Strain 91-SWK

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Welcome agents to Strain 91 -SWK of the Zero Point Report, the number one broadcast all about the news surrounding the Secret World IP. Today is Thursday, April 18th, 2024, and I am Ocho, one of the hosts for this evening. With me tonight, we have Two Ton Waffle. Who, me? Yeah, you. Oh, hello.
He's not British! It broke me. He's a cockney kid from the 1800s now. And we have Jimmy the Rabbit! A non -British child asking for... What is this bollocks? Please sir, may I have some more?
I just pictured you in like one of those like newsboy caps.
I have one. Jumping around with like knee high stockings.
With what? Like knee -high stockings and like newsboy cap and a, I don't know, a ragamuffin on the streets, if you will. You want a bottle of water, mate?
How could you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat? Anyway...
We're back, back again. Back.
Hope you're all doing well. We're here to talk about the secret world, believe it or not.
So welcome if you're joining us in chat. We're here live on Twitch. We've got chat going. You can talk with us. You can chat with us while we do the show live. It's a fun little feature. It's okay. You can talk with us. It's just us and you. It's okay. Open up. I'm not trapped in here with you. You're trapped in here with me. You're trapped in here with me.
It reminded me of something, some new linguistic thing of us using the word, like when we talk about chat, we're talking about chat as like a fourth wall breaking entity. Yeah. And that's like somehow a different form of speech or a different form of thing for like, and so we say like, oh, hey chat, how you doing? That we're referring to like a, and it's part of the whole like media that is.
you know, sort of video, but it's also through a fourth wall medium. I don't know. I don't know enough about linguistics to really talk about that, but. I don't think it's that new because I feel like you would do it for audiences as well. I mean, the newness is, I guess, of being virtual and a lot of people doing it, right? But. It's something to do with it. It's that's what's something to do with the word.
Because isn't it a bit like, hey everybody?
Like, hey, audience, how you doing, audience members? Yeah, yeah, like it's basically the same thing. How do you do, fellow humans? What do y 'all think about this? What do y 'all think?
I will say, okay, I will say, okay, maybe this is the difference. Definitely addressing a large group of people as like a...
as like a singular thing has certainly been done before, right? I'm pretty sure that's not, that's technically not new. However, maybe addressing like almost directly addressing the mob mentality is maybe new. Yeah, it's sort of, it's sort of along that lines.
Because maybe you wouldn't have ascribed like a few people's answers to be everyone's answer, right? As like a conglomerate. But I still think that probably still happened in some forums, right? The majority of the audience has decided X, right? Or like you're a standard comedian in a small town and like you guys are all fucking assholes.
Like saying announcing to an audience it's like ladies and gentlemen guys What yeah, I mean that's that's what I said in the first place But I'm I kind of took it back a little bit going like well, that's not the same as saying like hey chat What do you think about this and I know chats always wrong? No one's like oh they are not saying no one but it's probably pretty rare to someone's like the you know You all of you in the audience like kind of suck it like that probably is pretty rare. I
Last thing is never have usually don't want to do that to your yeah, usually you don't want to do that You know to be like hey you all suck. Maybe the bill burr like Philly thing maybe You the very famous bill burr like Philly rants where he just went on stage and fucking tore into Philly for like an hour or something Because they were like heckling the shit out of all those people and he got up there and was like fuck you guys
You in bread pieces. He just went off for like a really long time.
That might be the closest thing I can think of.
I'm not sure. I know I don't know where it, no, I have no idea where I found it. It was something, something linguistically about saying using chat as like a, and how it was somehow, somehow - Were you using the act of talking as like a, a group think name, I guess?
I don't know, maybe they also might just be over like reading into that too. Yeah, probably. It was probably on Reddit or something. Like, you guys might be like...
You might need to take it out on us. You're like, chill out. This has been done before. I feel like it's definitely.
I feel like it's definitely happened to a certain extent, probably not as pervasively though. Right?
Certainly not as pervasively.
No. No, either way, I think it was also, it was mostly about how Twitch itself is a format that is unique or at least live streaming, not to say it's just what I like. Well, just let anyone with a computer and a webcam be a televangelist. Like it's the same. You get to have that parasocial relationship and people can give you money. Like it's the same thing as if you literally think about it. True, yeah. It's pretty similar in a...
Very generic sense.
True, true. I don't think I ever thought of Twitch as a televangelist platform, but yeah, it makes sense. We're not really using it for that, but it's a very similar like... I mean, I guess you could, really. Yeah, you could. Yeah, you could. And it'd be very similar. It's a very similar social relationship, right? Like, people wonder, like, why the fuck do people give money to those people? Right? Mm -hmm.
But they probably would also wonder why the fuck people give them insurance. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's a very similar parasocial relationship, I think, in a lot of ways. I had that. While I was on vacation, I was on vacation for about a week earlier this month. And I met a friend from college while I was down there. And it was something I haven't seen in years. And it was great meeting up with them. And
We had lunch in Disney Springs and it was good times. And they were like, they're like, what were they saying? They were like, my, they're talking about how their nephew wanted to play video games on the computer and have people watch them while they play video games. And I was like, huh, really? Hmm, that's an interesting thing.
I was like, really? People do that?
What is this Twitch thing? Yeah, wow, really? Like, because they were bringing it up and sort of like a isn't that crazy sort of way? And I was like, yeah, crazy. So crazy. Holy batshit insane. Who would do that? Who would do that?
They're like, someone will like watch them play a video game. They're like, that's so weird. I'm like, yeah, so crazy. I don't know what you're talking about. That's crazy. The thing is it's not, because those same people have no problem watching like baseball or football. Yeah. Or golf. Oh, gosh, God forbid golf. Yeah. No, but I'm serious. Like any sport where you are as a fan watching, it's literally zero difference. Yeah. Right.
Because it's it's it's live content that you're watching someone do basically. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, not all streams are like that. Right. Some some streams maybe aren't of, you know, are more like interactive or chatting, whatever. But you're fucking specifically like game stuff. It's literally to see someone be, if not good, at least entertaining. Mm hmm. At a game.
It's like, either way, it's all entertainment. You're watching to be entertained. If you're not entertained, you wouldn't be watching. Are you not entertained? Yeah.
But yeah, and so they were like, they're like, isn't that like crazy? Like who would, who would do such a thing? And I was like, yeah, who would do that? Who, who would, who would, and nobody in their right mind would do that. Who would, who would enjoy watching someone else play? But no, I was actually like, kind of like, well, no, I mean, you know, if you think about it, it is more like an entertainment medium because we, we did like theater in college. And so I was trying to.
tie it into the whole aspect of doing theater. How do you have done theater and not comprehend? Right? Yeah, I was kind of a little blown away at that. It's kind of like, it's entertainment. It's an entertainment medium. It's a, yeah.
And how like, you know, entertainment from that, but now you're watching it for people at home and it's still a performance. Like it's a and I was trying to tie it into. Well, basically it is a performance, essentially. Yeah. It may not be necessarily scripted. It depends on the stream. Sometimes it's more. And sometimes it's more skill based and less entertainment based. It depends on the person. Right. Yeah. Sometimes it really is like watching it, like just watching like an athlete. Right. Right. Depends on the type of stream. Yeah.
Speedrunners this that yeah, yeah, if you're watching like a no hit or a speedrunner you're watching someone do something at like peak form Extraordinary, yeah, different than than watching a sports athlete, you know, that's Crazy better than you'll ever see you're like this is impressive But it is like into like but on the other side if you're just watching like for entertainment reasons, it's like it's very much like improv or
Or even like a mystery science theater 3000 sort of like commentary or like you're doing it's more than just playing. It's more than just playing the game itself. It's the interaction. It's a this, it's a that. Anyway, I just want to funny other like, isn't that crazy? Like, sure. Yeah. Oh my gosh. It's totally. You know what else I.
I realized it supplies both to twist just because people do reactions on Twitch and then also just like reaction videos on YouTube. It's like I noticed a thing that I do, which is like I'll find something I like and then I'll go watch the same thing like 10 times, but watching other people react to it. Right. And then it's not just me. Like something I've noticed, like when I was only recommented often, but I have recons or whatever. And like other people notice over time kind of will do the same thing. Like.
really like something, you'll see them in the comments on everyone reacting to that content because they just really enjoy seeing people see it. And I was like, I think that's actually related to like a parental thing. Even if you don't have kids, like I think that's a that's a thing where like you're kind of wired, like it's a little bit like you're wired to like you you get enjoyment from seeing someone enjoy something you like.
