52: The Geekenders: We Can't Stop Thinking About Arcane!

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Yeah, yeah, you know what time it is.

It's time for the geek in this podcast.

Mega Rand, Jesse, and Dodger.

What up?

Let's go.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Go on, stream and shout, it's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow and see what the geekiners are all about.

Yo, it's the weekend, yeah, it's time to geek out, let it be kidding.

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Number one geek podcast, without a doubt.

Yo, another end of another long week.

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While we catch you up in just a matter of time on gaming, comics, whatever you're doing.

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Now, follow, subscribe, and turn this up.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Go on, stream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow.

Number one geek podcast, without a doubt.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to to Geekenders.

What happened?

You talk.

What do you mean?

Oh, you mean with my life?

Oh, yeah, sure.

What happened with your life, dude?

You said, what happened?

And I was like, did something break?

Did you ruins the show?

Just started.

The screens got all messed up for some reason.

You talk, how are you doing?

I'm great.

Sorry, the screens are messed up.

I don't know why that is.

Hello, everyone.

Audio listeners, here in for a treat.

You don't have to worry about any of this.

That's so true.

The geekenders, we're back for another geekend.

That's rough.

And hey, it's post-Thanksgiving here in the States.

It is.

The family yesterday, by which I mean, we went out, got lunch.

I was done by two.

Solid Thanksgiving.

Yeah, very good Thanksgiving.

And

everything is good over here, Cox-wise.

However,

let me tell you some BS.

Oh, yes, yes.

I'm so excited about the BS.

Tell me.

You'll notice I'm in different surroundings today.

This is my apartment, not built for broadcasting.

You can hear the echo probably.

Here's the thing, gang.

I'm out of this place in like a month.

I'm so over it.

We have talked about before how I wanted to move and I was looking to move to someplace in LA and I found like a very nice location,

very hype on, a lot of places to walk to, pretty excited about it.

And I went there and I was like, man, these apartments are

so damn expensive.

I don't like, man, this city is a mess.

And then the guy was like, well, we do have one apartment.

It's like in a corner, but the view is terrible.

I'm like, what's the view?

The view literally overlooks the roof of a Whole Foods.

And he's like, no one wants this unit.

The view is terrible.

And I was like, what kind of dealing deal can you give me on this?

Yeah.

Like taking TikTok.

He was like, yeah.

And he was like, well, let's see what we can do.

I got a steal on this bad boy.

So I was like, yeah, all right.

I'm in.

So I have a month left on this lease.

And for a while, I was thinking, like, maybe I don't want to move.

My apartment's fine.

I like it here.

I'm constantly reminded.

It's just like when sometimes in life, I think like, maybe I do want kids.

And then you tell me about something insane.

I'm like, no, I'm good.

Yeah.

You, you get into this weird like rose-colored glasses mode with something in life.

And then you see it for what it truly is and you go, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Yeah.

Yes.

It happens to me frequently, especially when it comes to like everything in my life.

I will,

it's LA.

You know, LA.

There, you'll get like word that like a bunch of really cool kids got together and had a cool kid party and you were invited.

I'm like, well, we're shocked.

I would love to have gone to that.

But then it's like, that's fine.

I know.

I hate everyone there.

Why would I want to go to that?

And I realize it's just like,

I just want to be invited.

I don't necessarily want to go.

So, you know, that's, I get, I get my head like that sometimes with many things.

And so

this apartment was one of them.

And I was like, well, maybe I'll stay.

I don't know.

And

the night that I was considering moving, the power went out at roughly 9 p.m.

Didn't turn on until after I left for the office the next day.

So I had no, I woke up with no clue what time it was.

My phone was dead.

All the power was out.

All I knew was sunny out, and I was like, living like a settler.

I was like, well, it's light.

So I guess I should start my day.

So I was like,

looking at the sun in the sky, like, what time is it?

Yeah.

I was like, well, it must be after 6 a.m.

because the sun is out.

So I just like went about my day, did my stuff, and then went to

work, got there.

the power was on in the office thank god and i was like okay cool what time is it 707 a.m i was like

okay well that's neat so i uh that was one like all right you know what the power goes out my area of la with a frequency that i hate and i just i'm like

not doing this anymore

then today As another reminder that I'm making the right choice, I go downstairs to, you know, leave the parking garage or this apartment complex to go to the office to get on stream with you.

Garage door will not open.

So that was a pose.

Dukes, that was a pose we could have used.

It had to be in the moment.

Oh, I missed it.

It's okay.

I could have used that for a thumbnail.

Just find it.

We've been recording for six minutes and 18 seconds.

Just go to six-ish minutes and find when I did it.

And then

it'll be fine.

that's fine so then uh yeah i go downstairs garage door is like half cocked it's like half open half closed stuck and i'm like huh what's going on here this woman comes up to me in the parking garage is like i called maintenance it's not opening

so i guess i'm not going to work today i was like

Yeah, this is weird.

Like, wait, what do they expect us to do?

She's like, I don't know, but I'm pissed off.

I need a paycheck.

I was like, okay.

uh so i just like reversed back into my parking spot was like

i guess i should be thankful i like this is my job otherwise i would be screwed like what am i supposed to do

so that also reminded me this place sucks and i it's time to vote

now

all garage doors like that should have some sort of an emergency open

You would think

the garage door that we have in this complex is like a big metal grate.

And if you try to open it or close it it's too heavy and it has um like counter like counterweights and things so there's no way you can lift it and if you do you'll break it

and i've seen that happen before because the last time it got stuck some dude lift it he broke it and it was open for three weeks and so what's the point of having a garage door then

this place sucks this place used to be great like 12 years ago.

And then

continuously, what's happened is people come in and buy the property.

And it's always like a big investment firm or like some company from overseas.

They'll buy the property and then make a few changes, jack up the rent and then sell it.

And then another company comes in.

I'm like, this sucks.

This is.

So it's just gotten worse and worse and worse and worse.

And so now it's time to go.

This place.

Trash.

You're leaving.

You're leaving, baby.

Get out of there.

Now I trade a lot.

I started a Whole Foods.

Yeah, yeah.

i i trade a beautiful view for the whole foods roof but i'll be honest fine with it i went on my head though i'm not gonna who do i care

like whatever oh man yeah

well that's my struggles this morning as i uh record from home

i see

yeah you literally can't leave I literally can't leave.

All of this is the most first world problem stuff in the world.

Like, it's not like a real issue, just a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things, but enough to make a person literally pack up their life.

As you can see, I have boxes everywhere, pack up their life and leave.

Yeah, not a fan, especially with LA rent prices.

You got to have like good stuff for me to even tolerate you anymore.

Well, that's the thing, right?

It's like

you've been there long enough that

there's resentment built up in your heart.

And it just feels, it just feels good good to complain and be like they suck this place sucks

this is like and i know the area that you live in and i know around the amount that you pay in rent and it's too much it's too much to be dealing with that

yes

yes it's you know what's funny is it it like has the same vibe as like the girl who yells at her boyfriend about cleaning the dishes but really it's about the last 10 years of like not doing his shit you know where it's like the fights about the dishes but really it's about something else right that's what this feels like where

i have years of built-up animosity towards this apartment complex and i've just been like maybe it'll get better maybe it'll get better so when you do complain about something that that on its own is small you're complaining about it with the energy of 10 years of aggression yes yes i have a lot of that built up this place has had the one time the elevators went down for three weeks.

That was a whole treat because

the stairs,

I live in a section of LA where there's a lot of old people.

So the stairs were like a war zone.

There'd be like old ladies sitting on the stairs like, give me a few minutes.

I'll be okay.

It was crazy.

I was like, how can they get away with this?

Three weeks?

And the only reason why it was three weeks is because we had an earthquake and some dude and his girlfriend were trapped in the elevator.

And the dude trying to show off instead of waiting for the people to come and open the doors, pulled the doors open himself and broke the elevator.

And it's like, cool, my man.

So they broke it.

It's like, what are we supposed to do?

So I'm like, all right, cool.

So that's

we had half the apartments in this complex were rented out to Airbnb at one point.

And so like, we got to jack up the price so that people who are using it for Airbnb will be priced out.

And I'm like, what are you talking about?

So we had a lot of that.

And I'm just so tired.

So I found a much better place, and I'm very happy.

Better, cheaper, and it's next to a Whole Foods.

So I guess I'll lose all the money I was going to save on rent.

I now will get Whole Foods.

Yeah.

Jeff Bezos.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So

the big Twitch daddy.

So that should be fine.

Oh, my goodness.

Well, I'm happy for you.

I hope, I hope you like the new place.

Yeah, so do I.

Are you

closer to mama and papa?

No, actually, further away by three minutes.

oh my gosh yeah which in la time is roughly eight hours i was gonna say so when there's traffic between you know two

and 7 p.m yeah i will see them every other thursday in the month of january right like that'll be

that's all my mom was like maybe maybe we'll move too and i was like yeah and she's like yeah but i don't know me we'll move out of state but then we never see you and i'm like well

what do you do what you want to do?

