thing, but I was like, just refresh, refresh, refresh.

Just looking at it. I did the exact same thing. Like, guys, guys, guys. When the main account for Power, what's the name of the developers on that? Anybody remember? Oh gosh. Yeah, I can't remember.

So the main developer account retweeted our video and this was at the height of the Power World craze. This is like right as the wave was just starting to really grow and i remember like i think i like posted it to you guys and i was like omg guys like we just got retweeted you know and then the number just started skyrocketing it was that was a very fun moment it was cool the ace was with us as well, because it's like, you know, we love playing games with people when we get the chance, like the community that we have is fantastic. And so getting to play games with different people was always a super cool thing for us, but for ACE to

be there and kind of be able to share that with us was really, really cool too. But yeah, I just remember the excitement, the, you know, I'd never gone viral before like it's weird it's not what every content creator like hopes for is no right i was like we're gonna be millionaires obviously that didn't happen but then there was there was even people making videos about our video and i'm like we've made it guys we did it yep i was getting i was getting on my on my own tiktok feed i was seeing other people comment on our video, seeing it in the background. And I remember one of my favorite YouTubers is Let's Game It Out. I love nothing more than watching those videos. And I have joked that he stole my idea and he does the same thing in his

video. For all I know, he did it first. His videos are longer and they take time to edit. I get all of that. But it is very funny that at least there was some parallel thinking that we both did the same thing. And the weird thing is, I remember not wanting to cover Palworld at all. I remember to this day, I was with Ryan. We were hanging out with Legendary Jake. Jake's son was having a birthday party. Josh, your kids are a little bit older than ours. My youngest and Ryan's youngest are about a year apart. And so we were at the birthday party and I remember us bowling and Josh was texting us saying, guys, Palward's really blowing up. I think we got to

play it. And I'm like, dude, like the Pokemon with guns and slaves, like that seems kind of wild. And I just remember kind of rolling my eyes and i i don't even know if i replied to your text josh and then like four hours later you're giving updates you're like dude a million people are playing pal world right now and i was like all right we're gonna have to deep dive it i remember going home the same day and installing it and we had so much fun playing pal world it was such a fun experience that was ryan's one of his first uh like crafting survival games too right i think so yeah because that was after subnautica but probably probably before arc yeah but before arc too so well maybe i don't remember but i just

remember you hadn't had a lot of experience in that genre either and the funny part for me was like waking up in the morning, getting ready for work, and then seeing Ryan is playing Pal World pop up. And then I get on, and Ryan's got everything organized and new huts built and all this stuff. And I was like, ooh, ooh, this game's got its claws in them, man. Yeah. All the eggs. Ryan had his massive hatchery.

Oh, yeah. And I even remember, because josh because the satisfactory he talks so much about organization everything i'm like i made this whole like building of storage just for josh and i labeled everything and i had different crates and different signs up for each one and i'm like josh i was so excited for him to see it some people just want to see the world burn. Yeah. Yeah. Paul and his disorganized factory. Oh my goodness. I thought you were going to bring up our rust containers. Funny thing about going viral is it's not as lucrative as you think.

Oh, no, we didn't make a dime at all. We didn't make a dime off of this. No, of course not. I mean, I think we probably saw like a teeny bit of growth for the podcast because of it, you know, but like... Maybe saw like a teeny bit of growth for the podcast because of it, you know, but like maybe, yeah, the internet is a fickle place. People will love you for three or four days or a week at most. And then they're just like, yeah, on to the next thing. Well, especially like on TikTok, like you're going to watch it for 30 seconds and then just

scroll right past it. It's not like someone's saying, oh, great. Let me pull up my Spotify app and search for video gamers podcast. You know. It's hard to take that extra step, but we provided a lot of laughs and a lot of people enjoyed it. So we still had a lot of fun. It was such a great moment. It really was. That's what we do it for, right, people? Yeah. We do it for the lols. Yeah. One thing I wanted to bring up, I don't remember if we mentioned this on the pod or not, but I wanted to talk a little bit about how Ryan joined the podcast. So, Ryan and I, we had our teenage years growing up together because I was dating my eventual wife, Nikki, that is Ryan's older cousin. And so, in my teenage years, there was so much time of me spending time over at Nikki's parents' house.