Yes, absolutely. Like when you experience it through your kid's eyes, right? You're having a second experience of like, Oh my God, they're walking. And you're like, yeah, no, no shit. Walking is easy, right? But you see the kid do it. And it's like, you're kind of reliving. So I think that's why reaction content is actually kind of big. I think when I've seen studies of like, when they like have studies of like, like somebody watching sports, that
the same areas of the brain light up as if they were actually playing it, as if they were actually like they're experiencing it. And that's why we like doing stuff like watching sports. That's why we like doing stuff like action movies and whatnot, because we have, it's sort of like, although we're watching it, our brains are sort of acting like we're there, like we're there actually experiencing it. And so - Getting some endorphins off of it, for sure. Yeah, and -
So yes, when we watch someone else doing something that we've already gone through, there is sort of this feeling of we've been there and we're also experiencing it with them. I have a hypothesis that, at least from the parental side, part of it might just be so you don't get bored watching your kid. Like an evolutionary, like keep your kid alive kind of thing. Yes. Yeah. It's like, oh, you know what?
you need to get something out of this or you're just not going to watch your kid do stuff and then they're going to die falling off a cliff or something. So that's also that's also the reasons why we have why we have small, cute, fuzzy animals that we take care of is because we do have this inborn need to protect and nurture what is small and tiny because evolution has said so. Yeah, I genuinely think that that's some of the reason that like as a parent, like,
even the littlest thing like, like, you know, something does like that, that's nature, like forcing you to want to pay attention and give you a reason to, but then I think that also kind of translates into just watching adults. Like if you, if it's something that you liked seeing another person enjoy it, like is triggers that similar part of the brain probably is my guess.
But I think that's why people go down rabbit holes of like, oh, I really like this thing. I'm going to watch 50 other people react to that thing. I like, you wouldn't watch that content 50 times in a row, even if you liked it, right? You wouldn't watch it 50 times in a row necessarily, but you'd watch it 50 times in a row to watch 50 different people, you know, positively react to something that you that you liked.
It's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I am also fully of the idea that there is a lot of evolutionary stuff that it's just like, we're just not aware of, but we all do it anyway, because it's been, you know, we are honed after millions and millions of years to be where we are. And we've only scratched the surface of what that actually means. Hey, Vomr.
How you doing?
All right, now segue. Let's see it. I dare you. Farmer saying that the website denied them due to not having a camera hooked up. Yeah, I'm talking with them. Behind the scenes here. Oh, as well. OK. Yeah. A bundle of anxiety. Speaking of anxiety, we have news from the secret world. Hi, Brandon. As we are all.
anxiously, we've been anxiously waiting here to here it is here it is here it is. We've all been anxiously waiting the delivery of materials for the tabletop RPG and the stuff has been delivered. In the 50th update from Star Amo studios about the secret world Kickstarter they have said, greetings you wonderful backers. Words cannot express how grateful we
We are for all your support and enthusiasm.
What? Sorry, go ahead, keep going. Oh. Every time we receive a message about how much you guys are enjoying the book, it gives us a warm glow in our hearts. Delivery has begun. So far, we've managed to deliver everything with one exception, the art book print code. We're still waiting on getting a proof to double check that everything looks good for people who want print on demand copies. Please double check your spam folders to ensure that the codes haven't gone there. If you're still missing codes, contact us.
or drive -through RPG for assistance. This way we can continue to respond to and help any of you who have issues with receiving your codes. Once again, I want to thank everyone for your astounding patience and excitement about the Secret World Role -Playing Game. We're extremely happy to give you the books you've been waiting for. And then on top of that, renewed contract with Funcom, more Secret World RPG in the works. They're also very pleased to announce that they've renewed their licensing contract with Funcom.
And that means we're going to be producing more Sequel World RPG products soon. We look forward to showing you what we're currently building sometime in 2025. The next stage of the Sequel World RPG is just getting started. So cool. We got more Sequel World on the way. Also, Brandon says, still waiting to get the art book out, but that proof should be here soon. Where is he at? He's in our... Oh, he's in our... What's Chad doing?
That's why I said hi to Glitch. I wasn't saying there was a glitch. I was saying hi to Glitch. Oh, I see. I see Glitch. I don't see Brandon. It's because they're on on the YouTube side because I'm always on YouTube side. That would be it. OK. Oh, you're not looking. Why don't you use the chat in the thing?
It's a little speech bubble on the right.
I've got a weird system for chat that I use for Twitch chat. I use a third party program. Oh yeah, I used to do that and then I got lazy. Well, not just I got lazy, I literally couldn't use it because of the dual streaming thing, right? Because now you can dual stream. Right, right, yeah. So, and because it doesn't like support that, I just don't, I don't want to use it anymore, but I used to use it too.
I do like it for other reasons besides that as well. But right from the streaming side. But no, I see him in the right in the guest chat comments. You got going on.
So hey Brandon Hope you're doing well on the YouTubes as well Tubes of you Hey Glitch, right Vomr, how's everyone doing?
They go on further to say, patience, please. Right now, our day jobs keep us pretty busy, so we really can only respond to answering questions or delivery issues on the weekends. We're working hard to take care of any issues that arise as quickly as possible, so we respectfully ask you to be patient with us as we work through your messages. Delivery, printing, and production notes. Thanks to your feedback or discussions with Drive for RPG, we've identified some of the issues that you guys should be aware of with regards to the delivery of the codes.
and how these codes interact with the various products on DriveThruRPG. One, we've learned that the cards cannot ship with the books since they come from a separate warehouse. You cannot order cards and books in the same shipment. During our tests, DriveThruRPG counts the discount print code as used, but will not allow the order to be completed. For anyone who is experiencing this problem, please contact DriveThruRPG customer service and they will fix it. They've already done this for some of our backers, so we're confident.
They've got a hand on the problem and can address your concerns. Two, the art book print proof is taking a little extra time. We expect everything to be fixed with this in less than two weeks. And say, when was this?
That was, this update was, do do do do do.
Where's the link? Where's the link? It's right there. It's right there. Uh, April 7th. This was about 11 days ago.
So.
So we'll make sure to send out the print codes. We're having in less than two weeks. Once we've got this ready, make sure to send out the print codes so you can print it, POD. The Power Cards PDF is being re -sent out. We made this choice to simply make sure that everyone who paid for the cards receives them. We don't want anyone to miss out. So that's the latest update. So we've got the PDFs, we've got printing on the way, art book is being worked on, et cetera. It's an exciting time.
as we now have the tabletop books in our in our grubby hands in group chat on discord.
In the general chat, yeah.
No? We said.
I see him, he posted. I mean, what luck.
Um, because right, they've also, he also posted and he's.
Brandon's trying to sneak in here. Trying to join the show, I saw that.
I mean, if you want to, you can. I'm not saying, I'm not gonna say no. But yes, that was gonna be the next part that I brought up is that with the announcement there that you've renewed the contract with Funcom, more secret world RPG in the works, that you have announced the secret world for Savage Worlds Kickstarter coming April 30th.
I gotta kill your box. Let's go. Let's go.
and they've put out an official YouTube video announcement, which is basically like the same announcement video for just the Secret World Tabletop RPG.
but they put that out there and it's for the Savage Worlds.
and that's supposed to be starting April 30th.
but is the page already up?
to find me on launch.
now listed as a Kickstarter upcoming project.
So yes, April 30th, new Kickstarter for Savage World, Secret World. Secret Savage, Savage Secret, Secret Savage World.
The... the secretly savage legends. The savage secret world's worlds.
They both have the word, they both have world in them, it makes it awkward.
But Brandon, you did say that this was one of your favorites. You wanted to get out 5e because 5e is one of the most popular going on right now. But Savage Worlds, you always felt was sort of a better fit for Secret World itself. And also you just like running Savage Worlds stuff. That's what you said the last time that we had you on. And we're not gonna let you forget it. Nope.
No we won't.
Partly for that is because you also said that, Brandon also said that he would be interested in maybe having us run through that he'd be more than happy to run a game for us here on the show.
Which, heck yeah. Heck yeah I'd be into that.
Where is that Badoop coming from?
What?
Padoop -a -doop.
i don't hear it is it me?
I don't know.
like a messa -ding or something.
I got nothing like that going on.
I don't know. Neither do I. I don't know. Is it coming through? Is it coming through on the other side or is that? Do you just hear that? I have no idea. Yeah, that's fair.
No idea at all. Who dropped the peculiar box? Who was it? Oh, I was in a regional farm. Okay. There's just like 25 doggos or something.
I was just killing time before we started. Grabs. In the very, very last chest, like dropped a peculiar box. Nice. So I can do Team Commander.
I'll say how many times you've done can tank commander but.
I don't know, like 30 or something.
Okay. He was in the... Oh, that's why I wasn't seeing it.
The text dimension of it.
Oh, he is, yes. The general lobby of the chat of our... I didn't even know that was a thing. Wait a minute. You could chat inside someone's voice channel.
Oh, yeah. Okay. I see now that is a tiny, tiny ass fucking bubble. How am I supposed to know that? Yeah. Another came up that said something was chatting it there.
So the link is there. That's cool. I'm sorry. I just love running it. And I could run a short demo of this for you guys, probably here. You're a completely professional organization. We absolutely know our tech. What is it? The last time my voice just kept changing over and over again. It's called puberty. Microphone. I knew that was coming. I knew it as soon as you said that. I knew that was coming.