And she's like, well, I don't know.

Maybe.

I'm like, okay.

Just, do they like living in LA?

I assume so.

I assume because there's a lot to do.

You know, you're never going to be bored or want for things to do, but it's also a city that is way too expensive and

getting around is a hassle, especially since the public trans.

transit's like kind of shit.

But there's still just a lot to do here and the weather is constantly great.

So

it's give and take.

My parents are selling their place in the desert because the prices are just gone up like crazy.

Sure.

And I was like, oh man, you know, because they both have like arthritis and things.

And so I was like, man, it sucks, though, because that means that when it gets really cold in Oregon, you won't be in the warmer weather.

Your bodies are going to feel uncomfy again.

Right.

And my mom was like, I mean, we're still, we'll still just, we'll just rent.

We'll just go down there and rent for a couple of months and then come home.

And I was like, oh, I'm not worried.

You can use the money.

Sounds good.

If it's any indication of what the costs are, I mean, like,

I'm seeing houses in the middle of nowhere in the desert that are like $1.8 million.

I'm like, how?

What?

For what?

For real?

Because

I want to say it was around 10 years ago.

Sam and I were looking at places in the desert because my parents were like, bro, the cost of houses in Palm Springs is like

insane.

They're so cheap.

And what Palm Springs were like,

oh my God, they're so cheap out there.

Not anymore.

Not anymore.

It's because people got it in their head, oh my God, it's so cheap out there.

Let's move out there.

And everyone who had places out there was like, let's jack up the price.

Yeah.

And well, you know, everybody.

Everybody that wants to be within driving distance of LA and still be in a nice area are like, Palm Springs is only a couple hours away.

So it is what it is.

It's fine.

If you really love golf and Coachella,

that's the place to be.

Or like touristy crepe restaurants.

For some reason, Palm Springs is like, do you like crepes?

Are you a tourist?

Come to Palm Springs.

I have no idea why.

I couldn't explain it.

Dude.

Yeah.

It's

feels nice out there, though.

It's that dry heat.

Feels amazing when you're out there.

Yeah.

It's not bad.

It's not bad.

It's not bad.

It's not bad.

Oh, my goodness.

Well, hey, welcome, everyone, to Geek Enders, the show where two adults complain about adult problems.

Video games?

No, thank you.

I've got bills to pay.

No, no.

I brought with me today

a hobbit update.

Would you like a hobbit update?

For the sweet, sweet child?

Yes.

And her adventures through the hobbit?

I, of course, would love it.

Yes.

Last time we left off, if I remember,

you had gotten to the trolls and the various fartings and turning into stones.

Right.

So.

We truly went for it.

We've experienced the spiders, all of Mirkwood.

We met the Wood Elves.

We hopped into barrels and escaped through the river.

We got to Lake Town and declared that we were Thorin Oakenshield.

Oh, you've ended the first movie, I see.

Bro, we, yeah, I was looking at the pages and I was like, oh my God.

We've reached the point where they've spoilers for the hobbit, I guess.

But we've reached the point where like they've gotten to the mountain and they've found the secret door and Bilbo's climbing in to find the dragon.

And I'm like, oh my God.

I didn't think we'd ever get this far.

I'm so excited.

I'm so excited.

We really like, we're going to finish this book.

I'm so jazzed.

I thought that when we got to

all of the spiders attacking and kidnapping the dwarves, I thought she might nope out, but she didn't.

She was really invested in making sure that they got away from the spiders.

And so she wanted me to keep reading.

And I was like, great.

And then after that is basically when they get grabbed by the wood elves.

Right.

And we had to reread that section a couple of times because

she couldn't buy that a dwarf and an elf would fall in love.

Because that's in the book, right?

It is not.

I wish it was.

What?

No.

What?

Why would anyone add that?

It makes no sense.

It's so crazy.

Why would anyone add that?

Good thing no one ever did.

Thank God.

Yeah.

But the whole section where they're like, we're going to get into barrels.

Like Bilbo has just been wandering around with his little ring on for weeks in this castle.

And he figures out that there's a, that there's a, a, a water gate, basically.

And he's like, all right, everybody's going to get into a barrel and we're going to get into the water and go through the water gate.

That section, as a grown-ass person, is so confusing to read.

It's so confusing to figure out, like, why did the elves put them in there?

Like, like, they, oh my goodness,

how did they determine which barrels were going to go in the water?

How did they make it so that the elves decided, like, oh, these need to go in the water.

Once they got through the water, the dwarves are in those barrels, trapped in those barrels in the water for multiple days.

I was like,

I don't, I, I don't understand.

It's fine.

It's fine.

I just don't understand.

Are you saying that the movie version actually depicted this better than the book version?

I think that's what I'm saying.

I don't know that I was

definitely more dynamic.

All of them just hanging out of the barrels, going down rapids.

Yeah, that was pretty tight, honestly.

I'm eating while I'm going down the path.

oh, no, there's guys over there who got to throw stuff at them.

Oh, my goodness.

Yeah.

So I'm excited to meet Smaug.

I'm really excited.

We're there.

We're there.

We've walked in, dude.

The way you said it was like a woman going on a blind date.

I'm excited to meet Smaug.

I don't really expect much about him, but his pictures look nice.

He has a lot of money.

Very good.

Everyone says he sounds like Benedict Cumberbatch.

Loved him in Sherlock BBC.

So,

yeah, I think it's going to be great.

Yeah, I can't wait to meet him.

Can't wait to meet Smoog.

Can't wait to meet Smog.

I hear he's from the old country.

The really old country.

The extremely old country.

Yeah.

But it's generational wealth that he has.

And I think he has a castle.

I'm not sure, though.

It's like something in a mountain.

Very exciting.

I feel like he might have some really strong opinions about colonization, but

we can talk about that another time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, really, I'm mostly in for the money, to be honest.

Right, right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah, we're on page like 250 something, and there's 350 pages.

So, we got a hundred, we've got like a hundred pages left.

Easy peasy.

I'm so jazzed.

That's pretty good.

I'm curious what Clark is going to think of

the whole like

Bilbo small dragon.

Like,

I got to outsmart the dragon kind of vibe.

Cause it's very cerebral.

Yeah.

And I want, it's not like a, and then he slew the dragon.

It's not that at all.

So I'm just going to be like, no, I'm very curious.

Because that's not Bilbo, right?

Like, although we had...

The whole section with the spiders, I did not remember Bilbo killing as many spiders as he did.

He really went for it, dude.

But I will say that when we did the whole Gollum section, the riddles, I skipped some of those fucking riddles because

they tell so many riddles in that section and call me a dum-dum, but half of them don't make any goddamn sense.

I, oh my God, I wish I was in the room because in my imagination, the riddles you're saying are like,

what is

Gollum said to bilbo what is black and white and red all over and bilbo said the newspaper and he was right

like kids riddles and then gollum went

yeah yeah

dudes how can you skip the riddles because there was a six-year-old next to me and she did not have the patience and neither did i those like because she wants to understand what the answer and some of those riddles don't make any sense gang.

And I was like, and again, maybe I'm stupid, but like,

I was reading some of these and being like, I don't, I don't think this was a good riddle.

I don't like this riddle.

And I didn't, I didn't want to explain them to her.

So I skipped a few.

Yeah.

Damn.

Self-censoring for the youth of America.

Yeah.

Unbelievable.

You're aware of that.

Another book that I censored a lot was James and the Giant Peach.

A lot of weird child abuse at the beginning of that book.

It was a mess.

I love the fact that if I were like, this could be the start of some sort of Mandela effect kind of thing for Clark where Clark's like 10, 20 years from now, just like, James and the Giant Peach, I don't remember a peach being in that.

I feel like what was going on,

I edited out the whole peach.

You edited out the peach, yeah.

Like, I don't want her to think about it.

James and the giant peaches.

She can climb inside of peaches.

Yeah.

You know, I don't want to give my child the belief that they can clap it in front of, like, in a peach.

That's crazy.

So, we said it was a balloon.

James and the giant balloon.

James and the giant balloon filled with cool insect people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

Oh, good.

Did you

do anything?

By the way, before I ask if you did anything anything crazy or fun this week.

Yes.

I must stress.

Stress away.

I finally am done with TV for a while.

It's a weird thing to say, but every show I've been watching,

I'm done with.

Nice.

Yeah.

And I, and I, and I'm free.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, like, Penguin slapped.

What an incredible ending.

Like, I've never.

You know how I emotionally vampire people being Final Fantasy 14?

Yes.

Same thing with Penguin.

I'm emotionally vampiring people watching the last episode.

I think people forgot that Penguin is a bad guy.

Oh, no, because, like, because he's so endearing as a character in the series, I think people forgot he's a bad guy.