Ryan would come over. We'd play games all the time. I mean, we probably played various GTA games. I don't know, probably 10,000 hours or something preposterously high. Yeah. And then as we got older, we didn't game together a whole lot. You were more of a console gamer. I was more PC.

I was playing more of the shooters with Josh. You were playing Destiny. And so finally, at some point, I know that you knew we were doing the podcast, but you weren't really listening to it or anything. And I don't even remember how you started. But I remember starting getting texts from you where you're like, dude, I'm listening to the podcast. It's really good. I was like, oh, thanks, man. That's awesome. I'm glad you're enjoying it. And then for the next three days, I think we texted more than we had in the five years prior talking about all these random episodes. And then you're like, hey, and you said it completely as a joke. You're like, hey, why don't you kick off Michael and let me join the podcast? And I laughed really hard.

I was like, oh, that's very funny, Ryan. Unfortunately, it's just a three-man show. That's it. And then it was like maybe a week later, and all of a sudden, Michael was going to be quitting the podcast. And I remember texting you back being like, hey, remember when you said that? Don't say anything to anyone, but it looks like actually there will be an open spot on the show soon. And I just thought it was so funny. Like you kind of called your shot right off the bat and it ended up working out. That's not why you ended up on the show,

but it was almost like you sensed it coming. Well, I don't know if I'd say worked out, but... I do. It was so weird because I remember telling my wife, I forget, I forget how I got on. I just, I was a little late to,

to realizing you guys had a podcast. Cause I know we hadn't talked as much as we used to back then. And you know, buying a house, having a business, all that stuff, you know how it is. Everybody kind of gets focused on stuff,

but I realized it and I just started just grinding out episodes. Normally I listened, I listened to a lot of audio books. I put headphones in and I usually work by myself. stuff but i i realized it and i just started just grinding out episodes normally i listened i listened to a lot of audiobooks i put headphones in and i usually work by myself and i just listened to whatever all day long so i just started grinding out your guys's pod and i'm like this is awesome you know and so i'm joking with you hey uh get me on and then yeah you text me and i'm like oh my gosh and i was not ready for it and i told my wife and I'm like, I can't be in a pod. I can't talk on this. I don't know.

And I even today, I put this on the stuff I wanted to talk about. I went and listened to my first one or two episodes. It's on my list. It's so bad. Don't do it. It's so bad. It is so bad.

Not that this is any better, but it was so bad. And I even, I will say i i did i did uh record in from california on vacation so that was pretty cool yeah that is true that was early too ryan's like i'm not missing out man that was like the second one i think it was my second episode or and that's right where i think tears of the kingdom just came out and that's when i was trying to play it um And that's when I felt rushed and whatnot. But yeah, that was what a crazy whirlwind to joking around about being on the pod.

And then all of a sudden you're like, hey, you remember when you said that? A couple weeks later, and now you are on it. Yeah. Did you think you were going to be making big money, Ryan, when you joined? Were you a little disappointed? I sure was hoping. You just spent up for the deluxe edition of Space Marine. What are you talking about? Those three days matter. What do you mean? I was going to say, this man's a big spender now.

To be fair, we didn't even have a set budget, but we did have a spreadsheet where we said, feel free to buy games outside of deep dives, and we can cover it on This Week in Gaming or on Squadcast. And Josh and I had no problem doing that. Josh and I would pick up games left and right. I bought Animal Well, and we would just put it in the spreadsheet. Ryan was never buying any games with the podcast money. He just kept buying stuff with his own money. And I remember you started printing stuff on your 3D printer for when we did Phoenix Fan Fusion. And you're like, yeah, I picked up a bunch more filament. And I'm like, you put it on the podcast card, right? And you're like, no, Ryan, please. You're on the podcast. You have to use some of this money. And I do think it's funny that now you finally did Splurge and it's on Space Marine 2.