A good old second puberty, it happens, you know. What is it they say that, yeah, one of the guys from the guy who played Pippin in Lord of the Rings went through a second puberty basically after he was in Lord of the Rings and his voice got much deeper.
like second breakfast? Yeah. Yeah. What about second breakfast?
Third one. It was a semi -recent update. It's been a thing for at least a year on Discord. Man.
I don't know.
Yes, I have to use discord more often in order to get that. It's fucking massively obfuscated. Yeah. Well, it's called shoehorning features in that doesn't really belong. Let's try this feature and then if it gets popular, we'll actually tell people. Actually, I think it's a good feature. It just should be more like easily tell that that is happening. Well, the thing is that it's a feature that is copied over from Gilded, but Gilded.
When you go into a voice channel, chat is automatically expanded out on the side. Yeah. Oh, this Discord, it's like, oh, we had chat, but you had to hit the bubble and then opens up the window and it's not really the button to open it up like that's fine. But the button should be like the size of the tab, like just below general lobby should be like an actual bar that's like.
chat or something and not just a little mini chat bubble. That is an icon that gets lost in many other icons. Yeah. It's like that's where the settings icon is. I didn't expect there to be a chat thing there. Also, if there's like a beep from someone going in there, that should be like an additional like thing you could actually click on. Right. Because I was hearing the alert and not visually seeing anything that told me where to click to see that shit.
So that's like the biggest reason. Cause I was here in alert two, but I have discord muted. So it doesn't go out through the broadcast. Yeah. I've got discord. I've got discord muted as well. So I didn't hear it, but maybe that's what you, maybe that's what you were hearing. That was a message. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm sure. I think that's what it was. I was hearing it was, well, like I can hear the stuff that goes in discord on my end, but it doesn't go out through the, uh, through the stream. Yeah. Yeah.
Why does it sound like someone's messaging us? Because someone actually is. That's what I was looking through. I'm like, is it another server? I'm like, where is this coming from? We are a nice professional organization.
Um, Francis, and I could run a short demo of this for you guys, probably here. That'd be amazing. That'd be amazing.
I'd love to do a little tabletop.
on the show here.
We had a recent thing in our town, just this past weekend. There was like a, I'm going to put it in very loose quotations, a convention in my hometown. There's no convention space in our hometown. And it was like, it was like a tabletop, tabletop convention called Ecclesicon. And I was like, Ecclesicon? Ecclesme?
I was like, is it? And it was apparently like one of the churches around us was doing like tabletop role playing in the church or something. And it was like, okay, that's interesting.
Oh, they've really come around, huh? Yeah. One of my friends was like, hey, we should go to this. And I was like, should we though?
I was like, I don't know. I don't know how to feel about that. See, there it is again. Badoop. Yep. That was me. He says, I have free gens and such. You can just get down and play. Nice. Glad to have a meet up some night for about 30 minutes to explain the basics and then run a one or two hour demo. Nice. Yes, we'll schedule this. We'll schedule this. Maybe for the next show.
uh... for like...
When's the next one? May?
May 2nd?
That would be two days after your Kickstarter starts. Yeah, wow. I have times change, right? Yeah. The church, the church doing role playing tabletop role playing D and D. That's the devil's work. I know. What's the smile? What? We're growing up with the anti D and D ads. Mm hmm. It's wild. You know, with like the the Satan worshiping and all of.
Like, oh my god, they're doing this and then they're gonna go out and drink blood and kill people or some shit. That's right. What I see coming like Dimension 20, one of the D &D troops out there, selling out Madison Square Garden.
Like, holy shit. They need all that room for people to like drink blood and stuff. That's right.
But it was like, who would have thought that now Dungeons & Dragons is selling out like, one of the most popular arenas in the world?
Who would have thought? It is! I mean, that's the thing. Well, also, D20 is like, that's, you know, that's S tier. Yeah. I mean, that's like watching a movie happen or something. Yeah. I mean, yeah, no, those guys are professionals. They're really good. But it's just, wow, now we have multiple like Dungeons and Dragons groups, live play D &D groups going around doing stuff. It's amazing.
What a time. What a time we live in. The future is now. No, it was yesterday. It was yesterday. Sorry. Yeah. We already missed it. It was now.
that's seen some from spaceballs. Oh, when will now be now? Soon. That was great.
What happened to me? Oh, it just passed. When? Just now. Now? Now? Soon.
So yeah, we got coming up. Now I haven't gone and printed everything out yet because as I was saying before this started, I'm still in vacation mode. So part of me is like, what? I need to actually pay attention to stuff? Please. Read emails? What's going on? Don't make me. No, anything that happened in the past week, I'm actually deleted, right? I've been trying to.
Um, but yeah, well, we've got the codes for the material to have that printed out. Uh, we already have the PDFs and now we've got the Savage Worlds coming.
I was saying how this happens to me is whenever I go on vacation that I always come back and go like, like I use it as a time to refresh. I use it as a time to.
Do an introspection of my life and go, what can be cut out? What's going wrong? What can I fix? What can I do that? I use the time away as a reset period. That's what I would get rid of. I would get rid of all that. Get rid of the introspection of vacation? I would use that time to fucking get drunk. All that shit can worry about itself.
That's future you problem.
Well, that shit is future future Jimmy's problem. Past Jimmy's kind of a dick, but you know. But I found that coming back, it was like, I don't want to deal with like one. That's why we before we go on any vacation, we also like clean the house. We give the house like a full clean, like two weeks before we leave. We'll clean everything so that when we come back, we're like, hey, we're coming back to a clean house.
I'm just doing it every time I can. Get in all the chats. Well, now that we know that there's that other secret chat available. Well, you knew or no, now I know. I now know, but it wasn't giving me a buzz saying that anyone was there.
Well, yeah, the reason I'm doing a YouTube is because I'm lazy and I don't feel like uploading it. So I'm like, I just stream it. You streaming it automatically uploads. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah, not bad. There's really not a good reason not to dual stream, honestly. No, there isn't. I've been doing that for over a year. One. But it like it's like a minor inconvenience. And that's just like like on Twitch, you can just separate your your.
music track out. Right. You can't really easily do that if you're multi streaming. Oh. So like you basically have to be a good person and not and not use copyrighted material DMC or whatever. Yeah. But you can get around it by just having that basically only happen while you're live. Right. So does it end up in your God? That's not possible if you're dual streaming.
So you just have to bite the bold and like, you know, not play copyright shit.
But you know, other than that... What?
obey the law. Like some kind of noob. Who wants to do that? Wait, some kind of degenerate? Oh, yes.
Do you not know? Do you not know by now? Do we have this discussion about me talking to my friend and her being like, so have you heard this thing about people watching other people play video games? What? Like what? When the hell did this happen? What are you talking about? That's crazy, crazy talk. No one does that. Brick in the law, brick in the law. We're all degenerates. It's fine. We're all degenerates together. That is the point of the Internet.
Hey Scratch!
How you doing? Welcome in.
More news about Secret World. I wanted to do this one. We have Vomr here standing with us in game. We've got Vomr with us in chat. I figured we'd bring this up. Vomr's Love on Gaia writing contest winners. Vomr has put out a post on the forums. He says, jubilations are an order, sweetlings. Love on Gaia burns bright through the dark days. Each heartfelt story has been witnessed, too, with all love due.
The custodians were diligent in their sorting and study of each and every submission. We are aglow with adoration for you and your creations. It is our Gaia blessed honor to unveil the prize winning stories for the Secret World Legends Love on Gaia writing contest. Note that this contest bomber is amazing. Note that this contest did go on from March 20th until April 22nd, 2023. So this was a 2023.
Um, contest and listen with all those submissions, I get it. There was a, uh, when this was still beyond the veil, we did a thing with a story contest.
There was a lot of fricking reading going on. I remember that.
I tried to put it behind me. There was a there was a lot of fricking reading. Yeah. And I want to do the same thing. I want to go through every one. But it was like, hold on. I need to read like like 50 submissions over the span of like, yeah, no, it's a lot. It's a lot. I get it.
So you've posted on the forums. Just going to go over that.
The grand prize winner was by Goonshine with the story Love on Gaia, A Sermon of Love. And all these winners, I'm gonna post this down in the comments here. All these winners, you can actually go and read their submissions.
But you had multiple different types of love for people to submit their stories under either unconditional love, agape, passionate love, eros, friendship love, fila, or familial love, storage. Storage? I don't know how to pronounce that. Storage. You say storage? Like storage. Storage wars. Like, yeah, like, you know. Watch your profanity.
That's familial love. Storage.
It's like we were going through the side note, we were going through the grocery store with my son the other day and he loves reading all the signs to us. And there was one that was for quiches. And it was like, take a quiche home. A sign that basically said that. Would you call me? And I looked at him and I was like, I was like, what does that say? And he's like, take a quiche home. And I was like, yes.
That is a thousand percent how you pronounce that. Yes. Yes, it was. I was like, absolutely. Absolutely. It's now it's quee -chay now. Quee -chay.