So, the last episode is like pure villainry.

And I'm just like, yeah, just like watching people cry, get messed up, or be like, what the hell?

Loved it.

Big fan.

And then I watched.

Oh, yeah.

So that was good.

I'm very curious, you know, what they're going to do with that franchise when it comes to new Batmans.

Sure.

Very cool.

And then Arcane was lovely.

The end of that was very nice.

Yeah.

I was really happy with the end.

Yeah.

No spoilers, chat.

I will not spoil, of course.

Yeah.

But I got to see it with, so our dear, sweet friend Kristen, who now works at Riot.

Who works at Riot

will invite me to some cool stuff.

And

first off, every time I go to a Riot event, I'm imagining, I like am

forced to remember the fact that we live, even though it's a very big city, we live in a very small community of people.

And every time I go to Riot events, I realize that half of the women I know in my life.

now work at riot yeah it is crazy the amount of people who are like hey jesse i'm like, you work here now?

Yeah, I know.

And occasionally I'll go on like, you know, blue sky or something and see somebody talking about how they work at Riot.

And I'm like, since when?

When did that person start working there?

I don't even remember that.

Yeah.

Did I ever tell you that Sam was going to work there?

Like before?

I mean, it wouldn't surprise me.

Yeah.

When

he first moved out to America and before we had gotten married, so he couldn't apply for like the green card or anything

he had gone there for a tour because he was maybe gonna work there and he like really heavily considered it but at the time they didn't let you stream if you were also working there so it was like you would have to

not

be a content creator anymore if you wanted to work there basically which obviously is not the situation anymore but at the time that was um

yeah that was the deal and so he he like hemmed and hawed over it for a while and then was like, I think I'm just gonna keep doing my own thing, which wound up being the right call, obviously.

But yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I am very happy for Kristen.

She's doing great,

traveling the world, living her life, doing better than

the Jesse Cox experience, that's for sure.

And so I was there.

Kristen and I hung out.

It was a finale event.

So it was the last three episodes at the like downtown at a big theater.

And they had this whole thing where you could like play stuff and do stuff.

very fun.

They had the same thing last year, like the last time they did it.

And so went to it.

All I will say is, and I mean this in the nicest of terms, some of y'all too damn horny.

Just too horny.

And I am a professional hornball.

Some of y'all too horny.

Without spoils, there is a scene.

I know Dodger will know this immediately.

There is a scene in the second to last episode where the crowd like went crazy.

Not like, not like cheering crazy, but like I thought an orgy was gonna break out.

It was the craziest thing I've ever seen in my entire life.

I was like, what the hell?

There are people next to me who are like panting.

I was like, what is going on?

It was crazy.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

Okay.

It was a lot.

I'm kind of glad I wasn't there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Other than that, it was very fun, but that one scene was so funny.

I was like,

the hell?

So, yeah, but I love the way it ended.

I thought, if anything, it could probably have used one more season to flesh out some things, but that's just me being selfish.

It sounds like they've already.

I always

don't know whether to feel excited or nervous when a franchise goes, and we've already greenlit the next three shows that we're going to do.

Yeah, apparently they're saying it's not three shows, but it's three things they're going to do, which could be games or any like, who knows?

Who knows what's going to happen?

I have no clue.

But apparently, they somewhere someone was like, Arcane, like that universe we're creating is the new real lore for

the game now.

So all the other lore is kind of retconned out, which, as, you know, as a person who's gone through World of Warcraft, I sympathize, but also

you'll be fine.

Like, it's whatever.

Again, not to spoil anything about the show, but they have already changed some stuff in the game to reflect the show.

And people are, some people are like, awesome, that's fun.

And other people are like, I hate this.

So it's been divisive, but at the end of the day, it's their game.

So if they want to say, this is the new canon, then it's the new canon, right?

I mean, that's what I want to do when it comes to

like, I have an idea.

You know me.

I'm very inquisitive.

So I have an idea for a show that I want to do that literally is just me sitting down with people and being like, hey, tell me about this thing that I have zero knowledge of and I'd love to know more about.

And one of the things I want to do is...

I've thought about doing a show like that too.

I think that's such a fun idea.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And one of the things I want to do is definitely be like, yeah, what's the deal with the league lore?

How's that work?

Yeah.

I know enough to know, but not enough to be up to date.

Like, I know.

originally from back in the day what the story was.

Now I'm like, well, how does that connect?

And where's this going to lead to?

And what's that thing?

And so I'm very curious.

And so I really want to do that and like, ask, you know,

less Jesse talk and me just be like,

so, how's that work?

What's that thing?

I was so glad that I went into Arcane not knowing anything about any characters, right?

I was like, I know people really want to kiss Jinx and Ari, and that's all that I really know about the game.

You know, I've, I've watched a KDA music video, you know, that's like the extent of where I was at going into Arcane.

And after the first season of Arcane came out, a bunch of my friends that are really into league were like, and now you should read this and you should go watch this and you should look at this comic.

And I didn't do any of that

because I was like, I kind of want to see,

I don't want to go into season two with any expectations or any like assumptions about what's going to happen at all, you know?

And I'm really glad that I did that.

And I do feel the pull

to look some things up and I'm resisting because I feel like whatever because I know at least at least one thing with Fortish is like on the books like a next thing with them and I'm like I kind of just again want to go in and be like who the fuck are these people

apparently they've already been working on a thing for a year like the next thing is already under development and that's cool like I think What people need to understand is League of Legends is fine.

I played it once.

I got out on top with an amazing score of 1-0.

I shall never return.

I don't want to play it ever again.

It would frustrate me.

Yeah.

Like that, the game is whatever.

TFT, fun.

It's fun, but I'm like not that kind of player.

I'm like a big RPG nerd.

So most of what they're doing is not in my alley.

However, however.

Arcane has a very special place in that it isn't just like

it's a league

thing and they're trying to sell you league legends if anything they've only sold me on arcane like i like visually uh voice actor wise music wise everything about the show is so well done that i am in for more of the animation and more of what they're doing than

any of their games which i think is interesting because it's kind of a flip compared to for example fallout or um

edge runners where those things the minute i was done watching them i was like yo i want to go play those games.

Right.

Like, I want to go experience that.

This is different.

This is like, yeah, I don't really want to play League.

I just want more of this.

Yeah.

Yes, I completely agree.

I think

I know for a fact

that a lot of people went to try playing League after Arcane came out.

But I think you're right that a lot of the interest wound up being in the world and the characters that League already has established.

Right.

And again, fortunately, at this point, there's a bunch of comics out there, um,

you know, like little lore dump things that you can read.

Like, there's there's ways to engage with that world without having to play League.

So, I mean, they have a few RPGs out there, things they've created that are more on their indie side of things, but then they scrapped that entire department.

So,

I don't know, you know, I guess they're working on an MMO, which is fine.

Like, okay.

But unless it's really compelling and really good,

you know, unfortunately, most MMOs end up being kind of jank.

Yeah, I was going to say,

have we seen

a major company, like a big, well-established company, make

just a standard MMO recently?

I don't feel like anybody's tried to make an MMO in like the current landscape.

I feel like Western companies, no.

There are a lot of Chinese companies producing MMOs.

That's fair.

A lot.

Right.

Like, I think the last big one was, yeah, Amazon New World.

That was the last big one.

I forgot that that even exists.

Yeah.

And that was only big because let's look.

Let's be real here.

Yeah.

People got.

paid a bunch of money to play that when that first came out.

And so that's all that was streamed by a lot of people.

But it wasn't natural growth.

It was people were saying, hey, this is sponsored and everyone's in the stream watching it.

But then once the sponsorships ran up, no one played it anymore.

Like it immediately died when sponsorships ended.

And so, I mean, like, I think that's, you know, that's unfortunate for the game, but also like,

what was the like the when people watched, there was no draw-in to get you really excited to play.

Um, yeah.

I mean, MMOs are fickle.

Like Final Fantasy 14 is a great example.

Shadowbringers, Endwalker, the hype was crazy.

People are losing their mind over that thing.

Dawn Trail comes out.

People are like, it's all right.

Immediately, no one like the hype for the game vanished overnight.

People moved on to something else.

But it's, you know, it's unfortunately the way MMOs work.

But if you make a new expansion and something comes up, then you can get the hype again.

But it's an ebb and flow.

I mean, WoW's a perfect example as well.

WoW's had some pretty trash expansions and they've had some pretty good ones.

People are like, I'm back, baby.

Let's go.

Back in.

Yeah.

I mean, it happens, but it's hard if you have a rough launch.

You know what I mean?

For sure.

But yeah, I don't know.

I'm trying to think of anything, but I don't think so.

I think a lot of people realize that.

Ashes of Creation is one that's coming out.

I don't even know anything about that.

Is Asters of Creation is

intrepid?

It's the big up-and-coming one, but I feel like Ashes of Creation has been.