Heck yeah. I love it. I will say, since you brought it up real quick, I actually do have on my list, I wrote it down as Ryan being super nervous on his first 10 episodes. Very nervous. Because I knew Ryan and I had met. I didn't know him nearly as well as you do, Paul, because you guys grew up together. But Ryan and I had met at a couple of poker nights at your house and a few other times. And he's a talkative guy just like me. He's happy. He's always smiling. He's just upbeat and talking to everybody. And so I

was like, oh, yeah, Ryan's super cool. And then I just remember thinking like, oh, he'll be great, man. We'll just put him on a microphone and have him talk about something... And for some reason in Ryan's head, man, he was so nervous about recording for the first time. And we kept just saying, dude, just talk, just be you. It's like watching him just kind of like brain fumble because he was thinking about it too much was pretty funny. And then we were just like, dude, you'll get it. It'll be fine. And you pick on yourself

but you have come a long way but i just it was funny to watch this dude that has done professional mma fights you know it is like tons of people a natural talker and all this other stuff just completely freak out because he's talking into a microphone all of a sudden i just i thought it was great it's weird man it's something different like i mean like you said i i had i thought at uh the uh grand canyon university arena for m1 global that was on showtime and and there's cameras everywhere and it doesn't matter to me and then just talking into a mic with you two and nobody's around you know and it was just still i was like plus it was very funny that your first big shot was coming in hot on how much you wanted to play redfall oh that's true game of the year listen listen listen listen the trailer

got me i'm a sucker for a trailer and then i remember saying that too and then you guys were like oh yeah josh and I were pretty early on. We picked up where we're like, Redfall, we're not so sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, talking about like being new to the podcast, you had to just jump in, Ryan. And the first time you recorded, we put it out there for the world.

You didn't get to do like any test episodes. Josh and I got to do that a little bit back in the very beginning. So when we first started recording with Todd, like any test episodes. Josh and I got to do that a little bit back in the very beginning. So when we first started recording with Todd, we said, hey, let's just do a couple test episodes. Let's just have some fun, see if we want to continue doing this. Todd was the main host. Weirdly enough, our very first test episode also had my brother-in-law, Jason. And so there were four of us, which kind of famously, podcasts are really hard. Unannounced that Jason was going to be the fourth person. We just kind of showed up.

That sounds like a big guy. And then I think, was it Todd? Where it was like, by the way, I invited Jason too. And we were like, huh? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It was news to us. We love Jason and he's one of the funniest people i've ever met oh yeah uh but recording with the four of us was probably not going to make a whole lot of sense long term and we did a couple of early test episodes josh do you even remember what games we covered which never got released

we did four of them i was gonna say wait that oh we never actually released those episodes because i was gonna say i feel like we talked about uh fall guys pretty early on or um uh you mean human or human fall flat right was that one of our test ones that was our very first test okay that's the one and then i don't remember what the other ones were do you oh no i oh yeah i know oh what are they also we also did vermin tide 2 oh okay all right that was a good we we did rust rust and we did pub g oh i mean those are some good games man we did end up doing deep dives on all four but we re-recorded like those episodes those first four episodes are so bad oh they're really bad, dude. We emailed that to friends and were like, give this a listen, give us feedback.

I don't know why anyone encouraged us to keep going because they are truly unlistenable. I thought it would be funny if I went back and just poked around a few minutes here and there, found a couple of really awkward moments and give them to Ryan to put into this episode. I fired up the PUBG one, and that was our fourth. We did have some practice. There are so many awkward pregnant pauses. We're talking over each other. No one knows what's going on. And I listened for about 60 seconds, and I literally said, this is too painful. I can't do it. You know, it's one of those things. We have people all the time that reach out to us and say, hey, I'm thinking about starting a podcast. Do you have any tips? Anything like that?

Tip one, don't. Yeah. That honestly is kind of the biggest tip. They are fun, but you really kind of have to approach it as in like, I'm just doing this for the giggles, you know, as far as that goes. But dude, it is... People think we're joking, but go back. Some of our older episodes are still out there. But I think the oldest one that shows up on Spotify is our Far Cry 5 episode, which was us. Yes. Like eight months in? That was a big turning point, I think. Because, you know, when you, me, and Todd were doing the show together,