That's the only way it can be. So between those four different... So, storage. Storage is how I'm thinking it's pronounced. I have no idea how it's pronounced. But the winners of those... The mold of an attic. That's what Gwyd said. Storage. Look, storage.
Storage love.
Like having someone down in your basement, tying them up down there. It's storage love.
Okay. I mean, no one's down there. Oh, don't go down there. Don't go down to the basement. There's no one down there. It's very, very dusty. You don't want to go down there. For Agape Unconditional Love, first place winner was Dawn Charger with the story Love on Gaia, the inner thoughts of a good boy. Sure.
with runner -up winner Pink Hair, a London valentine.
Eros winner first place was Razor Grin with the story The Longest Road. Runner -up winner Goldsaber with Rooftop Picnic. Oh baby. Now I know you said for most of these stories that they should be safe for work, but for passionate love. I don't know.
Just beware.
Everyone showed so very much love on Gaia. It was heartwarming. Nice. It's risky for the biscuit. It won't work. For friendship love, the first place winner was Candy Tuft with the story, The Meeting of the Illuminati's Best Worst Agents. Sounds fun.
And the runner up winner, Queen Medby with Bitter and Sweet. And then the storage winners, Familia Love. Okay, you can only keep family in your storage. Good to know. First place winner was Errol with the story World 1 -1. And the runner up winner, Drina with The Music Box. We know Drina.
Now here's the question is, I didn't fully go over this, they won something special for this one. The prizes were, all participants received the romantic title item and the kawaii revenant t -shirt clothing item.
Runner -up winners also got the Heart Pajamas Purple Award item. First place winners also got the Special Agent dossier Jack Boone, as well as the Cat Ears headset pink. And grand prize winners got all of that, plus one piece of digital artwork by Maru Maru depicting a scene from your Love on Gaia story.
And I believe it's what, the cat ear, the pink cat ear's headset?
is a first time they're being given out for anything? Is that what you've told me?
I think it's the first time that those are ever being given out. Because I do have the Kawhi Revenant t -shirt. I think I'm almost positive I've got that.
go through my t -shirt.
Yes. Put that on. Cat ears to the pink, which was only a word once prior for a single dev stream prior to the relaunch. Oh.
Yes, this is the... Very exclusive indeed. If you want to check it out there, Waffle, this is the Kawhi Revenant shirt that I'm now wearing.
Pay no attention to what is on my back. What is on your back? I said pay no attention to it. Well, you don't you don't call it out.
But yes, it's this t -shirt. It's cute. It's cutie -revenant.
It was a wrap. I don't personally own the headset, but you can see what they look like on a very helpful custodian. Yes, that's on the on the post.
On the original post. Which I can also post here. The original forum post.
There's a couple examples.
them wearing the the headset.
So yeah, good.
Good job getting those out. You say, Varmor says that they have been blown away by the sheer intensity of how sweetly the love contained within each and every submission we've received flowed. We truly and wholly appreciate not only your participation in the Secret World Legends Love on Gaia writing contest, but also your patience you displayed while waiting as incandescent eyes thoroughly gave each story the care they deserve. Thank you to all sweetlings who dwelled on Love on Gaia. To see such love inspired fills us with glee.
Stay tuned for future custodian coordinated contests from us to you. Be seeing you sweetlings in the half light.
Sorry, my cat. She's a terror. She's a terror this one. She likes coming out of nowhere and actually just chasing things on the screen. So I don't think it was the guy buzzing by in the background, but it was one of the one of the delivery drones.
And yes, if Jimmy jumps around too much, I want to chase you on my screen too.
Oh, she's watching.
When she was much smaller, this was a lot cuter. Now she's a lot bigger, so now she's just more up to knock everything off of my desk.
She's like, there's something up there. Grrrr
Jimmy the rabbit is again a rabbit. Hey, look at me. Look at me. Look at me.
Fun fact, when you get turned into a rabbit, you can't actually jump. Nope. You have to put on the gravity skates.
And then I can jump.
I was gonna say, what's on your face? You're wearing like a, get some like blood marks. Yeah, I've had that forever. Yeah.
We just don't see it because they have a bunny mask on. Yeah, the bunny mask on all the time, yeah.
You have your branding. Your branding, sir.
Let's see.
Oh, I know what I was going to do. What is pretty funny though is like the game tries to like match the animations. Right? So like, I think I've done this before, but. So like if I do the sword dash.
You just go really slowly past everybody. You see the sparkle and just like hippity hops forward? I'm gonna do it again. I got like five more seconds.
Alright. Alright. And... now! It's so fast! Look at god damn cheetah!
So now you can be a rabbit with the lights out.
Uh, I can't because that mod doesn't like to work with the steam client. Uh, that's why I did the raid this week on the free to play character.
Do do do do do. I'm a little bu -
She's really trying to get my attention over here. But you have been going through, as part of more Secret World content news, Jimmy has been going through a playthrough. I know we talked about this last time because you were going through it last time.
of a playthrough with the lights out, if you will. Where basically everything is dark.
Um...
Yeah, we finished, finished.
all the way up through what just last night, 100 % it's Scorched Desert. Nice. Okay. And you got through right in the dusty dark, you were saying. Yeah, yeah, because Angry Earth is part of the Scorched Desert completion. Like the actual Angry Earth one takes place there. So I just did the whole chain. Because the thing is, if you start Angry Earth and then don't finish the chain, then the entire rest of the time, like you have that ground shaking Jinn voice.
Like until you go do the rest of the chain. Mm hmm. Right. So rather than deal with that for like another two days or something, I just went and did the whole chain. That was that was interesting.
Yeah, yeah. Well, it was just funny too because that's the whole inspiration for the run.
The entire inspiration for the run, it was on the death race one. Like I dropped my torch and was running around in the dusty dark without a light source spamming, has abilities to like figure out where I was. And you thought, huh? And I was like, this would be a cool way to play the game. Entire game like this. Yeah. Yeah. So that was kind of cool to like, you know, play through the inspiration for the run in the run.
So yeah, I will say running from the like, cause that that has like a mini Indiana Jones thing, right? That was, that was a problematic.
Um, why does no one remember the blood spatter? I don't think so.
I'm not pretty sure I had that like a long time ago.
I'm pretty sure maybe maybe I didn't have it last time I was a bunny that's possible I suppose last time someone saw my face Sorry bomber that was funny says bomber cries gazing tearfully at bomber
But yeah, so that boulder, when it falls, I'm just running down a dark hallway, and I can't span the abilities because then you drop sprint. So I was just running into the abyss with a rock chasing me. And then I was like, oh, fuck, I'm just going to run off the edge.
Because that's the one where you have to like run down and then cut to the left and then the rock goes over the edge. And I was like, oh, I don't know where that this stops. And then I think I like stopped too early or tried to go left too early and I ended up getting squished. I, and then I think the next time you go, the rock's not even there. Um.
And then I also figured out that you actually do have to use the torch multiple times in there. Oh, okay. Because of the spider webs. Okay. You have to burn the spider webs of the torch or you can't get past. So a couple of times I had to go back to wherever the hell I left the torch and go pick it up just to go clear the spider webs and drop it again.
Like otherwise you would just be like hard stuck there. Interesting. Okay.
I mean, yeah, you don't have to use it, but I guess it does really stick out like, like, of course you have to use the, uh, like you'd be using it the entire time if you're playing through normally. Sure. Yeah. If you're playing through normally, you would just have it, right? And then you just use the thing to like light the spider webs. But when you are purposely leaving it behind, you're like, oh shit, I'm stuck. Now I gotta go find my way back in the dark to where the fuck the torch was. Go get it and run all the way back. Yeah. Well, you're trying not to actually use it. Yeah.
I think I had to use it. I think the only other place I had to use it was the invisible bridge section. And that was because I couldn't see the symbols on the wall at all. Actually, I'm still surprised as hell I got that first way through because the torch only lights up like a little area around you. Right. So like the way you do that puzzle is you have to look and like line yourself up with symbols on like the opposing walls.
And I couldn't see any of them, like at all. What I ended up doing is I had the guide up on the other screen, like the TSWDB guide. And I was like using reference points. Like, cause I couldn't see, I couldn't see the symbols cause they're textures on the wall, but by the entrance and exit, there's little torches, right? So there's like some light there. It's like, okay, this symbol is like kind of near that pillar.
So I'm gonna line up vaguely by this pillar and go what I think is two squares to the right. It was a lot of like relative direction, which is why I'm surprised that it worked the first time. I thoroughly expected to like fall and have to do it multiple times. But somehow worked my way through that one.
Um, what were the ones I got stuck on? Uh,
Wait, is there a... Wait, hold on, there's a Mega Boss? That's what I see. Well, we can go see about that. Let's go, let's go try a Mega Boss. Dash! Dash! Wee! Oh my god, I look amazing in the air! Like a gazelle!