Why do I feel like it's been around for a while?

It was announced in 2016.

This is why

that'll explain it.

I was like, feels like it's been around forever.

Yeah.

Holy shit.

Yeah.

I mean, if it comes out and is good, cool.

But yeah, I mean, the only ones that I can think of right now, yeah, Star Citizen.

Yeah.

Pirate Software runs a giant guild in it now.

Runs or is part of.

I always think it's weird when people are like, this person I really like runs, runs a guild.

And I'm like,

normally it means

a creator of some kind started a guild.

And

I think pretty rarely they are the ones that actually run it.

But I mean, that's one of the, that's why I don't like, I

dudes running it and it's fine.

But most of the time, what ends up happening is someone says I'm running it and then they leave.

And then the guild sits there.

It's like, I only joined because they were playing and now I got no one to play with.

So that's why I don't do it.

I don't want to be beholden to anyone if I fall out of love with a game.

I was like, look, I love this.

I had fun with it, but it's time to move on.

Yeah.

So,

but with that said, that's cool.

If they're doing the work, great.

But yeah, I don't know.

Either way, very excited to see what comes out of

their animation department, studio heads, whatever going on over at Riot.

I think it's going to be very cool.

They've got a lot of directions they go.

They have so much lore they can mess with.

So that's that's fun.

I don't know much of the lore, but I know that it should be interesting.

So cool, cool, cool.

I apparently you have done stuff with the devs quite a few times, but I played Void Crew as part of a sponsored thing when it gave me a game.

So did I.

I played it this week.

That game is so fun.

It's great.

It's morphed a lot since originally it released.

Or not, well, you know, like

early access.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now it has kind of like a roguelike feel where you do missions and you keep going mission to mission to mission until you beat a boss.

And before it wasn't really that, it was like you go on a mission, then you come back.

You go on a mission, then you come back.

So I think having it like

this progression thing is very fun.

And yeah, the boss fights are cool.

Really, it has all the vibes of a great cooperative.

We have to keep our ship afloat game.

And I'm a big fan.

Yeah.

I do stuff with them all the time.

Not sponsored.

I do it because I like those guys.

So I can say that from my heart.

It was a very fun game.

I always get intimidated by games where it's like, you have a ship and there's so many things to touch and so many jobs you could have and you have to keep the ship alive, right?

But it actually wound up,

it didn't take that long to understand what to do, you know.

Honestly, the hardest part in that game was

not getting jettisoned out the airlock because My sweet love, Sam Thorne, is allergic to closing doors.

Bro,

i don't know when the last time was that i screamed that many times

it is like the amount of ways you can die stupidly is so funny to me you're not sitting down when you jump into hyperspace and you fly out of reality it's hilarious um

but yeah the the the so hey spoilers for space everyone in and chat or listening when you open a door into the vacuum of space if you haven't depressurized that room everything gets sucked out.

And hilariously, if you don't do that and the door is open, anyone nearby will just get jettisoned into space.

It's really funny,

bro.

I have to just minding my business.

There's a gunner.

You can do some cool stuff if you put the jetpack on or the, you know, you put the pack on and you're ready to go into space.

you can if you want be like point me directly at that thing jet send me and then you go and you get shot out at it it's cool as hell like you can do some cool stuff but um

for the most part you don't want that especially if you're trying to repair the hull of your ship and you're like i just want to go outside really quick and then it is pew you go off

like bye

bye goop person bye see ya

I know you're freezing to death, but I love you.

Yeah.

I think it's like the different weapons you can get, the upgrades, the way that you can change your ship around and make stuff.

I love that kind of thing.

It's a lot of fun.

And so, and the rewards are very fun too.

Right now, my guy looks like he is definitely from Dead Space.

I have like the creepy sigils on my face, and I'm like, that's pretty neat.

I'm having a good time.

So, yeah, highly recommend, especially if you have a group of friends.

But even if you don't, you can play online with randos.

And I'm sure they will be like,

the door.

Yeah, the honestly, one of the coolest parts of that game, I think, was the way that the proximity VoIP works.

Because the second you get too far away, it turns into like radio talk, and it was so seamless.

It sounded so nice.

Yeah.

What did you do?

Were you the pilot?

Were you the

gunner?

Whoops was our pilot, and Sam was the scavenger.

Okay.

Yeah.

Did you have an engineer?

No.

No.

So I assume it did not get very far.

Everything would break.

And again, because

we were allergic to closing doors, the whole thing would get depressurized and everything would break more.

And it was, it was bad.

It was bad, bad, bad.

Did you have temperature problems?

I assume.

I assume it was negative degrees Celsius the entire time.

All of us were just walking around trying to do our jobs and freezing to death, like it's fine.

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fun game, though.

Very fun.

At one point, I don't know what we had done wrong, but my guy was like 81 degrees Celsius.

I was like, this isn't good.

I was like, how am I this hot?

Yeah.

I don't know.

Go get in the goo bath.

So I went back in the goo bath and I was fine.

I guess I had a cold, a space cold.

I don't know what was going on.

81 degrees Celsius?

I don't know how you live through that.

Yeah.

Anyway,

it's not good.

It was not good for me.

I was was like, it is so very hot.

Tell me about a thing that you played this week.

Me, oh my.

What did I, oh, oh, oh, dukes.

Yes.

They released the demo for the new Dice Warriors game.

Okay.

And

Dinosaurs Origins.

And I tried to play it on stream a little bit.

And I was like,

it was fine, but I realized they added a bunch of new mechanics to this one.

And so I was very overwhelmed on stream trying to learn how to play.

So not only did they add the ability to sort of move units, so you have

like before it was literally dodge, attack, heavy attack, block, and then mount up and run around.

Those were the things you were doing.

That was it.

Oh, and then you press A to use your super attack and kill everyone.

Now they're like, okay,

right or left button plus up, down, left, right gives you different attacks that your units can do where you'll send like guys to charge forward or they'll shoot arrows or they'll do different things.

I'm like,

okay,

all right.

Then you have right trigger.

will allow you to do special attacks and sometimes when an enemy does like a charge up attack you can use a special attack and stun them and so now i'm doing like overwhelmed shit.

I'm like, oh my god, okay.

So I gotta learn this and this and this.

Plus, they change the button.

So when you mount up, it isn't, I can't remember what the button was before, but now it's literally you press down on the uh, the like

what did that be?

R3, whatever the hell the, the, like, this thing is when you're playing, the little joint sticky thing.

Sure.

Now when you press down on it, you mount up.

But because I get so excited when I'm playing, I'm constantly pressing down.

So I'm in the middle of combat, I'm constantly mounting up.

And I'm like, I don't want this.

I just want to murder.

So it took me a while to get the hang of it.

Yeah, so that would be L3.

Thank you, Chad.

And

I just couldn't, I just couldn't get the hang of it.

So because I'm a psychopath and I love these games, off stream, I was like, you know what?

I'll try.

Because while I was playing on stream, my commander would keep dying and it'd be like, you lose.

I'm like, what is he done?

Stay in the back, asshole.

What are you you doing?

He's like, Yon Shao will not be defeated.

And he gets killed.

I'm like,

cool.

So I kept losing because my commander would die.

So I was like, all right, all right.

I'm going to remap some buttons.

I'm going to go in.

I'm going to play just how I think it should be played.

And I went through and I absolutely destroyed the map.

I was so pleased.

I was like, okay, all I need to do is rebind some buttons.

Was absolutely like

I had the most fun.

I was just like going through killing guys.

They got a thousand kills.

The game, when you get a thousand kills, is like

lightning and shit.

And it's like, you're the best.

I was like, yeah, I am.

And then once you beat the level, it's like, it goes to black and it's like, pick up the game.

But also, and then Lubu jumps off the ramparts and you start a mini-game where it's literally, how long can you survive Lubu?

And I was like, first off,

do not pursue Lubu.

What are you doing?

You shouldn't be here.

Run away, Origin Man.

Run away.

And the game, like, Lubu's killing every commander on the battlefield.

Of course.

So I found out that when you play, once you're done, there's a little timer.

It's like, how long did you last against Lubu?

Three minutes, 23 seconds.

That man brutalized me.

One hit killed me.

I was like,

and then it boots you to the start.

And it's like, play it again if you want to fight him again.

I was like.

I don't actually.

I'll wait for the full game.

Good.

No, I don't think.

It made me want the full game more because it's very clear that.

So anyone who's played Dinosaurs, you know, the start of the game is the Yellow Turban Rebellion.

Every time.

Yellow Turban Rebellion, it always starts that way.

And so the fact that we're in something later, I'm like, oh, my character be fully leveled by then.

I'm not even like, why am I even worried about this?

Why am I stressing for no reason?

So I'll wait for the full game.

It was fun.

I liked that a lot.

And it definitely, it reminded me that I likes what I likes likes because you had weapon choices, right?

And

none of the weapons I like were on that list.