I think we all kind of brought our different strengths and weaknesses, you know? And I think we all were kind of trying to figure out, how do we want the show to sound? How do we want to do this? You know, are we looking to do, quote unquote, video game journalism? Are we trying to, like, educate the audience? Are we trying to educate the audience? Are we trying to entertain the audience? Are we just trying to goof around? And when Todd went out on paternity leave because his wife was expecting their first child, and we were kind of poking around a little

bit with the format. And I think we were trying to find what we wanted to do. And I think Far Cry 5 was such a great example of that because the game itself was so ridiculous and over the top and funny. I'm not a funny person. I wish nothing more. Number one, you are hilarious, Paul. Easily. Okay, I got to pause you right there because we went to Vegas for your wife's 40th birthday and we were playing a game. And one of the questions in the game was, who's the funniest person in the room? And it was an easy answer for me that you were the funniest guy. So you very drastically underrate your own humor. Well, I will say, first of all, the question was worded slightly different. It was,

do you believe you are the funniest person in the room and you and i both answered no okay and i won't name names but there is a certain someone that said yes and i was like okay i like i would never say that about myself i wasn't there i know what you're all thinking out there in the listening world. It wasn't me. I wasn't there. No, no, no. It was not Ryan.

Ryan, unfortunately, was not invited to his favorite place in the world. I know, I know. Ryan was invited later, but yeah, it didn't quite work out. Yeah, so it was really fun to cover this game where you've got a diabetic bear eating cheeseburgers, and then that becomes his name. And the testicle festival was some of the funniest

stuff we ever covered on a deep dive. And I think for you and me, Josh, when we recorded that episode, we felt like it was just a little bit looser. It was nice to have humor provided by the game. It wasn't relying on you and me trying to bring the jokes. We can just cover the funny aspects of the game. And I know for me, that's one of the reasons why it's the oldest episode you can find listed. First of all, it was really confusing for people when we had episodes with Todd, and then episodes with just you and me, and then episodes with you, me, and Michael, and then episodes with just you and me and then episodes with you, me and Michael, and then episodes with just you and me and then episodes with you, me and Ryan. And people would pop in our Discord and be like, on the regular, like, what happened to Todd?

What's going on? And finally, we're like, you know what? Those early episodes are not very good anyway. We were trying to find our footing. Let's just chop out a bunch of the early episodes that just don't hold up. And we landed on Far Cry 5 being the earliest one. I feel like we both kind of thought it was a turning point. Yes, for sure. And I know there's people that are like, oh, I want to hit. No, you don't. You don't. We have plenty of episodes that are good nowadays or mostly good nowadays. You don't need that in your life so just trust us you know in that regard oh yeah yeah what's funny is that we used to struggle to make a full 60 minutes in the beginning we used to do gaming news and a deep dive and our first released episode was apex legends and it was 42 minutes

i can't imagine us releasing a deep dive now that's like under 60 like 45 really strong 45 45 i say it at the beginning of every deep dive man tight 45 boys yeah and then we and then ryan and i will say we've got six pages of you know outline notes of stuff we want to talk about and it it always goes long yeah what do you think our longest step oh i know what our what our longest episode is. I think it's God of war. I was going to say it's either God of war. I mean, Black Myth Wukong just went an hour and 23 minutes or 23. I think God of war was like an hour 40.

I was, we want you to think it was, but I could talk about that game for another hour right now. I know. Right. Yep. Oh man. Yeah.

What else you got Ryan? I'm curious curious because he's only had one thing and he's still you know it's funny it's so weird ryan has been on the show for over a year now like a year and like is it a year and a quarter year and a half it was in may may was my first in may was my first episode that's was my first episode. That's crazy, dude. It still feels like you just joined a few months ago. That's what it still feels like to me. Yeah. It's weird.

That's where I still... I don't know. I feel like I'm still getting my footing to really be a part of the pod. And then now it's just going to me and you and freaking paul's leaving yeah which sucks but you better have your footing ryan i'll be back in december for one episode you just got to hold it together until then the problem is then it's gonna be like people are gonna be like man show's so good when paul's on it yeah i know you're gonna remind them these two chuckle heads over here ryan and josh um i was gonna say i did um one episode that

really stuck out to me that that um definitely cemented how much i loved just playing games with you guys and recording talking about the games we play because at the end of the day like that's the biggest part is that we get to play these games together and then we just instead of talking about them at uh by ourselves or just in text and stuff we get to play these games together. And then we just, instead of talking about them at, uh, by ourselves or just in text and stuff, we get to just come on here and record what we think about it with each other,