No, you're a rabbit. Yeah, but he like the rabbit like stretches out. It's just sort of flying the whole way. That was great. You know, you're probably not going to be a bunny in there. Like it's jumping like it's got its got its arms out. No, well, actually, no, I think I still will be.
I'll say if you switch into another zone, you probably will be... Yeah, that's different. That's when they change your clothes. Yeah. I've been left like this for like two weeks before. I'll say if I run back to Agartha, get far enough away and then come back.
that and you're still the same, then yes, they have changed you. Yep, they have. Yeah, I believe this is happening before. Mm -hmm.
Hey, Astrid. Welcome in.
As a bunny look at me I'm a cute little bunny Astrid did you know that's your world is also a tabletop RPG did you know about that.
I'm sure you have.
This turned into a cat one time? That's awesome.
As I say, we've sort of all been switched around at times.
I did, I wanna play it, okay good. Because part of our news earlier was that all the materials have now been sent to drive -through RPG. You could go print out everything except the art book still. Um.
That's correct. But that's on its way.
and that the PDF's been sent out, so you can. You can now go ahead and play Seeker World, tabletop RPG. It is now a thing that exists, books you could print out. Right, Vomr was a zero point pathogen bird.
Um.
Mm.
Uh...
It'll let us in eventually. There it goes. There we go. Yeah. That's just how it works. Yeah. Those people, they had the Genie Plus pass. The Mega Boss Plus. It's to let the Stomach Group actually get down the platform.
Hey, you're still buddy.
Cake.
cake is gone no I didn't get any cake you monsters I'll put another one down just as we're starting the fight it's fine
What's funny is like you will only go see me attacking. Now you're just like my clone spawn and they still look like like regular me. You're just sliding around. Yeah, but you'll see you'll see like like actual other Jimmy's pop up. That's the chaos prox.
Do you like that one?
You know those jimmies popping up. When's Funko I'm gonna fix that? If you have them pop up, they should also be bunnies.
Yeah, but if that was the case, then you just see a bunch of bunnies standing around. At least because of those fawns, you can tell I'm actually doing something. True. True. Oh, what is it? It's a loot box! Loot lantern! Get that loot box! Break the pinata!
Dude, one thing I've noticed in the lights out playthrough, by the way, is just how much, um, how much like things have like a glow that you don't really see. Cause it's too subtle. Okay. In the normal game, you know, our, our loop box is one of them. Yeah. That's a pretty sizable, like purple is glow around those things.
A loot box. A little bunny is summoning Jimmy.
Yes. I would say which way is the head? Which way is it facing? It's just slowly twirling in place.
It just always makes me think of the time. Wasn't there a time that we did like, we were doing something, like we were running a dungeon or something and we just like grabbed a fifth person. And it was like their very first time doing the content or something like that. And the stuff was being changed into all kinds of weird stuff. Oh, it was a New York raid, wasn't it? Was it? And it was a New York raid? Probably, yeah.
Their very first raid and like... Very first New York raid and the lurker was changed into, I don't know, Kirsten Geary or something.
Was that not the one where it was elite? Oh, was that elite? It probably was elite, right? Yeah, that was elite, yeah. And they were like, what the heck's going on here? Totally normal. Happens every time. Like, what are you talking about? Stuff happens all the time.
What are you talking about? This is normal character. Hello?
I was ready to come and I did it.
Oh, it's dead. Okay. It might be the one with the leap broke. Yeah.
It's dead, but I appreciate it still being a giant loot box spinning in space. I like that.
Your cake, your cake's over here. Don't forget to get your cake.
Mario I Can't I can't get the cake. It won't let me know because the cake is a lie His rabbits rabbits can't eat cake unless it's carrot cake
Yeah, it doesn't let me pick it up. That's interesting. Interesting. Womp womp. That's probably better. Rabbits really shouldn't be eating cake. Yeah. How dare you, sir. Just reach to the hips. How dare you.
the haunches.
Pause can't reach.
Hey, we're just making sure that you're healthy.
Healthy little bunny. Well, thank you, ARI12, A -R -R -I -12, for that Mega Boss. Much appreciated. Oh, they're doing more. Doing as many Mega Bosses as we can handle.
Cash boss.
The Loot Boss. Loot Boss? Loot Box? Loot Boss?
So we can hang out for a few of these. See more news. Not in Secret World though, but we do have other news. Metal Hellsinger is coming to VR. They say witness hell and its denizens closer than ever, then absolutely wreck them. Slay on MediQuest 2, 3 and Pro, PSVR 2 and Steam in 2024.
You don't say when in 2024 yet. I'm sure it's coming. What about the Apple Vision Pro?
They didn't say that.
I would want to check that out. I think that'd be pretty cool. So yeah, I don't have a VR headset. Although the system I have now probably can handle a VR headset. I got my kids the meta ones for Christmas. Yeah, I have the... What is it? The first quest? The first quest or whatever. Yeah. But my guess is, yeah, it probably is pretty fun in VR.
Is it going to be exhausting now? Will it be a workout? Maybe.
I could see it almost being like, cause the whole point, the whole point of Metal Hellsinger is that you slay to the beat. It is you, you shoot in time with, with metal. I actually feel like it probably will lend itself pretty well from, from what I remember playing the game, like just the feel of it, like how the, like even like how you do the, like trigger holds the weapons and reloads, it actually kind of feels like a pretty natural fit, honestly.
I totally see that being a. It's probably why they greenlit in the prior like, yeah, no, this is awesome. Yeah.
No cat. That is a mega boss on the screen. So speaking of like the like, you know, needing drama for something like that, it kind of reminds me I did last train to Cairo with the lights out. And funnily enough, at least for the first section, I think. What the hell is that? What is that? That's like a special cash.
That is that a cache we've never seen before? What is that? That looks like a cross between a dungeon chest and a... cache.
Right?
I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this.
Like, because you can't see. Right. So there's no motion sickness. Most of the stuff is not a problem. There's no motion to view. Because you can't see. Right, yeah. If you don't actually see the stuff going by. Like a Raid Reward Chest? Yeah, some. Like, I mean, we don't get rewards that way, but I don't think this is actually in use in the game. No. This must be an asset that they...
Could you not, cat? It's cool looking, though.
It's an Uber taxi. Just had to spray her with a water bottle. I don't know if you guys saw.
You're rude today, human. She was trying to jump down behind my computer. She does this all the time where she sees me talking and she's I'm not paying attention to her. What she will do is she will jump, go try to go behind my PC and try to shut off my PC by hitting the power button. Like on purpose. On purpose, yes. What a jackass. I was like one of our cats, like she'll lay like right in front.
where my keyboards are. So I gotta like move the keyboard because she'll sit on it. And of course you get the sound. Yeah. Keys pressed for too long. And she just stares at you like, just pet me. Yeah, no, this one shouldn't say pet me. She just says like her eyes are just like, ha ha ha ha ha.
Yeah, and when she walks by, she won't not step, she'll actively step on the keys as she goes by. Yeah. The other cat will try to move around it, but no, she's like, it's in my way. I hate that she learned that, that what she can do is go behind the PC. She can make her way behind the PC and then she could turn off my PC by doing that.
You're not paying attention.
Pay attention to me.
I have Lyrkeys.
That is a cool loot box. Why have we not seen that loot box? Was this like maybe the idea that they were gonna do like a different shaped lantern for each different cache?
Maybe, or maybe like an epic cache? Like this would be like the epic cache? Maybe, because I think this looks a lot like the, I mean, the demonic cache, right?
It could be used for that. Maybe. It's gone. It's gone.
That was it. No more.
Maybe they've got a cache for each loot box.
they just don't use.
Hmm I have a doubt there's a cash for like a design for each one My guess is that if there's not if they the whole fact of why they don't do that is because there isn't one for each one You know, right? They might just decided like that's too much work or or it's too confusing Right. Yeah. Yeah
But I also could see it being like, oh, we're going to have like an actual like, you know, an epic cache, like a next, a next here instead of, instead of using an epic key on our current caches, maybe like you, an epic key on an epic cache or something. Hmm.
Because it did look pretty epic. It did.
And then instead they were just like, no, let's not have separate caches for that. Let's just use the same cache, but you could just open it up in an epic way.
But I already made the asset. It's okay. We'll use it in about four years in a Megamod. Random. How about we get used? Eventually.
foreshadowing.
It's sort of like the T -shirts, like the Kawhi Revenant T -shirt. Don't look on the back, just don't. Just don't look on the back. What's on the back? Just don't do it. What's on the back? Just don't do it.
So what was it? We also had what? Conan, Conan Exiles? Yes, beside that Conan Exiles, Age of War Chapter 4 launched on April 2nd. Age of War Chapter 4 is here. Jebel Sag, Lord of Beasts has declared his sacred hunt. Will you rise to the challenge? New in Age of War Chapter 4, the sacred hunt limited time event expanded purges.
Bringing more enemies to purging. Fatalities, I haven't checked out the fatalities. Fatality. But each weapon type is getting a fatality. Something along that lines.