And I was like, ah, boo.

Yeah.

So I was like, all right, I guess I'll play with these weapons.

But I want my Zhaoyun weapon.

I want to spin around and like twirl and stab.

I just want a fast spear and I want to jump in the air and slam on the ground and men to fly and go.

I mean, Dynasty Warriors is about the ultimate power fantasy.

It really was.

You want to use the weapon you want to use and feel as cool as possible.

Yep.

That's all I want in this world.

That's all I want is just to use the weapon I want to use and feel as cool as possible.

Is that too much to ask?

Come on now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that was fun.

That was, that was really neat.

Other than that, I've been trying to finish games and I just

still on the same RPG as I was before, except now I'm further.

And I'm like, are these ever going to end?

Like

Dragon Age, every time I think I'm at the end, another side quest pops up and I'm like, I got to do it.

It's for my companions.

I got to do it.

And it keeps happening.

I'll complete one side quest, go back to my little base and another one will be there.

I'm like,

just give me them all, right?

Like, just give me all right.

Yeah.

Just give me all of them.

Yeah.

Pound them out.

But no, it's like, there's one more.

Also, one more quest.

Also, go to a funeral.

Also, help these two characters date.

Also, go do this thing.

Also, meanwhile i'm over here the one girl i picked to like smooch up on she's like well if i kiss you you'll die like what do you mean

it's like why does this always happen to me every time oh my goodness

So I've been trying to do that.

I've been doing romancing saga to

literally right back there.

I've been playing it.

And

that's a fun game, except now I'm at the point where it's very, very hard.

I like,

I'm at the end of the game.

It's already too difficult because it's like a game designed to be hard.

And straight up, every

there's this boss, Kaczynski, F, this dude, or Kaczynski, whatever his damn name is.

He has an ability that one shot kills you.

And so if you one-shot, because I'm at the end of the game, my emperor can't die.

Like, because he's the last emperor in the line of emperors.

So what ends up happening is when he one-shot kills me, one of my men sacrifices himself for me.

And there's a scene where it's like you, and there's like these like golden stairs leading up to a white door.

And it's like, well, I guess it's my time.

And then one of your guys, the last guy, was my like tank.

And he's like, no, I'll go.

And he like died for me, dukes.

And I was like,

I need you.

I can't know my good gear.

Where are you going?

So I'm like, he'll leave.

I'm like, no.

At least drop your beer before you go.

Wait.

So, so he dies for me.

And so I have to go find a new tank.

And so I got this new tank, brought this tank in, and was like, okay, I'm good.

Re-equipped all the gear, went back in, started fighting this guy again.

And he was like, ha ha ha,

one shot killed my archer.

I'm like,

how do I beat this guy?

Oh, no.

So

I'm having trouble.

I feel, so I just stopped trying to fight him.

And I'm going around the world completing all the other side quests.

And I'm like, maybe I just need to be stronger.

But

some of these bosses are tough.

Anyway, Romancing Saga 2.

It is a game designed to be hard.

So

that's the thing.

Yeah, I've been doing that.

And then

I made a,

they released Dragon Quest III HD 2D, 2D, HD, whatever the hell it is.

Okay.

Very, very good game, except I made my team.

My team is basically designed to be like a really cool group of badasses and crendor.

And the reason why I made crendor is because there was a

clown class in the game.

And I was like, oh, that's right.

Oh, I remember you talking about this.

Right.

Yes.

Chat was like, hey, Jesse, clown class eventually becomes one of the best classes in the game.

And I was like, yeah?

Like, oh, yeah.

It's like, okay.

So I kept playing.

I'm like, you know, I have yet, yet yet to discover this amazing people like it really dude it's gonna pay off i'm like it is it is not paying off yeah

last week you were saying it's it is the by far the worst class you have yes

yes and it's still it keeps getting worse crendor literally i'm glad this is on film Crendor literally, we're in the middle of a fight and Credor goes, Niener, Niener, you stink.

Falls asleep.

What was the point?

I was like.

So he taunted an enemy and then fell asleep so he couldn't react or dodge.

And I'm like,

What do you mean?

Oh my god, what?

Actively one of the worst characters I've ever had in a game.

I'm like,

so aptly named, though.

Yes, yes, yes.

I really lucked out with that Crendor name.

What sucks is that it's literally just a man in a clown suit, but my options for putting him in the only options I have are like old men.

So Crendor is an old balding man with a huge mustache and a clown suit.

And he like yells at people and then falls asleep.

And everyone's like, dude, he's going to be so good, though.

I have no knowledge of this.

There's no indication that this will happen.

Do you think you've been goofed?

Do you think people are telling the truth?

Chat usually tells the truth, but in a way that is for their own benefit.

You know what I mean?

Like they'll say, oh, yeah,

he'll become something good later on.

what they don't tell me is that later on it's like if you hit level 99 you know like that kind of thing there's always a little hint of truth in their terrible terrible eyes right

got you so

what a treat and i'm trying to beat all those because i have eight billion other games i want to play and i'm like well i started down this rabbit hole and by god i'm gonna finish it My objective is to try to get everything done by the 9th of December because that's when Indiana Jones comes out and I am going going to mainline that game.

So excited.

Oh, I love, I love Indy.

I love any, you know, any and all games coming out of,

what is that, Machine Works?

Very excited.

Man, I forgot about that game, actually.

Yeah.

I'm still RPG-wise, I'm still, it's just metaphor.

Yeah.

And the other day,

bro, the other day,

I was playing it on the couch, and Sam goes, Oh my gosh, are you like almost done with that game?

It feels like every time I see you, you're playing it.

And I was like,

No.

He goes, How far in are you?

And I was like, Well,

when you play the demo, you can play up to the point that you can do a dungeon

and fight the first like major antagonist character.

And I just finished that.

He was like,

what do you mean?

I was like, well, I'm just going real slow.

I get it.

There's a lot to see and do.

I'm just going real slow, dude.

Yeah.

It's, I mean, it's also just

like, there's so much going on in that game.

Yeah.

Big fan.

Like, I, I, you're so early, I can't even, like, talk about it with you.

Like, I just, you're still so early in the game.

I really fucked up because

I,

for some reason, convinced myself that the best use of my time, so it does the

persona thing, right?

You have 10 days, and then, and by the end of those 10 days, you have to have beaten this thing, right?

And so, I was like,

okay,

so I should spend nine days getting swole as shit

and then spend the 10th day doing the dungeon.

Sure.

That was wrong.

That's what I did, though.

And I did it just fine.

Can I ask you what is maybe a really stupid question?

Sure.

Is there anywhere to buy mana stuff in town?

All right.

So I'm going to tell you how I beat that first dungeon.

And you're going to be like, Because I ran out of mana by halfway through the dungeon and was like,

I'm fine health-wise, but I have no magic left

big same so the thing that that the hot tip i got that was super interesting is if you select the mage archetype what ends up happening is one of the abilities the mage archetype has is if you kill an enemy on the overworld you get sp back Right.

Right.

And so what ends up happening is what I did is I, right before the final boss, I was completely out of any sort of mana.

I was like, oh my god so what i did i saved and then switched archetypes to mage level one mage and then went because i was over leveled in general just went around smashing went back to the first floor killed the dogs repeatedly just on a loop over and until everyone's mp was maxed out or sp was maxed out then i went back saved fought the final boss yeah that's i did it all in the day

yeah i think what the game is telling you to do is go in early

do a little bit of the dungeon, leave the dungeon, go spend some time doing other shit, come back to the dungeon once your SP is back.

But because I was on the last day, I was like, well, I can't leave or I fail.

So what are my options?

And they're like, oh, just literally put on that one particular archetype, do it, and it can switch back to whatever you're using.

Here's the thing.

I realized, though, on that last boss, I probably should have just kept the mage archetype on because there was a lot of things I was like, oh, I probably could fight ice.

This would be real helpful, but I don't have ice.

Yeah.

So I learned some lessons, but yeah.

Yeah,

that's good to know.

I didn't know that that was a thing you could do with mage.

Yeah, I wound up like the first five days.

Well, first the first couple of days, I focused on like getting stats and then unlocked that

side dungeon that you can do.

Went in there and beat up goblins for two days.

And then

and then I was like,

great, I'll just keep fighting goblins.

In my mind, I was like, I'll just fight goblins every day until they're,

if I go in with a magic user, when they rage, it doesn't insta-kill me.

Because

what wound up happening, right, is because that's

multiple days fighting the goblins?

Yeah.

I would just go back in and fight them again because they were.

Did you not do all the like

I went around town and like got people to like me I got the one lady who's the vendor I'm taking care of her dog now or whatever I uh I've done every I did all of the quests that were available to me and talked to everybody that I was able to talk to but I mean like did you do the things where you will like go and like you're min-maxing your crown stats right where it's like

Every day I was doing, like, I was put, I'm, I'm like putting work.