which is my absolute favorite part. But when we did a deep rock galactic, um, that was, you know, that was just so much fun. Cause that was my first real experience and exposure to that game. And you guys had played it before. So you guys kind of had the idea and you guys are rocking stone right and

i'm like what the heck are they yelling about i'm like what is this and then like come to the bar fast forward four minutes later i'm like rocking stone yeah and i'm at the bar and then i'm like kicking barrels and then i'm going through and mining and yeah it was just um not only was it an awesome game but just it it really just kind of like i said cemented how much i enjoyed playing games and recording um talking about those games with you guys it was it was so much fun yeah yeah for for better or worse we used to play games a lot more more together. And then as my wife's health got a little trickier, a lot of times it didn't free me up for gaming at night. And a lot of my game time I started doing earlier in the afternoons. And we also had so many legendary picks. And a lot of

those weren't games we could play together. Or they were a little bit older, like Red Faction Guerrilla. Great game. The online just doesn't function anymore because there's not enough people playing. Stuff like that. But we had so much fun playing so many matches of Deep Rock Galactic. PAL World definitely stands out for that. Yeah, I was kind of curious. Were there any games that you felt like we had the most fun playing together?

I still wish Ryan had played Rust with us. Oh, yeah. Ryan playing Rust, I think, would have been... He would have absolutely loved some of those moments, but then he also would have shared that misery to where he's just like, I hate this game. Why would you guys

do this to me? Dude, the 10 minutes of loading all the assets just to see you are dead. Paul was killed by rocket launcher. Yeah. Oh, man. And you don't know. You're just logging in to play and have fun. And then all of a sudden, it's all just gone.

And it's just like, oh, what the heck, man? Did we end up doing three episodes on Rust or was it just two? We did two. We talked about a third so that Ryan could play with us, but then we got busy with all these games coming out in 2024 and we just never got a chance to get around to it. Because we did revisit Cyberpunk. There's two deep dives of that.

We did Deep Rock twice and we did Rust twice. I think those deep dives of that. We did Deep Rock twice, and we did Rust twice. I think those were the only ones that we revisited. Yeah. For the show. We didn't do A Risk of Rain, did we? Did we do Return to Risk of Rain? No. That was Return to Rust.

That's the one I'm thinking of. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. I probably would have loved it, because I do love Pain and Misery, because I'm still playing Diablo 2 hardcore because I just can't help myself. What level are you right now?

So a new ladder started. So I started a new character and then died and started a new character and then died. But I'm on this current character that has not died yet. And I think I just got to 40. So I'm going to start running some different, just grinding. It's so weird. For me, for whatever reason, the grind in that game, I love it. I crave it.

I'm like, I want to go grind more levels. Yeah. It's just this 20-year-old game that I'm just obsessed with still. What class are you playing? Sorceress. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's the right call.

Yep. I love Sorceress. Yeah. Oh, man. So many memories of those bail runs back in the day in Mephisto. You had all the bots running you through, and you always knew just to keep rejoining the lobby, change the number at the end, add one, jump in the next one. Oh, yeah. So I got to bring up a really funny moment because I don't think the listeners ever heard

about this. It didn't happen on the podcast, but it happened before we actually started recording. So to give people an idea of some of the pre-recording stuff that we do, we all try to sync up our recordings where we all click record at the same time because it kind of just starts the waveform for the recording. And then we do a quick countdown so that when Ryan is editing the pod, it's easy to see just the little spike in the waveform and say, oh, okay, well, you line those up and that accounts for just some internet lag and delays and milliseconds that would sound weird otherwise. But when we were doing the show with Todd,

and we were still trying to figure things out one of the things that we were talking about was how do we figure out how to get everybody's tracks to line up properly because paul you were doing the editing back in the day yeah and we on our own somehow came up with the idea of like a sync clap, right? Where we would all just clap into like our microphones like they do in Hollywood. Yeah, you see the clacker. They call it the clacker board and they go and action and the board clacks. And that starts the that's like the marker so that when the editors are doing things,

they can line everything up. Dude, three grown men trying to figure out how to all say go or all clap together at the same time when we're looking at each other over like a Zoom call and there's a little bit of lag involved with internet latency was the funniest thing I think I've ever seen. And at one point, this is when Todd was hosting. And so Todd was having a really hard time doing the countdown where he's like, three, two, one, go, right? We've got this thing mastered at this point. But back then, I remember we could not do it. And at one point, Todd closed his eyes to try to do the countdown sync without getting distracted.