Ooooo
I was saying overfillbox that is causing all kinds of extra damage. No, that's because this is a bis - a bis - a -bisopologic horror. Mm -hmm. So it's doing the - the brine.
Pretty awesome. I hope Ari doesn't mind. Like they're like, I came to do Mega Bosses, but they're just changing them into everything.
I think some people don't know which boss this is. So they're confused.
They didn't realize that it's the one that does tainted Brian. They thought it was like the mummy again or something.
This could be the one that does the pizza slices.
Well, no, it's not. It's not. I mean, yeah, but it would be cool. I think I might have actually run out of those. Really, that's it. You ran out. I think I actually might have run out of the ghosties. That's crazy. I had hundreds. I think I think I might actually be done.
to actually run Kaiden layers again.
Am I supposed to run away from that? Is that supposed to be doing something to me? When you get... Wait, do you not know how the mechanic works? No, I see the stuff come up, but... Okay. When you get the debuff on you, like the poison stack, run to the pools of water. It rinses it off. Oh, okay. All right. That makes more sense. Because I see it happening, but I'm not, like, actively being damaged by it, so...
I mean, you do get you do take damage from it, but if you. Roll into a thing or someone's putting what's the ability that puts like a self -heal, like if you attack the boss, energize, maybe something I've seen it Brian. So if you get a stack and you're not already standing in a pool, just go to a pool.
Yes, I was not aware of the mechanic because I had not been negatively affected by it yet. That makes any sense? I mean, it's kind of like RNG where the brine actually pops up So it's possible that you just didn't get hit with it. All right
Cat, could you stop? Oh, I wasn't paying attention. Oh, I got one. As a rabbit, I got straight up one.
A tiny little thing. Sorry, sorry. I was admonishing a cat.
Oh, and it's making me walk back. What is this? Okay, no way to go. I gotta run again.
Oh, you died? Yes. Ah, I didn't die. I still survived. I was one shot by that.
It's one thing about being chaos offhand is you get ages of parallelism by default. So I get like deferred damage, you know, just by having a grip.
pretty sweet, pretty sweet. This is a girl that's causing all the trouble right now. She's just wanting to be a pain, so I'm letting her come on camera. She's biting me. Good to see.
How are you?
How are you? Yeah, good. To the to the fatalities thing. Want to say hi to everyone? Yeah, when I played Age of Conan for the charity stream. Yeah, fatalities was definitely a thing in Age of Conan. So it makes sense then to bring it back for Conan Exiles. Yeah, no, it's fun. It's a fun idea. She's she's just biting me right now. Just. Ararararar
Do not anger the cat gods. Listen, this cat is born angry.
No keys. No keys.
She's a sweetheart when she wants to be. Right now she does not want to be.
Every once in a while, if you've got a sharp eye, you could see her jump up on the back of my chair, because what she likes doing is she likes jumping up on the back of my chair and then chasing her tail.
Just because.
I'm going to do the dash thing again because it's amazing.
Yeah, adding the fatalities. I should check out what those are. I should check them out and see what they look like. That should be fun. And then also improved battle pass progression, which is...
Which is an idea that there isn't enough cake left. I'll have to drop a cake.
Let's drop another one.
because I have a whole stack of cake.
But the improved Battle Pass, I still have to get in to check that out, but I believe the new Battle Pass is that they changed it so that basically anything you do contributes to the Battle Pass. So any experience that you gain through normal play contributes to it, as well as extra things where you can go and do them for extras. Whereas before, it was just like, go...
kill 10 crocodiles, go in 10 things, go collect six plants, you know, something like that. And it was just those over and over again. And if you, you know, if you weren't up a high enough level to actually do some of the stuff, you basically ended up at a point where you were stuck for the day, which, okay, all right, you know, that's fine.
But now they change it so that you basically make progress by doing anything. And I believe as well as also having those extra things as well.
I like it. I like it. But I have to get in there and check that out.
Fair enough, fair enough, fair enough. Because I did start a new Conan playthrough like a month or two ago. So it's still a relatively new character.
RAR!
Disciple logic horror.
game and I figured that.
get in a couple good hits here.
Tainted Brian.
Oh, and deep last together last. Yeah, there I go. Now I got it. Yeah. So then you go in the water and watch it off. Yeah. There's sometimes a glitch, though, or like if you are standing in the water pool because those are random as well and you get the stacks like it, you have to run out of the pool you're standing in and then run back into it. You mean? Because that's that's not confusing, because like it registers you crossing the
boundary of the water and that's how you get rid of it. Yeah. So if it if it if the water spawns under you and then you get stacks like you have to like run around. It's a pod. Mm hmm. Some kind. Which which pod thing is that deep blast?
That's not like a regular. So not a. I mean, it's a draw normal, like a dog pod. That's something different. Pretty sure.
I don't know, maybe it'll do something special when it dies.
just move slowly. Yeah, that was that was kind of weird.
Bomber, do you recognize... Oh, Fungal Filth Pod, maybe. Yeah, that could be. That could be.
Uh oh. I'm nowhere near the water. Oof. Holy shit. I got a snack. There we go.
And then the plot movie was pretty funny. So in the tabletop RPG, is there a point where if you're doing shotgun, you just accidentally put in shells that you don't want to put in? Because it happens to me all the time still. The randomness? Like a mechanic where you're like, I want to put in healing shells. And instead it's like, nope, you got fire shells. Sorry. You just shotgun your teammate in the face with actual shells instead of...
Healing shells. Oops. That would be amazing. I'm gonna heal you. Trust me, this will be totally fine. It's okay. You might feel a little pinch. Oh my god, his head is gone! Well, his pain's not there anymore.
No, I know that that's not the mechanic that the shotgun uses in a tabletop role playing game. What are you doing back there? Oh my gosh. Oh, yeah. It opened. Look, it did open. Yeah. Oh, that's cool.
I have emerged. He healed his head clean off.
Pretty sweet.
Excellent, excellent.
So aside from that, Dune Awakening, some Dune Awakening news. They had just finished up their time at PAX East and they gave a preview roundup.
They showed early gameplay to journalists and content creators. As you can hear their reactions, greeting sleepers, Shia Halloud has reared his head above the sands. Blessed be the maker. The last few weeks have been an exciting whirlwind with both GDC and PAX East taking place where we got to sit down with journalists and content creators to present some extended, mostly raw footage of the starting experience in Dune Awakening.
And then the page, which I will also post down below here.
has some screenshots that we think are new, that we haven't seen these before, showing the UI, showing riding in an ornithopter. After presenting the game, we spent a few nail -biting days waiting, but we were blown away by the reactions. IGN said, Dune Awakening is looking supremely cool, as it was written. PCGamer says, I'm finding myself more and more interested in Dune Awakening the more I learn about it.
They had me at drinking blood. Best way to get drinks. Just kill people, you know. Take their water as you do. As you do. And then a whole bunch of other places said, cool, looks cool. At the end of the closed doors presentation, we also had a Q &A in which we shared a lot of new information. Dive deeper into all the spicy details in WD -
WCCF Tech's great summary.
And then they also put together a reaction video. You can see through that link. But some of these screenshots. They're looking good, man. It is. It's looking good. It's looking like it's going to be a hit.
The skill tree thing looks pretty fucking cool. Also this concept of basically... The UI looks clean in general, like the actual gameplay, the UI. And then even like the character, you know, nose size, nose tip size, protrusion, that sort of thing. Like, that's looking really, really nice. And honestly, like on that page, even like the bottom one, the bottom one, for whatever reason, like...
I don't know why, but like...
that one speaks to me
In the upper left hand corner you see, it says press J to track a new journey. The journey system is something that they have in Conan Exiles. So, it kind of assumes that. They talked a bit about that. What the heck is this? That they're going to bring back the journey system in, it's a leaf. It's a leaf.
Kill the plant! Kill it with fire! I hear it works well on plants. Have some fire! Have some fire, scarecrow! Fireball!
It's also the fact that they're staying, they're not shying away from calling it an MMO too. They're like, this is a survival MMO. You'll be able to form guilds, you'll be able to trade with other players, you'll be able to... Like, they're going to have auction houses and this and that. But they're also not shying away from the survival aspects too. I really like the idea in...
Once human is kind of doing it too, I've been beta testing that again. They're kind of doing a similar thing where it's like, hey, if you want to PVE, do it. And if you want to PVP, do it. If you want something in between, do it. As opposed to just like, oh, it's this kind of game. I like the idea that they're making it. And I think...
Joel even said this on the that direct they did. Right. Where it's like you can do what you want. You can play it how you want to play the game. Which is overall kind of the concept of MMOs when they were first coming out was sort of like sort of like an everything game. They were like, yeah, yeah. You want to PVP. We got that. You just want to craft. We got that. You want to like run a tavern and not interact with like combat at all. You can do that.
