Sacred Symbols, Episode 154: All's Not Quiet (Video)

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Colin Moriarty

so much content lately this is awesome, still working my way through this one!

Ryan Hayman

Well, it obviously went dark for a while and changed.

Colin Moriarty

Thank you!

Colin Moriarty

Go checkout the Babylon's Fall trailer from a couple years ago it looked awesome. I dont know what happened but they totally butchered what this game was originally gonna be.

Sumojoe118

Thank you for the insane hours of fun content. I just wanted to give a quick update on the Psychonauts 2 discussion. Double fine twitter confirmed that it will be on PS4 but not on PS5 (only backwards compat). There will be a next gen version on Series X.

Tefo

You bet I will!

Germanos

I'll be better.

Colin Moriarty

Do what you want!

Colin Moriarty

I don't wanna play with others, though. It stresses me out. =)

Colin Moriarty

please do not be remiss for not having mentioned EA surprise-shutting-down Need For Speed Most Wanted and FUSE servers next time.

Seamndel

Eh boys, now you compare not only the current situation to the last gen, but to PlayStation 2 and the second God of War 😱 I'm done. Guess I will just need to skip ⏩ the discussions around this topic and get to the good parts 🥲

Germanos

Looking forward to CLS family Vault of Glass run! The raid is truly exceptional. Colin should at least watch to see for himself the multiplayer, late-game, pinnacle shooter experiences he misses out on by playing alone. Not trying to tell you how to play, Colin, but there's a whole new world out there for you as a shooter fan if you'd open yourself up to multiplayer gameplay :) Regardless, a CLS family gathering is not complete without its father.

bradyvm

I think some people are talented enough to never have to work more than 'necessary,' some people are lazy and ride off of others' work, and most put in a lot of time and effort, above-and-beyond what's necessary (or maybe even expected). A game studio is no different, and while I'm pleased Insomniac is a great place to work (and always has had a great reputation for culture), it is what it is. This game wasn't made in 40 hour weeks!

Colin Moriarty

I think you may wanna let it go. =)

Colin Moriarty

That's the ticket.

Colin Moriarty

I suppose. I think this "it's for investors" thing is a little overplayed. Sony speaks to its investors directly in quarterly fiscal reports, Q&amp;A calls, etc.

Colin Moriarty

Cool, write in!

Colin Moriarty

Hey guys, just wanted to share a thought on developer crunch. I honestly found your perspectives that crunch is a borderline requirement for AAA projects to be quite apt. Im not a developer, but I have a fair amount of experience in construction. I work as an engineer and my wife as a project manager at a company that designs, manufactures and constructs small-medium sized water treatment plants in Northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba. These are often projects that take several years to see through to completion. There is a clause in nearly every construction contract I've seen called "liquidated damages". This is a clause (primarily) to help make up for lost money caused by one contractor delaying others and wasting other contractors' time. If your company is deemed to be causing delays for the project, you can begin racking up penalties to the tune of $4000-5000 PER DAY depending on the project, I'm sure these would be higher for larger projects done by a bigger company. Needless to say, towards the tail end of every project everybody is terrified of being the contractor that causes delays, and as a result employees are expected to put in ridiculous hours (I work 70-80 hour weeks frequently near the ends of projects, work weekends, drive to sites unexpectedly etc.). It is an expectation that I do this, otherwise our company could be charged with holding things up, and those penalties could easily put a whole project into the red. So when I hear companies talk about "crunch" as working Saturdays or some extra evening hours here and there toward the end of a project, I just think about construction site foremen I've worked with who end up living on site for extra months at a time or electricians who get called and expected to show up on a remote site at a moments notice on weekends or holidays or risk liquidated damage costs that put their small company out of business. Im not necessarily saying crunch is a good thing or even that its acceptable but it's really just the way project lifecycles work. I really think some journalists live in quite the bubble, no large scale project of any kind can be completed without crunch, there's just too much money at stake to miss deadlines, particularly in the industry I'm in. All that matters is doing your best to plan and mitigate crunch and compensating your employees enough to make up for it. We tell all of our employees we hire upfront what our expectations are ("crunch" when it's busy or the crew gets behind, take time off when we're slow) and we tell them exactly what our overtime structure is before they are hired. What else can you do?

Christopher Dogniez

Still don’t believe Starfield is exclusive. It’s timed, I’m telling you.

Dom posa

Colin, thank you so much for bringing up the Rotgland Lobber, I dismissed it at first. Finally beat the third boss with it!

Marc L

Regarding the studio announcements... this is for investors especially in light of competition like Microsoft is buying up large dev studios. Also, Regarding Death Stranding Director’s cut... Although similar and with even some very close riffing on the MGS2 soundtrack. The music featured in this trailer is nothing cut directly from an MGS OST. I think there’s a lot that was said with this trailer to Colins point however, I would hesitate to suggest Konami had any involvement or “sign-off” on this. Nevertheless, I am yearning for a MGS remake as a very long time fan I hope something good can happen for this franchise.