It was so funny. And Paul and I absolutely lost our minds. It's one of the hardest I've ever heard you laugh in my life, Paul, because it was just watching Todd close his eyes like that somehow would help him to do the countdown. Like, oh my goodness, dude. I wish we had audio for that because it is one of the funniest things ever. But it's one of those things nobody tells you. Again, when you're trying to do a podcast, people don't tell you this. And here's three grown men spending 15 minutes trying to figure out how do we all say the same thing at the same time? Well, we also went through a few iterations of what that looked like. So in the beginning,

we were trying like a clap, but then that doesn't always go through Discord and you don't know who's doing what. And then for some stupid reason, we were trying to count down together from five. So Todd would start clapping to like set a cadence and then he would say five. And then all three of us are going four, three, two, one. And like, you can't sync that up very well. I don't know why we were trying to do it that way. I guess we were just stupid. Yeah, we were stupid is what it was. But yeah, it was funny, stupid, man. And it made for a really, really hilarious moment that unfortunately nobody ever got to hear. But it was, you know, these are the things that it's like, sometimes we talk about like leaving

the mics on for a little while, because we always talk a little bit after the episode too, you know? And it's like, oh man, that was one of those moments I wish we could have got, because it was the dumbest thing you've ever seen three people try to accomplish and fail miserably at accomplishing it. Yeah. Finally, finally, after a few days, we learned, okay, one person is just going to say, counting down from three, two, one, and then we all just go, go. Yeah. And it works. And it's very easy to line up.

That was so easy. Yes. I don't know why we're doing the, all right, five, four, three. It's like, what are we doing? And since then, Josh has developed the perfect go, I think he says. Oh, I have. Josh really brags about his go. Ryan, clip the waveform for me and I'll post it. I did that once before and nobody cared. Yeah, they're like, this doesn't make any sense.

No one could care. No one would care less. Oh, man. Well, any other fond memories? anything else to share at this point anything that stands out to you guys you got you got anything else ryan um jeez i just there's there's a lot over over this last i guess you know year and a half or so of recording. It's just been, it's been a pure joy. It's been something that I look forward to every week, every day. I don't know.

It's weird to think about a day where I don't hop into our Discord chat that we have just for the show and talk amongst, you know, each other. So, yeah, it's,'s i'm gonna miss you bud i know we're still gonna talk every day but it's gonna be it's gonna be definitely different um it's not gonna be the same without you won't be as good without you we're gonna do our best but uh yeah man i love you buddy and and uh And I hope your family and everything else goes well. And yeah, I don't know. Choking up. Yeah. I will say too that one of the coolest things to me was, Paul, I have known you for, I think, 12 plus years now at this point. When I moved to Arizona, I got introduced

to you through Andy and some other friends and stuff like that. And we always have hit it off really well. And we have always kind of had certain things where, whether we were doing a home group together or something else where we had opportunity to kind of hang out, poker nights and things like that. But when we started to do this podcast, it was really awesome to have that, I'm always talking to Paul now. We're chatting about the podcast. We're recording together. It is just such a good thing for us to do because you were one of the OGs. You and I have brainstormed a lot of what the show is about. We have talked about a lot of things that have brought the show to this point. Even so much as bringing Ryan in, which I said the other day, I think is one of the best decisions that we ever made. You know what I mean? In that regard. But it's like, that was you and I talking

that over in that regard and kind of saying, what do we want for this podcast? And what can we do to make this good? And what would be fun for people? And it's really awesome to me because I feel like we have accomplished that. You know what I mean? And I have always said that to me, the most important thing for this podcast is not the money. It is the community of people. And when people write in and say, hey, I listen to you guys every day on my way to work. Thank you for brightening my day. That means the world to me. Like legitimately, that is the reward for me. But the true reward for me is like being able to do this with you too. You know what I mean? And the fact that through this, I have really developed this, this friendship with you, Paul, and you too, Ryan. I mean, we play pickleball on Saturdays together. We're always chatting all the time now, you know what I mean? Stuff like that. And so that is my biggest, like, I'm not sad that you're leaving the podcast