My crown looks like a real ass crown now.

I did maybe like 10, not 10.

I did like five days of that stuff.

Yeah.

And then the rest of the days, this, again, this, again,

this was the run where I fucked it all up and had to start over from the first day of the 10 days.

But yeah, I spent like five days focusing on my stats and then four days just going back and fighting goblins over and over again because I was like,

they get so much stronger and hit so many more times if you go in with a mage or a healer that if I can go in there with a mage or a healer and be fine, then I'll know that I've, that I've, that I'm totally ready for this last dungeon, right?

Hold on.

Hold on.

This says so much about you as a person.

I cannot stress this enough.

This is

the game.

literally told you,

hey, goblins do not like mages.

Don't bring a mage there.

Mages will get their asses beat.

Do not do this.

And you said,

well, if I can go there with a mage and win,

I must be very good and I can level up.

Remember, I did four straight days of goblins.

So two days I went in with classes that made sense.

And then I was like, I'm one-hit killing these motherfuckers.

I'm going to take in a healer because my current quest with WhatsApp's ass

is to get the healer to level 10.

So fuck it.

I'll just bring the healer in there.

And if I can, if we can go in there and be fine with a magic user, then great.

That's so funny.

Like the game is like, do not do this.

They will brutalize you.

Don't do it.

And you were like, watch me.

Look, I got all the way to the boss door and then was like, but I'm not going in there.

Sure, sure.

yeah that's so funny uh so i was like i'm ready dude but then had no magic i went in there and halfway through was like i have no magic so yeah

it would have worked um

it's what's crazy about it is after you beat that point

the way the game it like exponentially grows is wild.

Like, um,

the things available to you.

Yeah, it like becomes very, very, like,

without spoiling stuff, you end up going on quests and doing things that were not expected by me at all.

And so, yeah, it's interesting to see the way the game changes and develops over time because

it is not like where I'm at is not the same as where it was in the beginning.

And it's like really cool.

I must stress to you, very cool stuff and metaphor.

Definitely, like, we talked about games of the year last year.

I mean, it's a contender, despite what the internet may say, because

I guess the internet's decided RPGs are stupid and lame, which I feel like has been the thought for years, but like,

we'll see.

We'll see.

I mean, I think it deserves to win, but also Final Fantasy VII is going to win a lot of awards.

We'll see.

I don't know.

Yeah, I am curious.

When is that?

When are the game awards?

Next week?

No, the week of the 11th, 12th, 13th.

Oh, yeah, a couple weeks away.

So I think it's the 12th.

Thursday the 12th, I think?

A couple weeks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, yeah.

So that'll be a whole thing.

If Elden Ring DLC wins best RPG,

I'm fine with it.

That doesn't affect me in any way, but it will be hilarious to see the reactions online.

So I'm down for that either way.

Like, it doesn't affect me.

Honestly, I think any of the nominees for best game could win, and I'd be like, all right.

Like, it doesn't like, all right.

Like, there's nothing I'm like, that's definitely the winner.

Right.

Like, like last year, for example, it was so, even though I love Alan Wake, it was so obvious that Baldur's Gate 3 was going to win.

This year, I'm like,

doesn't bother me at all.

Like, whatever.

It's fine.

It is what it is.

Yeah.

It is, in fact, what it is.

Yeah, I don't,

I'm trying to look and see.

What's really funny is that on my desktop at home, I have totally different different things than what I have at the office.

And the one, the games I have at home are really funny because I have the League of Legends Ruined King on here that I've never played.

And I feel like I should one day.

It's good.

It's like a turn-based RPG thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have Chasm the Rift, which is a like Doom-esque shooter.

I have Diplomacy is not an option.

A game called Cross Blitz, which is actually a very fun card game.

That's like you play his little lying characters.

I think you would enjoy Cross Blitz, dude.

And then

for some reason, I also just have

the May.

Oh, wow.

I guess I must have a lot of League of Legends games at home from Kristen, probably, because that was

the Mage Seeker, a League of Legends story.

I liked Mage Seeker a lot too.

Yeah.

Yeah, I haven't played that one either.

And then

for some reason, I also just have Baldur's Gate 3 and Potionomics on my computer at home.

Shop Potionomics.

What a cute game.

Very cute.

I had an update.

Yep.

Potionomics, very fun.

Can I tell you about another game that I played this week?

I would prefer if you did, yes.

Okay.

I played a game called Locomotive

that is

locomotive.

Right, right.

So it's Crazy Train.

Yes.

Great.

Locomotive.

So

this is a classic, a murder happens on a train sort of scenario.

It's a point-and-click murder mystery game.

And again,

in classic style, an old eccentric lady is on the train and she's about to announce who is going to take over her empire.

and then gets stabbed in the back while they're going through a tunnel and no one can see anything.

And when they come out of the tunnel, she's dead.

dead and everyone's like, what happened?

At this time, you play as Arthur, who is the executor of her will.

She's his attorney, or he's her attorney.

He's very like

low whiz, high int, I was saying, because he's like, I love

math.

I love spreadsheets.

I'm really good at my things, but really stupid about everything else, right?

Yes, yes.

And essentially, they determine, okay, well,

what is written in her will?

That's going to give us a good idea of who would have the most to gain by killing her, right?

Like who, who gains something by her dying.

But unfortunately, at the very start of the game,

the will flies out the window of the train.

So as Arthur, everyone's sort of put it on you, like,

whatever you have to do, figure out what was written on that will so that we can, so that we can like have somewhere to start from because the authorities aren't gonna be able to be here like until we get to a town.

Um,

you know, we're gonna try to like cover up the fact that an old lady died on the train so that people don't freak out.

Um,

and it is, it's fully voice acted.

The way that everything, it's like pixel animation, the animations are so good, uh, and it has

some of my favorite storytelling tropes in it that just made me so happy.

It does have a little bit of moon logic, in my opinion.

In my opinion,

there were a couple moments where I was like, I guess I'll just go to this character and literally hand them every single thing I have in my pockets to see if something works.

You know, I was sort of that.

But yeah, super cute game.

I really, really, really like it.

I'm excited to finish it.

Yeah, if you, if you like sort of old school style, point and click, like side-scroller

mystery games, yeah, it's really fun.

What was this game called?

Locomotive.

Loco motive.

So locomotive.

Like my alley.

Yes, I think you'd love it.

Yeah, like I'm a big fan of both genre and type of game.

You know what I mean?

Like,

it's right where I love.

Also, shout out to whoever did the old lady's voice, because the second she started talking, multiple people in chat were like, did you voice her?

Because it's that classic, like, I'm an old lady and I'm excited to have you all here, you know?

Yep.

Yep.

That sounds very, very similar to.

Anytime I play a game and someone's like, oh, is that you, Jesse?

No, it never is.

No.

But I'm glad that we've infiltrated your brain enough that you think if a voice sounds like, oh, I'm an old man, you're like, Jesse, did you voice that?

Yeah.

You fools.

Yeah.

No, I wish.

I'm uh, there's a game that I got to see some of, and I'm excited for the release.

It is

like the most Davis-coded game I've ever seen in my entire life.

Okay.

But it's also incredibly unique.

It's called The Edge of Allegoria.

Imagine an RPG

that is

very, I don't know, like

both earthbound-y, but also like

not.

It's hard to describe.

It is a game that looks like it's on Game Boy.

It's designed to look like a Game Boy game, but it absolutely does not take itself seriously.

And it has the same vibe as if you were, again, playing one of the mother games, right?

Except, yeah.

Except like goofy and very old Pokemon.

And that's the vibe, is it's supposed to have like a Pokemon feel as well.

But one of the best parts is because it doesn't take itself so seriously, it has kind of the writing qualities of Monster Prom, which I love.

So there's a whole scene where you like get high on mushrooms and you're like, dude, something's wrong.

Like stuff like that.

It's very clever.

It's a pretty neat game.

You can play the demo right now,

like I did.

But the game, I think, comes out next week, so definitely one to look at.

Um, pretty cute, it definitely uh scratches an itch because it's an RPG, it's like a legit RPG, but it's just

you know, fun, little fun, yeah,

so it looks very cute.

I've wish listed it, oh,

yeah, I actually saw, I saw a game that I was like, oh my god, this is such, this is such a Dodger game, and now I can't, for the life of me, here's the problem: I wrote it down on a thing at my computer at the office and I was like, Dodge, this is the game for you.

And I don't have it.

We'll have to, we'll have to find it and do it next week, I guess.

And we'll have to have a little gab.

Yeah.

Next week.

Oh, man.

Heartbreaking.

It definitely was like, oh, yeah, Dodger's going to love this.

And now I don't have it.

I don't know what happened to it.

I always feel

very,

it warms my heart.

when one of my friends is like, I saw this game and it reminded me of you.

It's very sweet.

I think you and I have the games we love.

And because we love them so completely, we are kind of coded into those worlds.

