Podcast Episode 34

We have quite a bit to discuss tonight. We talk tonight about the massive battle that just occurred on EVE Online. EVE Online is a space MMO. Evidently the battle lasted 21 hours and cost $300,000 in real money. There were 7,548 characters involved in the battle from 2 coalitions. This battle now claims the record for the most Titan class ships destroyed, 75. The previous record was 12. You can find more information at the EVE Online battle write up.

Rhett reads Chance's email. And we start to wonder about his sobriety during the reading, Chance's not Rhett's. We have always wondered about his sanity, not his sobriety.

We also talk about revealing personal information online. Which is the topic of Jason's dissertation. He has created a facebook app that asks questions about this very thing and then provides an evaluation on how safe your public data is. You can find the app at apps.facebook.com/facesurvey.

Then Jason talks about an article that provides reasons why 2014 will be better than 2013. We talk about hope, intelligence, troops returning, funding of the war on terror, replanting redwoods, etc. We think that these things, while good in and of themselves, fail to be proof that 2014 will be better than 2013.

Rhett then talks about video games and invites anyone who wants to join him. He enjoys playing Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War. He is currently playing War of the Roses on Steam. We also just purchased Dark Souls and will let you know what we think of it.

Finally we end the podcast with tonights bout from our tournament. For your consideration we have Magneto, The Master of Magnetism, versus Rogue, the Powerhouse from the Bayou. Magneto can manipulate metal through his mastery of magnetic fields. He is also able to project force fields, generate EMP bursts, channel his power through his body to increase his strength and durability, and more. Rogue on the other hand is much more of a wild card. She can kill with a touch. We decided that she would have her Ms. Marvel powers just to cut down on the confusion, so super strength, stamina, durability, etc. We feel that she has a good chance of winning this bout. Rhett does point out that Magneto has beaten Rogue on occasion. Jason counters that Rogue is afraid of her powers and tries to never use them in an offensive capacity unless forced. However, we decide to throw this open to voting. Let us know who you think would win and we will decide the winner next week.

Let us know what you think about the topics discussed tonight and about tonight's Battle Royale so we can call it next week: Rogue versus Magneto on our Twitter account or comment here our blog.

The Distracted Gamers Podcast Episode 34

A New Facebook App.

Jason just finished his facebook app. You can find it at http://apps.facebook.com/facesurvey/.

The survey that you find there will take about 15 minutes to complete and will provide you with an assessment of the security of your public facebook data. If you listen to the podcast you know he doesn't like talking about himself too much, but he is trying to finish school and could really use the help.

If you have questions about the survey you can send an email to sigmish@yahoo.com.

Thanks for your help, you will hear from us again on Friday.

Podcast Episode 33

We have quite a bit to get through today so I will open by saying "hi" to the NSA and encouraging them to comment on our blog. We have emails from Chance and the Daywalker, as we call him (he likes the PS4 and The Xbox One). We also discuss several big tech failure, the segway featuring prominently. We then discuss zombie survival scenarios. We end the night with the next round in our battle royale tournament.

Chance has several things to say about Augmented Reality and Net Neutrality that we discussed last week.

Jason's segment this week is about tech failures. The first is that Steve Jobs is not infallible. That's right, Steve Jobs was a mortal and subject to mistakes. The next failure was the segway. Everyone thought it was a great idea, but no one bought it. It even took the owner of the company to his death. The Associated Press had their twitter account hacked and the Dow dropped 140 points. Super Bowl XLVII suffered a blackout caused by the device that was supposed to prevent just that occurrence. Apple Maps kept stranding people in the outback. And Motorola sold some refurbished Xoom tablets with customer data still on them.

Rhett then runs us through several zombie survival scenarios. We discuss the best thing to bring when faced with a zombie apocalypse. What is the worst place to be caught. What to do if you are stranded at work. What type of vehicle to take, if your choices are limited to what's nearby. We also discuss which weapons to avoid. These are important questions that need answering if we are to survive.

We finally wrap up all the podcast goodness with tonight's battle royale in our tournament. Tonight we have Superman versus Captain America. We rather feel that the outcome is a foregone conclusion. We both have our favorites, but what can you do with a match-up like this. Superman is the man of steel and is godlike in his powers. Captain America on the other hand is the enhanced, but he is not Superman. Captain America has his shield and is probably the better man and better strategical thinker of the two, but again, he isn't Superman.

Let us know what you think about the topics discussed tonight and about tonight's Battle Royale or comment on next week's: Rogue versus Magneto on our Twitter account or comment here our blog.

The Distracted Gamers Podcast Episode 33

Podcast Episode 32

It's another exciting episode of the DG Podcast. We know that it is rather self-promoting and biased, but we agree that tonight's episode is one of our better ones, possibly the best we've done. As always we talk about just about anything and everything that crosses our minds. Sorry Chance, no Lord of the Rings tonight, maybe next week. Good luck with the inventory thing.

We open tonight with the news that EA has done some back pedaling and Simcity will now have an offline play mode. The initially came out and said that it would be impossible to have the offline option, but as we know nothing is impossible for infinite monkeys.

