Episode 236: Now With Pandas

This week, Paul is not around, as Jonah Falcon and Jordan Lund discuss the latest news, which includes pandas. Lots and lots of pandas. That, and a Gaming History profile on David Crane.

The news this week includes:

  • World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria announced
  • Sony: April PSN outage has resulted in improved service
  • Deep Silver: “There is a clear technology gap
  • Starcraft II DOTA mod will remain free but monetized
  • “Literally, there’s three of us” on console Diablo III
  • Minecraft dev wins interim injunction over Scrolls name

With that is Reader Mail and the Queston of the Week: What was your favorite Atari 2600 game?

0 thoughts on “Episode 236: Now With Pandas”

  1. @World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria announced
    Well, they keep doing expansions, but something tells me people got tired of it.
    As for raising the level cap, it is the only way you can keep the players that don’t want to grind up again.

    @Deep Silver: “There is a clear technology gap“
    Wow … they discovered that a 4GB system RAM, 1GB video RAM PC is better than a 256 MB system 256 MB video PS3 …
    As Jordan said, the main issue is that developing 3 code bases is expensive. The advantage of the XBox is using PC-like components, and using a PC-like software platform.

    @Starcraft II DOTA mod will remain free but monetized
    What are the terms in the EULA? Does Starcraft II allows this?
    If so, then it is the second game that I know of that does this (TF2 being the first), and I like the trend it sets.

    @Minecraft dev wins interim injunction over Scrolls name
    Good for them. If they kept a record of the offer to give up the trade mark, then this will weigh in quite a lot in the court: it’ll point out that Bethesda is not up to protecting the name.

    @QOTW: none, unfortunately.

  2. No Paul again. =(

    Anyway,
    @Minecraft dev wins interim injunction over Scrolls name:
    Finally, I was sick and tired of hearing about this nonsense, and I am grateful that Bethesda hasn’t gained anything from his.

    @QOTW: Just to show how much out of my time that is, my parents had an Atari 2600 back when they were still children.

  3. ahhhh i really miss derrick and jennifer i wish they could host ,btw any news on their son???
    @ minecraft dev wins interium injunction over scrolls name ,Hooray good for mojang im so sick of bethesda being so freaking sensitive
    @qotw dude im 13 years old the atari is a dinosaur
    Paul is gone again a mixture of sadness and happiness but mostly happines ,jk

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Episode 617: Steam DeckedEpisode 617: Steam Decked

The Steam Deck has been released, and TJ and Scott are just excited about it. They’re able to play indie games on a Switch-like device even though many of the same games on the Switch. Jonah already has Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and therefore already plays games with a controller on his cellphone.

This week’s news includes:

  • Some Steam Deck preorders won’t ship until September 2022
  • PES is dead, replaced by the F2P ‘football platform’ eFootball
  • Humankind dev pulls controversial Denuvo DRM from game before launch
  • Xbox Game Pass is about to have an unbelievably good month

Let us know what you think on our Facebook page.

38 Studios Pulls EA and Blizzard Talent38 Studios Pulls EA and Blizzard Talent

Formerly Green Monster Games, 38 Studios is growing a large pool of talented folks for their MMO endeavor. First, we heard R.A. Salvatore (writer of the Dark Elf series) was heading over to work on a story, art direction by Todd McFarlane (creator of Spawn) and now Irena Pereira from Blizzard and a sound designer, Aubrey Hodges.

Hodges has done sound for games like Kings Quest, Quake and even Madden NFL. Pereira was a World of Warcraft interface designer which allows us to invision a bit about what 38 Studio’s MMO may look like from a user interaction perspective.

The MMO, currently titled Copernicus has a tentative launch date of 2010, which seems short for a full MMO design but they’ve been hard at work for roughly two years. Not too shabby a team for a privately held company founded by baseball star Curt Shilling.

It’s important to note Shilling is an avid gamer and loves massive multiplayer online games. What else does a man with a lot of money do as a side project? Fund a company based on the hobby he loves! If anyone knows the best directions and qualities of an MMO it should be an experienced team guided by someone with a passion for the game genre.

We’ll have to wait and see!

Read on for the full press release

(more…)