Like the original concept is basically like, you know, I'm thinking of like Star Wars galaxies, like dancing class, you know, the dancer where essentially you just hung out in bars, dancing, giving people buffs. That's what the whole. Giving them buffs. They were, yeah. You know, that's sort of the concept of the whole class was basically you just buffed other people and.
And then those players would give you tips for buffing them and... Just the tips. Just the tip. Just the tip.
Oh, just talking about Star Wars galaxies woke you up. Yeah. Ah, I was in.
Buffing. Buffing. You can hear the quotation marks.
But yeah, no, but it was an interesting thing in the idea of like you don't like you could do something other than just combat like.
Yeah, be like be a tradesman or something. Right. And I feel like over time that most MMOs have kind of shied away to going to theme parks. There's nothing wrong with theme parks. I still really enjoy a good theme park experience. Like I'm totally cool with it. But there are a lot of people who want that sort of like more older experience. And I think that this is actually going to be able to do that. I think that's...
that they are basically lining themselves up for.
for basically the experience of those older MMOs. Yeah.
Which is, as we say, not a bad thing. You know, there is absolutely a draw for that. And especially when you combine it with... When you combine it with the...
with a survival mechanic, which is also popular right now.
that I think that they're going to basically have what they're trying to have a genre defining but sort of a genre evolution if you will. Amalgamation. Yeah. Yeah. But I think it's the way they're approaching putting together it's important too right because it's one thing to throw everything in a bucket but I think it is at least it seems like they're trying to do it in a in a way that makes sense.
In a way that makes sense. Right. And then what they've learned from Conan Exiles is like, you know, how many Conan Exiles channels out there or how many do they showcase that are like, check out this person building this really awesome building and, and how, uh, how in Dune Awakening, what they're going to do is that they're going to basically allow you to take the building that you have, if you build like something really cool to then take that, change it into, make it into a blueprint and take a blueprint of it, and then be able to sell that blueprint to other people.
Well, also the whole the whole idea of like you can just place the blueprint down and other people can come fill in materials to make it happen. Yeah, you just make an empty hologram and then dump shit in till it builds itself. Essentially, that's that's really cool. It's super cool. It's a it's a really cool idea.
Because normally you would have to, you know, like, okay, I need to get all this shit together first. Right. Or at least enough to build some pieces of it. Right. And then you're like, Oh, I got to stop things like half finished. I got to go farm some shit. But, but like someone could just walk by and be like, Oh yeah, I have some extra this here. Or if you're like a, you know, like a guild or something, right. Then makes it way easier. Like a guild hall, essentially.
Yeah, because you don't have to tell people like, hey, don't put that wall there, right? You just put the blueprint down. Hey, go get resources and bring it back. And just put it there. Yeah. Just dump your resources in versus coordinating like, you know, a dozen people being like, no, no, no, don't put that wall there. Put it over. No, you messed it up. Now I got to do the foundation again. Right. Like. It's really cool.
I like the idea of saving your building plans. You don't have to like write out literal out of game blueprints or rebuild it piece by piece manually. We're making it. Yeah. And it's also a way for like in Conan Exiles, I find that periodically it's like, oh, here's my base, but the resources around here aren't exactly what I want. And I've sort of like leveled up a little past them. Well, now I have to move my entire base and then you take all your stuff and go somewhere else. And this is an easy way to basically take all your stuff and also just create a blueprint of your base.
take it to the new place, then you don't have to worry about, you know, you can just.
put down the blueprint and then just fill it all in yourself too. Yeah, it's an easy way to switch around bases. And if the whole concept is basically, you know, you don't have a base just in one place that you can move around, well, making it easy to move around is a good thing.
What? Oh, we got a golem.
thing that actually moves? Wait a minute. Hold on now.
not just like a street sign or something. Why am I always so far from the water? What the hell?
You know what part of it is? My walk speed or combat speed is tied to the fucking animation speed of a rabbit walking. Right, so you're really far away, but it's also gonna take you a long time to get there. It takes me so long to get to. It's not that it's super far away, it's just far away for a rabbit.
So yeah, so of course we're excited for Dune Awakening. That's gonna look, it's gonna be super cool and Dune right now is very much in the zeitgeist.
Oh no. Uh oh.
So I got knocked back. OK. OK, there we go. I can't jump. I couldn't jump up. Like the platform knocked off the platform, but like. I'm going to go. Oh, wow. I thought you just barely missed that. That was so close. I didn't get knocked off the platform, but I got knocked on to like the lower ledge down there, you know. OK. And I couldn't jump. I had a.
I had to find a lip that had like a little bit of a... an edge so I could sort of get back on the platform.
If it wasn't for like the... Signet, like the quickness signet and dodging, I would not make it out of that shit ever.
RARGH
Shook -a -loo.
So yeah, we're excited for that. We're excited for everything. We're going to have another Kickstarter starting soon from Star Anvil for now that they've got the Secret Worlds 5th edition stuff out and going. Then now they're working on the next Kickstarter, which is going to be for Savage Worlds.
That starts April 30th.
and you can go and uh...
Let me find that Kickstarter.
Hold on, I'll find the link. I got this, I got this.
So that you did 5th edition, now you can do Savage Worlds.
Go ahead and click on the, uh, let you know when it happens button.
You can go ahead and click that so that you are aware of when everything goes on.
Thank you.
Oh and bomber posted the screenshots also of the pink ... cat ears headband in our general channel as well.
So if you're part of our Discord, you can go and check those out. See the pink headbands in action, which have now been won.
by all the winners for the Love on Gaia writing contest. Excellent. Excellent.
All good stuff.
Oh, they got more.
We love to see it, as they say.
Who says that?
They they do they say they use them
Who is they? Who is them?
Oh, um.
Fun fact about playing the lights out and the raid is I couldn't see filth on the ground.
Right. Why would you? Turns out black on black is difficult to see. Yeah. A feature that is black and oily. Hard to see in the dark. It's true. Yep. I straight up was literally at the end of the raid, like, you know, like Final Resort, right? And then I was going to run into Wing. So I'm standing just outside the range of the circle, literally standing in a pool of filth. Like the whole time Final Resort is going on.
Luckily I was tanking and had a healer. And had healers going on, yeah. So I managed to stay alive. I was like, God damn, I'm taking some damage here for some reason. Jimmy, don't stand in the fire. You're like, I wish it was fire. I'm like, I can't see it. I can see fire. True.
now.
To the dev that is doing this, we of course love you. You are loved.
Keep being the awesome dev you are.
Oh god damn it. The pool of water changed where it was. I'm a bitch. Pool of water over here. Nope. Somewhere else now. When you get like halfway to the pool of water and it just vanishes. God damn it.
It's a Mara.
I don't know if I need to restart my computer or what. I thought I needed a new keyboard, but my inputs, even with the controller, are like, feel oddly wrong. Like weirdly delayed or something. I don't know. Is it just the... Could it just be the input itself? Could it just be the... Well, assume your controller is wireless or is it wired?
It's wireless. It's like USB. Okay. Um.
Yeah, I don't know. This feels weird. I know because I find on the PC that I just replaced. Basically, that was one of the reasons why I wanted to replace it was that just I had so many USB ports that were just dying on it. And a lot of the USB ports just stopped being usable, essentially.
Yeah, it'd be weird if like my keyboard is in the back and my control word is plugged into the front. Like those are two entirely different USB. Like input, I don't see but you know what I mean? Like the yeah.
I saw one of the back direct connection to the motherboard the one on the front is a sort of a I always have problem with front inputs yeah the front ones tend to but that's what I'm saying is like the keyboard is on the back and it's been it's been acting funny yeah um no
Even ones on the back I found were dying too, so... You know, it wasn't just the front inputs, it was also, ones on the back were dying and...
My system was like, I've had enough. You've used me every day for like 10 years. Give me a rest. Yeah, this computer is only a couple of years old. Yeah. So it should put it this way. It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be like a major issue. Yeah.
but I had so many ports on that motherboard die. It was a good motherboard. It's an Asus motherboard, but at, you know, 10 years later, it's like, nope, sorry. Sorry. I think, I don't know, I might just need to like restart it. I don't know, maybe it has like a, oh, it has a Windows update pending too. Oh. So, you know, it could just be being finicky because of that theoretically.
My keyboard on the other hand, my ACK can even replace though. Well, you can get the most clickiest keyboard around. I have a mechanical keyboard. I do. But if you get one that's made of aluminum as well. The W, S and D keys are like gone. Somehow the A key not so much. I must go right a lot. Like I'm telling you, the A is still like.
partially legible and has like gray on it. Because these WAC keys have like a gray caps. Like the keyboard is black, but those keys have like a special color. But on the other three, the W, S and D, like even the gray is worn through down to like white plastic. Wow. OK. But somehow the A isn't.
So I must go right most of the time. I feel like there's bones backwards and right. Your ring finger is not as dirty as your index and middle finger. I don't know.
I mean, I guess. Maybe. I don't know. That'd be weird. It's like I was thinking the other day of, you know, it doesn't are dirty. It's it's rubbed. You can clearly tell it's rubbed off. I just must not be hitting the A as much. But this is a thing that if you watched my my cupcake playthrough. Right. Right. I think it was the right cupcake that was fucked.