Which leads us to Jason's topic, not really, but go with me: Augmented Reality. If you are not familiar with Augmented Reality check out this artist's conception on Youtube. There are many pros and cons to augmented reality. Some of the pros are that you can be warned of dangerous situations in time to react correctly to them. Information will be at your finger tips, even more so that today with smartphones. However, the cons could far outweigh the pros. You could lose most of your privacy, ads will be much more intrusive, and we could become overdependent on media.

Rhett then takes us into Net Neutrality, which we support. Net Neutrality is the concept that the various ISPs don't favor any one website, nor do they charge for their services when you access an internet resource that exists on a competing ISP. Think about the phone companies and this is the opposite. The FCC has create several regulations that support Net Neutrality. These regulations were opposed by Verizon and were overturned in court. This could have very serious ramifications for the price of internet connectivity.

Finally, we decide the victor in tonight's Battle Royale . Tonight we have Namor, the Sub-Mariner versus Powergirl. Namor is one of the most powerful mortals in the Marvel Universe. He is super-humanly strong, fast, and durable and he has the power of flight. He has many of the same powers as Aquaman, but to a greater degree. He has gone toe to toe with the Hulk and held his own. He is also bit of a jerk. Powergirl on the is a Kryptonian like Superman. She has the same powers as a Kryptonian under a yellow sun, superhuman strength, speed, durability, heat vision, flight, etc. That being said she is not as powerful as Superman and her power levels have been rather inconsistent over the years. We envision that this fight becomes a continent, if not planet, shattering battle. Listen to the podcast to find out who wins.

Let us know what you think about the topics discussed tonight and about tonight's Battle Royale or comment on next week's: Superman versus Captain America on our Twitter account or comment here our blog.

The Distracted Gamers Podcast Episode 32

Podcast Episode 31

Welcome back to the DG Podcast. We are now on our second episode of the new year. We have quite a bit to talk about tonight. We start as usual with Chance's email. Happy Birthday by the way. Our #1 fan has invited us to his wedding, whenever that happens to be. Let us know.

Jason then opens the discussion tonight with Ulysses 31. The story is a retelling of the Odyssey set in the 31st century. Ulysses leaves the Troy system to return to Earth. On the way his son is kidnapped to be sacrificed to the cyclops. Ulysses kills the cyclops and is punished by the Gods of Olympus to wander through space until he finds the Kingdom of Hades. Jason is a fan of these retellings, at least to a certain extent, and likes to see them done well. We also talk a little about Dante' Divine Comedy and Shakespeare. Both of these have been powerful sources of inspiration to many diverse types of media.

Rhett continues the discussion with Playstation Now. Playstation Now is a pay service on Playstation 4 that will allow you to play PS3 games streaming à la Netflix. We are all for it. However, we do still like the idea of owning a physical copy. Plus, while this service does rely on a good internet connection, it is not mandatory (Xbox One) and if you don't want it you don't have to have it.

Finally, we resolve the battle between The Thing and The Flash. It turns out that the fight really is very one-sided, at least in our opinion. So, we move on to the next match. This one ended so quickly we almost started another one tonight, but with the combatants being Namor and Power Girl we decided to hold of till next week. Let us know who you think would win. Let us know what you think on our Twitter account or comment here our blog.

The Distracted Gamers Podcast Episode 31

Podcast Episode 30

We have reached another milestone, albeit a small one. We have reached episode 30 on the DG Podcast. I wish that we could say that the podcast tonight was incredible and special, but you'll just have to put up with mediocre, but that's just what you have come to expect from us. What can we say.

We talk about the fact that Dark Horse has lost the Star Wars license. Disney now owns both Marvel and Star Wars and they are going to be publishing Star Wars comics in house. We mention the Penny Arcade scandal. We also talk about the how the combine nerd-rage on the internet got Microsoft to change their plans for the Xbox One. We are a bit scattered at least at the beginning of the podcast, because we also mention the NSA's spying on gamers in MMO's.

As far as what needs to stop, first day DLC. Either ship it with the game or forget about it and ship is with the first game update. In addition, game companies need to stop using end users as beta testers. We're not talking about open betas where the users get to play the game as testers and provide feedback on their experience. We're talking about shipping a game or console without having finished the proper testing and expecting to fix everything a year after release.

Jason and Rhett both give their top 5 games of 2013. These aren't necessarily the best games of 2013, just the 5 games released in 2013 that we enjoyed the most. Jason's list in no particular order is Borderlands 2, BattleBlock Theater, Lego Batman 2, Lord of the Rings: War in the North, and Torchlight II. Rhett's top 5 list is Total War: Rome II, Tomb Raider, Metro: Last Light, Last of Us, and Assassin's Creed IV.

Finally, we get down to tonight's showdown in our Battle Royale tournament. In this round we pit The Thing against The Flash (Wally West). Right off, Jason feels that the fight would go to The Thing. Rhett does some research and comes down on the side of The Flash. So we are going to leave the verdict till next week. Let us know who you think would win and we will discuss this particular battle again next week.

The Distracted Gamers Podcast Episode 30