So it doesn't like people know what.

Oh, no, that's a Jesse game.

That's, I mean, that's Jesse.

I'm like, yeah, yep, yep.

That's true.

That's true.

You got me.

Nailed me pretty good there.

Yeah.

Damn, it's going to make me so upset because I just don't know what it is.

How do you describe it?

Nope.

I can't remember at all.

I would recognize the logo if I saw it.

Is it like a game that's coming out on Steam soon?

Or

yes, in the next two weeks, it's it was part of like new releases, and I just don't uh I don't remember what it is.

What's funny is I tell you, but I went to the Steam page and it's all Steam sale right now, and I cannot get you

so if you go

to the top, it says new and noteworthy, and when you click on that, you can go to upcoming releases.

Oh, I'm doing this, it's happening, we're here,

Okay.

Now, now to find a thing that I thought I saw.

It's going to be great.

I'll figure it out.

This is, this is, this is going to be me looking at a screen trying to find a thing on a podcast.

Not the greatest form of entertainment.

I don't, I'll figure it out.

I wrote it down.

This is like not a big deal.

It's just frustrating that everything's at the office and

I'm at home.

So that's cool.

I'm, oh my gosh, Entropy Survivor is coming out on the 4th.

I'm really excited about this stuff is coming.

Path of Exile 2 is coming out on the 6th as well, I think.

Which, by the way, did you play any of that?

Have you seen any of that game?

Of which one?

POE 2?

No.

Chat, let me ask you a question.

When it comes to Path of Exile, have streamers been allowed to stream some of it?

And have you seen the character select screen?

I'm just this.

Before I talk about it, I want to, I want to be able to discuss what I think is the coolest thing I've ever seen in my entire life.

Yes, you've seen character select?

Great.

I don't know if this is the same thing, so excuse me.

Okay.

But they've showed us.

Yes, great.

The character select screen.

might be the most badass select screen in the history of select screens.

It's a bunch of your characters who you can pick from all on the gallows,

and they're all sitting there on the gallows, and you pick the one you want to play.

And then when the game starts, everyone else hangs but you and you escape.

And it's awesome.

And I was like, whoa, there's the most badass intro.

I was like, that's cool as shit.

That's pretty crazy.

Yeah.

I was like, that's all.

Very cool intro.

I love that kind of stuff.

Game Very Dark,

the sixth.

Dude, if you want to play it together, I would love to play that with you.

I would love to.

I don't want to talk about anything that hasn't been revealed, but like

I,

we talked about before when I played the

like witch class,

I could make a bunch of skeletons and that was cool, but it didn't really sync with me until I realized that my skeletons could make skeletons for me.

And at a certain time, I was just like walking through a level and dude, skeletons was popping up and murdering other skeletons.

I was like, it's the greatest player.

So

I am down.

I'm down to play.

Yeah.

I would love to play with you.

It'd be very fun.

I haven't played.

I didn't play Path of Exile.

I haven't played.

It's probably the best, to be honest.

So, so, yeah, I'll be going into Path of Exile 2, sort of, not squeaky clean, but like, you know, pretty wiped.

Yeah, I would love to play that with you.

I think it'd be super fun.

I don't, yeah, I don't know that you need to play the first one.

If anything, the first one would probably just confuse you considering it's like a lot.

There's a lot

that goes into that.

So, yeah, I would definitely say the second one seems pretty fun.

Hell yeah.

Let's do it.

That sounds great.

I would love to.

It's

groups of four, right?

Up to four in that game.

Great question.

Great question.

I would assume so.

Up to six.

Whoa.

Oh, my goodness.

Maybe we could get a little cranner in there.

Maybe a little spam.

I don't know.

How big is the skill tree?

So the skill tree isn't like a tree, really, this time.

It's a, you get skills, but then you also get gems to augment.

So you can like

make builds based on like, you don't have to pick things.

So a great example is as the

witch.

I could

make an army of skeletons with swords or get skeletal archers or get skeletal bombers because I only had so much.

Ooh, I don't know what the term would be.

Let's just say mana.

I only had so much that I could use.

I was like,

all right, well, I guess I could get a bomber, but

I don't know.

Like, there's, you have to pick and choose things.

Right.

And I think that's pretty clever.

But I don't know what the final version of that's going to look like.

This is from what I played in the summer.

Right.

So.

yeah, it'll be cool to check out.

People are saying

it's mostly passive, so which is more my speed, to be honest.

Yeah, yeah.

Trying to remember what I think at one event, I played a sorcerer, mage, whatever, and I got my ass beat, like just beat.

And then I played the witch, went back to the same fight that beat me, stomped it in one go.

So I don't know if it was because I was playing suboptimally the first time, or if I just genuinely

like one character is just significantly better than the other?

I don't know.

We'll see.

We'll see.

I'm excited.

I don't know.

It looks like we're up on the time for news.

Do you have some news for us this week, Jessup?

Yeah, let's talk.

Hey, it's a weird time to be live, but first off, let's talk Horizon,

a franchise that I love, despite everyone telling me that they hate it.

And it doesn't matter to me.

I love it.

I love Aloy.

She and I will get married one day.

Yeah.

But hilariously, I do have a question.

As someone who unabashedly loves the Horizon franchise to the point where he got the VR game just so he could play VR in the Horizon world,

I, and I assume others, do not understand Horizon Lego

because it did not sell well.

And I have many questions about who it was for because I don't know it's for Horizon players and I don't know it's for kids.

I do not know what they were thinking.

I would love

to know the inside baseball of that.

Why it was made.

What was the behind the scenes?

Was it like something?

I just don't understand it.

But

on Steam, at least, it had less players than Concorde.

And that is, that's rough, buddy.

So

I don't know.

It's always seemed weird to me that that was the choice they made.

Even when it came out, I was like, oh, that's cool.

That's fun.

I'm not going to play it, but like, that's fun.

I have no clue.

Interesting.

Don't understand it.

Yeah, that feels like the Venn diagram of people that are super into Lego games and super into Horizon.

I don't know.

I don't know if that crossover of people would be really into Lego Horizon.

Exactly.

It's fine.

I understand conceptually that taking the Horizon universe and making it Lego makes sense because you're building things and constructing things and you have the machines.

Like, I get it.

But gameplay-wise, I just don't understand who it's for.

But the reason why I was like, oh, well, it doesn't bother me that much is because I didn't understand who the Switch was for.

And the Switch is one of the most popular consoles of all time.

So true.

Yeah.

I was like, I don't get Switch.

Sometimes we just can't see the innovation, you and I.

Right.

You know?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And so I was like, okay.

So maybe this is this will be huge.

It is not.

But then, hilariously, in a way that almost transcends parody, Tencent

released footage or like stuff from their new game, which literally is just not even

an homage to Horizon.

Straight up copy.

Like just a copy paste of Horizon.

Oh, God, the name is like

in Tencent Beyond High Fidelity.

Tencent Horizon game.

I'm going to type in.

It's like Hyperbolia, Beyond the Future of.

Light of Motoram.

Same thing.

Yes.

And it did come up when I typed in Tenzen.

Horizon.

Yeah, no, that name sucks.

Light of Motoram is a bad name.

But anyway, my favorite comment I saw is that everyone was like, man, this is just a ripoff.

This is ripoff.

And one guy wrote, damn.

That character is way hotter than Aloy.

I'm like, the bootleg anime version of Aloy?

Like, you trash, my dude, you got trash takes.

It was so funny.

He was like, yeah, finally, a really hot character.

And I was like, who are you, child?

You suck.

Absolutely shameless.

Like, one of the most shameless things I've ever seen.

It is so

very clearly a ripoff.

Like, just the side-by-side shots.

I have no clue.

Don't understand how people can get away with that.

But there are no copyright laws in China, I guess.

So you can do whatever the hell you want.

I don't know.

I don't know what the rules are.

but it looks dead on similar, and that's crazy to me.

I don't understand how they got away with that.

But Tencent's been doing that for a while, so

we will see.

But it looks so similar, yeah,

yeah, it do, it do.

Looking at the screenshot, even bootleg Aloy is funny to me.

Like, I just the fact that they were like, dude, so hot.

I'm like,

it's because there, look, there is, there is a, a, a sweet little beanbag bed full of people who

only think anime characters are hot

and if you try to make them look even remotely like a for reals person they're like

and i've just accepted that at this point

yeah it's so so dumb but I will say it's the it is the exact same

this is like a stretch but it feels the same way to me so I'm gonna say it anyway it feels the exact same way as when you see dudes in comments of like in Instagram models posts, and they're like, You could be an actor, you're so talented, you could be an actor.

It's like,

bro,

doing a skit while shaking your hips does not an actor make you.

That is, you are, you are way off.

You got suckered in by like a body that you definitely want to see naked, and now you're like, I love, I love you, I think you're very good at this.

It's the rose-colored glasses, yeah, yeah, yeah,

same thing with anime stuff, it's

rough.