because I know what you're going, like, I know why you're leaving. And I'm like, super proud of you for that. You know what I mean? Because a husband that needs to take care of his wife and take care of his family and you being willing to sacrifice whatever you need to sacrifice to do that is admirable, dude. Legitimately, it's an admirable thing. But I'm sad because it's like, I'm worried that I'm not going to get to talk to you as much. You know what I mean? I'm not going to get to... See, I'm getting choked up now too. So Ryan, tag, you're it. Back to you, Ryan. But no, I mean, seriously, that's my concern. So it's like, I hope that we keep the playing games together. I hope that we keep the chatting in the Discord server and just that relationship that we've built through this. I hope that continues on and that you leaving the pod doesn't interrupt that friendship. Yeah. Yeah. I'm totally with you.

And just to throw here in the mix, I think it's really hard for any group of three people who have different personalities to run any kind of business. I mean, people have different opinions. People have different philosophies in communication or talking things through or how stubborn some people are to doing things my way. And I'm not going to give an inch to you and things like that. The three of us have gelled so incredibly well in running this podcast. All three of us, I think, are easy people to get along with, which I think is definitely key. And we know how to communicate in a way that's always healthy and beneficial.

And I think that's one of the reasons for why this has been so rewarding. We do truly love each other and love spending that time together. And even when we disagree on things, it's always been minor. It's always been like, well, should we throw some money at this or should we do it there? And it's like, well, I don't know. It kind of sounds like a waste, but if you're both into it, let's just do it. And that's kind of always been our mentality. No one's ever been like, no, we're not going to do it because that's not the way I want. All three of us have worked together incredibly well. We can disagree without being disagreeable. I mean, every once in a while,

we throw out bonus round ideas. And sometimes, Josh will throw out an idea and I'll kind of furrow my eyebrow and be like, how am I supposed to talk about that? You're an idiot, Josh. Same vice versa. But then after all of us have thrown out four ideas, it's like, oh, great. There we go. And we all seem to always end up on the same page and i think that that's been one of the factors for why our friendship and the podcast and everything have run so well together is that it's almost like we were perfect matches together which is really nice definitely the maddest paul's ever been is when we forced him into going to phoenix

fan fusion i was gonna say that i'm a very agreeable person and i'm always just like yeah whatever with everything i was very uh strong-armed these guys into fan fusion in the beginning because they're like i'm not sure i don't know and then and then josh finally kind of came around and paul's like all right let's i guess we're doing this paul's like i'm not gonna be the dude that says no and refuses but man i don't want to do this yeah well and i also was like i'm not going in cosplay like that's that's where maybe i'm a little stubborn if we're going out in public that is just not gonna happen so you two were very happy to go as nathan drake and kratos and i was like guys it is you know me i wear the same black shirt every day. I own like

10 of them. It's just Gildan brand. I buy them, not a sponsor, buy them on Amazon. I just buy like two five packs and that's my whole closet. And I've got some tan shorts and some black athletic shorts. And I'm like, you know what I'm going to be dressed as. I'm going to be in black and khaki and I will sit there. I will do my best to engage with people and that's not always my cup of tea and you did great like that was awesome yeah it really was but yes that was good as ryan's sacrifice oh yeah yeah i do want to say too also um just in addition to everything i said and what josh said, is just find yourself a battery. Paul is a battery.

He will charge you up. So find somebody out there that you leave when you're done talking to them, you feel good and you just feel ready to attack anything. And that's what Paul does. And so like Josh said, I hope that we can continue our conversations as much as we have now. You just won't be recording with us, which is a bummer. But you help me get through every week, man. So I genuinely do appreciate it.

I'm so glad that we have connected back as much as we have from our younger years. And just all the love to you, man. And I'm here for anything. Oh, yeah yeah and you guys have made it just so easy to work with i mean i know all three of us feel exactly the same way i'm i'm looking forward to maybe being able to play more games with you guys because since i don't have to prep for the show during the day and even though i'm going to be working more since you know that's like the whole reason why i have to step back but you know maybe it'll free

up a little bit of time. I still, one of these days, I still want the three of us to play SnowRunner together. I just think it would be so funny. I think Ryan... Is that the car game? Like the truck game? Yes.