Brent

Digital Foundry's interview with Mike Fitzgerald from Insomniac Games does a pretty good job of explaining why Rift Apart would not work as a PS4 title. I think what is being missed is that other games that do "similar" things are using tricks or much smaller scopes. It is pointed out in that interview that the SSD speed and memory capacity allow for unprecedented scale of this effect. I think also many of the techniques used look so natural that they don't jump out, such as the screen wipes. Those aren't pre-rendered cutscenes, but real time switches of the entire scene rendering in-engine. I think there is a 3rd option to Dustin's comment on Sony either lying about the transformative nature of the PS5 arch or ignoring it to capitalize on PS4 install base. I think these games are mostly built on existing code bases from the PS4 projects that preceded them. I think a lot of the advantages from the Cerny power hour will start to show on new projects that aren't just a continuation of existing engine work. It also doesn't seem appropriate to compare what Sony is doing now to what they have done in the past as this is the first time where there isn't a massive cpu/gpu architecture overhaul. The move from PS4 to PS5 from a development perspective is nothing like the move from cell to x86. Co-developing games for two fundamentally different core architectures cannot be used as an indicator for how it should work between iterations of the same arch. I'm not trying to defend corporations here but you can't rightly use precedent as justification in an apples and oranges comparison. As someone who has owned a PS5 since day one, I am also looking forward to PS5 exclusives. I, however think that unless a game can demonstratively prove why it can't run reasonably run on PS4, we are going to be stuck w/ cross-gen.

You're welcome. &lt;3

Colin Moriarty

I'll thank you for him.

Colin Moriarty

That would be a lot of fun. Or a Let's Play. =)

Colin Moriarty

Thank you. &lt;3

Colin Moriarty

Yeah, I feel like I've heard it before.

Colin Moriarty

Fair enough.

Colin Moriarty

I thought they confirmed it was? Perhaps not.

Colin Moriarty

Exactly.

Colin Moriarty

Please enjoy responsibly. =)

Colin Moriarty

It has to be.

Colin Moriarty

Thank you all for the epicisode!

BlindRiot

Video versions always have ads in them. We can only render once. (And we don't say the videos are ad-free, just early.)

Colin Moriarty

Yeah, I don't know that I'd recommend it, but I'm glad I played it and saw it through.

Colin Moriarty

Hm, I'll take a look.

Colin Moriarty

Really? That's weird. Koch is always said "Coke" (like "The Koch Brothers")... but my best friend growing up's last name was Kocher, and it was said "Kotch-ur." So...

Colin Moriarty

Tweet him! Or maybe he'll see this.

Colin Moriarty

Oh dear.

Colin Moriarty

We're gonna figure it out.

Colin Moriarty

Please enjoy.

Colin Moriarty

?

Colin Moriarty

I love the Uzumaki shirt, Dustin.

Jacob Alexander Irvine

The Chris/Dustin Destiny raid would be a great stream

Richard Duflo

Well done on this episode. The nearly 5 hours flew by and thanks for getting such a lengthy episode posted in such a timely manner.

Andrew Gambill

Just FYI, unobtanium is a long-standing scientific term referring to substances that have impossible (or impossibly expensive) characteristics for particular uses.

Patrick Gallagher

If you’ve seen Dances with Wolves, Ferngully and Pocahontas…you saw Avatar.

Beau

I don't think Battlefield on PS5 will be $70, here in Australia "$70" games are $125, but Battlefield is only $110, and I'm not an EA Play subscriber.

Braden Summers

Totally agree, I don't get people saying they're selling half the game when the audience would play 6 hours campaign then dozens if not hundreds of hours in multiplayer. I don't even play it at all cause its no where near as good as multiplayer.

superbadisfunny .

Vass: Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is? Colin: Returnal

superbadisfunny .

Looking forward to this will open a few beers &amp; listen to this tonight.

Wayne Moss

1000% agree with Konami and Sony working together, I was thinking the same thing. The music in the trailer is specifically the music from the Tanker section where you play as Snake in MGS2. There’s no doubt about it.

Jeff Caseres

I think multiplayer only for Battlefield is the right movie for a couple of reasons. 1. There’s more time between each battlefield than that of Call of Duty, which I think is why they got a lot of flack. 2. Multiplayer is much more expansive (not expensive) with larger maps, Distractibility, dynamic weather and free post launch content and updates. 3. In relation to the price, Battlefield 2043 is also on EA Play at launch but to add a point in defence of the price and in comparison to Warzone. It’s a different type of multiplayer, with more maps and game modes. Yes there’s no campaign, but I’d argue that the majority of the battlefield community don’t play it for the campaign. Just food for thought. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Niall G

Why is there an ad for Better Help in the video? I don’t normally watch the video versions. Is it normal? I thought being a patron saved us from ads. Not complaining because it doesn’t seem to be present in the audio only version. Just curious.

I believe the same idea as Dustin about Returnal, you can't really recommend it. I had to explain the game to a friend and its kind of hard to do without sounding negative, even though I like the game overall.

FourEyes Malone

Listening through the Returnal discussion at work and I just wanted to shout out the game Star Renegades. It’s a turn-based sci fi roguelike that is definitely worth checking out.

TL

Correction for Colin, Koch is supposedly pronounced Kotch because the people who work there pronounced it that way in recent previews they had

Alec Dyer

Anyone know where Dustin's awesome Uzumaki t-shirt is from?

Campbell Parker

unfortunately if you had a whopper in the year 2013, you might have had some horse.

carter weiss

Where's CHAOS...where is he!!!

Frank G.

finally!! its here gotta start the podcast all over again so i can get 4 and a half hours of yall beautiful faces

Timothy Bryant

ワクワクーーーーー❗️😍

Christian Alexander Richmond