Okay, but the left, but the - I think I turn right a lot more than I turn left, like significantly more than I turn left, for whatever reason. Okay.
I think that's an actual thing. That's a fair enough assessment there. The reason could be varied. It could be the game, it could be what I'm playing. It just has more right turns. It could be a me thing. Maybe instead of turning left, I just turn right and turn all the way around. Maybe it's just easier when you dodge to dodge like...
Because if you like left, I just dodged out of that deep blast and I did it to the right. You know what I'm saying? Right. But I could have gone either way. It's a different like finger combination. So if you use like shift to dodge, you have to do like a with your ring finger and shift with your pinky.
Yeah, I can do it, but yeah, it's probably just more comfortable to do the other way. Yeah. Whereas dodging to the right, it's D and then you can move over your ring finger over onto the shift.
Cause I was thinking the other day, I was like, what finger do I hit W with? Like when you move forward, what finger do you hit W with? Middle finger, I think. It's you're right, man. And that's what it is. For the most part, what I do is middle finger. But for the life of me that didn't make sense in my head, I was like, no, why would I use my middle finger to do what is basically like the most often thing to move forward? Yeah.
No, I definitely it's definitely middle finger. And it's just how you later feels like it was like it's my index finger, right? And then I try to use my index finger and it's like, no, that's wrong. No, it's my middle finger. Oh, God damn it. I got stuck on the outside edge again. I have to find a spot to climb up or to walk up. You actually got sprint back. I was down there so long. Holy shit.
At least I could sprint to the water.
I do not even see you. Uh, I'm not going the other side.
Yeah, I was a little bit sad. Yeah. It's because I sprinted to the water that was over there.
Nice one to fall right where the chest is. You know? Hmm? The water golem was oddly fitting for that. Yeah, right? Gonna have a water water ball. Yeah.
I hope you'll follow along.
Oh that's why. Yeah. That's handy.
One of those pork cakes was destroyed.
Oh, my inventory. Like I'm one to complain, but my inventory. Oh my God, they're still going.
I don't have sp - I know you don't, that's why I say.
you especially don't have space. If I'm all over here completely running out of space.
Okay, I have not two free slots again. I had no free slots. I had negative free slots. I had shit in my fusion thing.
Oh, they finally put a number. They finally put a number now. It doesn't say of question mark.
in the in the summoning thing. Oh, nine of 10. OK, all right. At least there's at least there's an end. Yeah, there's an end in sight. I'll keep going. Oh, bomber is always in negative space.
Rainbows! Thanks my god, rainbows! Okay, I was wondering what was going on. No wonder, my inventory glitched there for a second. I have no inventory. Rainbows! Rain -
Can I get, um...
Oh, your rabbit fits under the rainbow.
I'll try to get a screenshot of that, I don't know if I did. Oh, what the hell has happened?
If they were trying to put me back to normal, that did not work. Oh no. Oh no. Oh wait, you know what? That might be photo mode. Nevermind. That might be the photo mode mod. That'll fix itself when I change zones, I think. I realized I went into photo mode mod and came out and that will do weird things to your... Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm back.
Like I was me. I don't know if you saw that, but I was me T posing over the rabbit. No, I miss that. So instead of a floating head, it was like me, like, you know, full outfit and everything. But the bunny between my legs, like down there, like that's what you're posing. Or whatever. It's a T pose. It's just like a really depressed T pose. OK.
He's going through some stuff. You know, he's got a, he's got a floating over at it. He's got a child support payment for the lowercase t's. He's just a little depressed.
What? Am I not able to hit this guy? What's happening? Oh.
You know what threw me off there? The AOE circle was really small. Yeah. Because he hadn't grown yet.
Everyone went flying. Yep. It one shot me.
Give me the water. Jesus.
Lava Golem, much more appropriate.
We have watery fire effect.
Why it is Dan Van Dam. How you doing DVD?
We've got a couple more Mega Bosses here.
Are you smoking down the Golem?
a mega boss fight.
This is 9 out of 10. What should the 10th one be? What are we thinking? What should the 10th one be? If you could see anything. I'm stuck inside the wood box. Yes you are. I'm stuck inside the wood box. I can't get out. You have to wait for it to despawn. Oh no. Help me. Help me.
Maybe I can dodge roll out?
Nope. I'm just gonna teleport to a car.
Well normally I could jump, but I can't jump as a bunny, oddly enough. So...
Traffic code? Behemoth? Van for Vandy. A van, right? Van? A van. Van would be cool. Yeah, yeah.
giant pizza box. Oh my god, this rabbit looks so fucking cool when he goes through the air on the jump pads. That's amazing.
A vending machine, right? Right? Vending machine, that could be cool.
What is it? Yeah, the ghost Gaki.
Oh the gaki, yeah! Gaki. Gaki. Gaki.
Succubus promising us a date still from hell, Saccharissa?
Secarissa knows what's up.
This is normal tape for you.
You, me, beach of razor sharp fossils or something? A beach of razor fossils. A beach of razor fossils? Is that what it is? Yeah, like the like the talisman.
We like the talisman razor fossil. Really? It's the the occult talisman. That's why razor fun.
So just those all over the place. A whole beach of Best in Slot talismans? Hell yeah. I mean, that's like basically just getting down on a pile of money. You know? Just a beach of Best in Slot talismans? Amazing. That's what I think of every time I hear that.
What's it gonna be? What's it gonna be? What's it gonna be? Oh, it's not traffic cone, but it's pretty close. Pretty close to a traffic cone. Yeah, it's pretty good.
I'll take it, I'll definitely take it.
I almost died to it. Ugh.
You almost dry died to like a traffic barrier. Yep.
Do they really add that? Of course they did. Well, I mean, it's an asset in the game, right? Like, it's a decoration asset somewhere, like probably in one of the hub cities or something. Or in Kingsmith, right? Around the port city. Oh yeah, or Kingsmith.
I mean, it could be both. It could be. I mean, it's an asset in the game. It could be anywhere like here. Yeah, but the point is they just they just swap the models out basically. Yeah.
That's a van! It's a van! It's now a van! It's a tiny ass van! It's a stretchy van! Oh my god! Beep beep! It's a little interesting! Oh, that's amazing.
Yessss
It very slowly menacingly drives forward. That's uh...
My favorite part of this. I was not prepared. No.
The tank is like, I can't see it. I can't see what's going on. There we go. We're getting all of them. We're getting all the AI.
It died as it lived as a bingo coal vending machine. What's that say? Switch off contact before plug is removed. Oh, okay. All right. That's what she said.
Can they add in tunes from actual players? I don't think so. I think that that is, cause players are more like a combination of all the different parts.
So they can't just be like, you know, now Jimmy is, you know, now they've changed Jimmy into Ocho. They've changed Ocho into Jimmy. Like, it's not exactly. Yeah, I think that would be actually pretty difficult. It's not necessarily like impossible. Like you just recreate you, right? Like, right. You could like. But it's so much easier to be like, theoretically, you could apply like the face template that you're using, right? And all the.
clothes you have and all that, all those settings. And you could basically just mimic a copy of you. But that's a lot more work than just saying like, you're now goes in the NPC. Which is just a right, a single, single entity that has their own look and their own frame.
Vomit was laughing too much to even take as many screenshots as they wanted from how hilarious that fan was. Yeah, that fan was great. Just the fact that just popped up and then got huge. It was amazing. And then just started running people over, you know, as it does.
Thank you, Aerie, Aerie12. Thank you very much for the Mega Bosses. They were amazing.
all the...
Altered.
Mega bosses.
Amazing. Amazing. Alright. Well folks, on that note...
Agents, this has been the Zero Point Report Strain 91 -SWK. You can catch us recording live Thursday nights when we can around 9 p .m. Eastern time here on the Zero Point Report Twitch channel, where you can also join us and chat with us while we do the show live or download our show wherever podcasts are found so you can listen to us on the go. Jimmy, where can we find you online? You can find me at jimmytherabbit .com or link to each other.
Very nice, very nice. Two Ton Waffle, where can we find you online? TwoTonWaffle .com, all my links are there.
Nice, nice. Just we're all getting very succinct. Just. It's like I'm Ocho. Just maybe. And I'm Ocho. You can find me on Twitch, BlueSky. That's primarily where I've been hanging out. All links at Linktree slash Big Mikey Ocho. You can get in touch with us. Lulululul
What was that? Fireworks? What do you got? Sparklers, I got sparklers. I don't got anything because my inventory is full. And sugar skulls. I got sugar skulls. You can get in touch with us by engaging with the show on Twitter at Zero Point Report, checking out previous shows on our YouTube channel, and joining us on our Discord server, both named the Zero Point Report. So from all of us here at the Zero Point Report, we want to thank you for tuning in.
and wish you all the best from the Secret World. Have a great night everybody and we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.