Yes. The truck game with realistic physics. I played MudRunner a little bit and I did not play it very long. But if I could crash Ryan off a mountain, that might make it worthwhile. Oh, bring it on, buddy. I think Ryan would love Snowrunner, and I think with the

three of us, it would end up being a blast. But, yeah. Well, I mean, does that pretty much wrap everything up? I think it does. I think that does it, man. This has been a... I know hopefully the people that have been listening to this show a long time have appreciated this episode. We know it's a little bit off the norm that we it, man. This has been a... I know hopefully the people that have been listening to the show a long time have appreciated this episode. We know it's a little bit off the norm that we do, but we all just really wanted to take this time to just chat,

reminisce a little bit over the last four years of the podcast and the last year and a half with Ryan being on the show and just have a good time going down memory lane a little bit. Um, you know, so yeah, I, you know, it's, it's been a lot of fun for me. It's been a lot of fun for hopefully you too as well. Um,

and we'll have you back, Paul, you've already committed to the end of year show. So, you know, we know that was the one for sure. That one. So,

yeah. And as you guys need a third, if you want to do a draft or something, obviously I'm more than happy to jump in. So yeah, let's have drafts every week. Every call. Paul, we need a third, if you want to do a draft or something, obviously I'm more than happy to jump in. Gosh, let's have drafts every week. Paul, we need a third for a draft? Paul, we're doing another one. We're doing another draft, bud.

Boy, the quality of those drafts would go downhill fast. We've done so many of those. We still struggle where it's like, all right, we're hiring video game people to work in an office. That was a real draft that we did. Do you guys ever go back and look at titles and have zero recollection of recording that? We've done a lot of episodes. I was actually doing that today, just scrolling episodes to see if something jumped out at me as far as like, oh yeah, I remember. And that's when I just went

like, I was doing the flick scroll where it's scrolling as fast as you can. And then I was like, we have done a lot of shows, man. Yeah. There's been some that I'm like, dude, I would testify under oath. I have never done an episode on that topic. And we've only been doing this for just over four years, but we've just recorded so many episodes. It's pretty wild. Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously, the show's going on without me. I'm not worried about the content at all. It's going to be great. I hope everyone continues listening. It's going to be awesome. I'm looking forward to being able to add a new podcast that I get to listen to without having any knowledge. Because if I listen to our podcast, it's more like work. I'm listening to it thinking,

how can we make this podcast better? I'm going to appreciate just being able to listen to you guys. So that's one of the silver linings here that I feel like I'll have a new favorite podcast, if nothing else. I will say Ryan and I have really been brainstorming some fun ideas. We're not just completely turning everything topsy-turvy. People have come to appreciate the show. So we are definitely keeping that vibe and that going. But we've definitely talked about what are some fun ways that we can do some things and maybe some different content that we can try out and bring to people and stuff like that. Anytime there's change, whether it's wanted change or not, it's a good time to say, hey, since this is changing, why don't we try this also? And so we're pretty excited

about that. I know that we're pumped to continue to bring people the absolute best content that we can bring them. We've got some fun surprises in store. So as sad as we are right now, I know that we are both super optimistic for the future and for some of the things that we're going to be bringing to people too. Paul can't rein us in anymore, baby. Yeah, that's right. It's going to be some shenanigans. I've been holding you back.

It's like your parents went out of town and it's party time. I don't know that I'd say I've been reigning things in that much, but I do hear you. Oh, we'll see, Paul. We'll see. We'll see. You guys will have some big swings. I'm sure some will work better than others. All right. Well, I think that wraps up everything here for this bonus round episode. I really am so incredibly grateful to the two of you and to all the listeners out there. I mean, the fact that so many people love and support the show just really does mean the world. I am definitely going to miss the structure of recording with you guys at least twice a week. We used to have

the squad cast occasionally on top of that as well. I will definitely miss it. To all the listeners out there, as a reminder, set it at the top of the show. But really, please make sure to rate the show five stars. Show that support to Josh and Ryan. Keep the show going strong. You can also leave a review if you have Apple Podcasts. And go take a look at Patreon support options at MultiplayerSquad.com. And make sure to toss us a follow everywhere at Video Gamers Pod.

So for the last time, I'm signing off. Until next time, happy happy gaming paul see ya see ya all right see everybody love you paul