It's just better.

It's just better if it looks like an anime waifu,

Jesse.

Yeah.

Meanwhile, if you were to stick an anime character in real life, that person would be, you'd be like, what is the matter with you?

You would not look natural.

Terrifying.

With that said, you know, I can't help it.

Aloy is.

Just the best.

Anyway, hey, Baldur's Gate 3 came out with new stuff in case you were curious

my goodness cross play 12 new classes and a photo mode all coming in 2025 subclasses right yes

yes subclasses i'm sorry if i just said classes all coming down the pipeline plus you'll be able to join your friends in various things over uh the larian network and so new abilities animations summons cantrips unique dialogue stuff Apparently, for the Oath Breaker Night, which was written reactively for Oathbreakers, which I didn't have as an

Oathbreaker in my playthrough, which would have been interesting.

A lot of other stuff.

Very excited.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I feel like Walters Gate 3 could keep this train going for a long time.

The thing they need to do is the thing they did with Divinity, which is make a GM mode.

And so you can like dungeon master the hell out of it.

And I think that'd be very, I would spend real last time to make a Jesse Cox story in the world.

I would put it together.

I would get friends to do the voices.

I would be like, yeah, I'd be like, you know, Crendor would be the goblin.

You'd be like, hey, I'm a goblin, right?

You'd be the old lady.

Of course, naturally.

I have a wheelhouse.

Yeah.

I would love to do that.

They need to make that happen.

I think that'd be a ton of fun.

I agree.

no

i would oh or they could just hire me to create the jesse cox official mod

called

return

to

castle von jessenstein

and it is

players have to go into my hell castle and fight creatures and get loot I've called this Dungeons and Dragons.

It's a game I've created.

Whoa, that sounds awesome.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Damn, damn,

you roll dice to get through.

That seems a little old school, though.

It'll catch on, I think.

It'll take 40 years, but I think it'll catch on.

I've established that I'm not an innovator, dude.

I don't know.

Right, right, right.

I don't know what the people want.

So,

yep.

Now, Tencent has stolen that idea and has already been getting castled by the Tencent Star game.

It's just me, but like a sexy anime version.

And everyone in the comments is like, I like the anime version better.

And I'm like,

cool.

Great.

Thanks, guys.

Awesome.

I'm so glad.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nice, nice.

Yeah, I think, I mean, I had a bunch of news of the office.

I don't have that news anymore.

Fuck it.

So that sucks.

But

very excited to see what's coming out over the next week or so.

It is weird vibes that this week, not much is coming out because it's holiday here in the States.

So

this is what sucks about this.

I took the time to go find a bunch of indie games and hype them up.

And it's all at the office.

So

I want you to know, indies, I got you next week.

I got you.

Next week.

We go really hard on it.

Yeah.

I will.

I got you.

But

that's life.

That's life.

That's life.

We have a

guest arena next week that I've been working to get for a while.

So I'm very excited.

Oh, is this a guest that keeps saying no to you?

And you finally had to be like, please.

It's a person that is unfathomably busy most of the time.

So Sam.

So it's Sam.

We got him.

No, not Sam.

Damn.

Damn.

One day.

One day.

One day.

One day we'll get Sam in here.

It's a hard ask.

I know.

It's going to be tough.

Amazing.

Yep.

Well,

I hope you had a fantastic Thanksgiving.

It was lovely.

Everything was good.

And like I said, it was just lunch and it took two hours.

It was great.

Solid Thanksgiving.

I think I'm going to be doing a small thing maybe next weekend with like us and Sam's parents and stuff.

I was about to say, like, you guys don't have like a Thanksgiving vibe there.

So

we normally do something

just because I get homesick around this time.

And so it's like a nice, it's like a nice thing to do.

Yeah.

Okay.

But yeah, I hope any of you who had something to celebrate this week, I hope that you had a nice time.

And

look, we're here.

We'll be back next week.

So if you're looking to get some more Jessup and Duger action

next Friday, we'll be here.

I like the anime versions of them better.

If you can deal with our disgusting real-life faces,

look at this trash.

I know.

God, awful.

I'm so hairy in real life.

Anime,

clean.

What have you got going on this week?

Sorry.

That's all right.

I was just going to try and make myself into one piece.

Not one piece.

One punch.

Jesus Christ.

I know.

I am the least anime literate person who ever lived.

Whatever.

It doesn't matter.

If only Saitama was in One Piece.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Punch is a way to find that One Piece and we know what it was.

Yeah,

this week I'm going to be trying to finish up a bunch of stuff.

Again, I'm going to try and get everything done before the 6th of December.

So expect me, I don't know how many new things you're going to see, but I have a bunch of things.

Oh, you know what I definitely want to talk about?

This is the game I want to talk about.

hey vr ar space i want to play this i'm going to try and figure out how to play it on stream first off trombone champ is on vr which is hilarious yes i saw it

like that's amazing and i want to play that uh on vr the problem is is streaming vr seems to be impossible i don't know how to get that to work i've been trying and i can't figure it out it always works i've never tried

And then also a game that I really think everyone should play because it's so unique and neat.

It is a game.

Oh, boy.

I'm going to actually find the title because this is worth the time wall town wonders is the name of this game it is a vr game that is really ar

where you put on your goggles and you're in your room and your walls and stuff

a little shop will appear and a little person will be in your wall and be like hey how's it going let's make a town and you build a town in your home in the walls and suddenly they got trains and planes and shit flying around your home in in the walls.

It is cool as hell.

So you have like an entire city.

Yeah, you have an entire city built into the walls of your home.

And it has the exact same vibe as when you see those TikToks of like a rich person and they build a Lego thing in their walls.

And they're like, I'm rich.

I built a Lego thing in my walls.

Same thing.

Except it's VR and it's very cool.

I love, it's so unique.

I love the concept.

Big fan of that kind of stuff.

So

I want to hype them up.

That was definitely one of the games I was going to talk about.

And I just remembered it.

So I'm going to give you the credit now because i just it just came out and so check it out very cool what was it called wall town uh wonders is the name of it cute wall town wonder

yep very cool stuff adorable

is it is that is that all of all of your jessup shout out stuff that's all i want to shout out uh obviously I do podcasts, I do things, jessicox.com, you can find it all.

Neat.

Yep.

I'm in a weird position where I have a really cool thing happening early next week, but I haven't been given the go-ahead to like

say it.

So I have a cool thing happening next week.

What kind of, well, what kind of cool?

I'm under NBA.

I don't know how much I can say.

It's a streamed thing.

It's a hosting thing.

I'll say that.

I've got a cool hosting thing.

The hosting things are taking off?

I love that for you.

Yeah, thank you.

I, yeah, it's so crazy that I hadn't done any hosting in years, basically since I had my kid.

And now I've had a couple of things in a row.

I'm very, I feel very grateful.

So

yeah, cool thing.

I think on Tuesday of next week.

So once I'm allowed, once I'm legally allowed to say what that is and make a post about it, I will.

But otherwise, I'm just going to try to finish up locomotive and,

you know, I'm still a mushroom.

I don't know.

Can I just, for people at home, I just realized as you were telling me this.

Yeah.

Please note that we live in two different

LA t-shirt,

England,

I could, for the freezing.

Just saying.

It's very funny.

I just realized that and I think it's very funny.

It's pitch black outside.

My office is freezing cold.

Yeah.

Different weather.

Yeah, the sun's coming up here and it's starting to get hot.

And I'm like, yeah,

LA, baby.

I'll I'll trade you just for a day.

I like the cold generally, but just for a day, it would be nice to feel LA heat again.

Strangely, I don't want to take that deal.

Okay.

That's fine.

Guys, if you enjoyed Geekenders, if you would like to listen to this episode or any other episode, we're on all the podcasty things.

If you would like to watch one of the old Geekenders episodes as a VOD, they're on youtube.com slash jessecox.

And that's that's about it for us.

We hope you've had an amazing week.

We hope you have an amazing week next week.

And we'll see you on Friday.

Bye-bye, everybody.

Take care of yourselves.

Yeah, yeah, you know what time it is.

It's time for the geekenders podcast.

Mega Rand, Jesse, and Dodger.

What up?

Let's go.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it be kidding.

Go on, stream, and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow and see what the geekiners are all about.

Yo, it's the weekend, yeah.

It's time to geek out, let it be kid.

Go on, scream and shout, it's Jesse and Dodger.

So, give them a follow.

Number one, geek podcast, without a doubt.

Yo, another end of another long week.

Got a job and a kid, I know that you all beat.

So, take a second, grab a drink, and vibe while we catch you up in just a matter of time.

On gaming, comics, whatever you're doing.

If you're nerdy like us, then you know you should tune in.

Thank you for sharing our world with us.

Now, follow, subscribe, and turn this up.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Go on, scream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow.

Number one, Geek Podcast, without a doubt.