Call and Response: WOFF Dispatch May 2021
Added 2021-05-15 00:02:27 +0000 UTCHello! The purpose of this post is to call for your questions and prompts for WOFF! Dispatch. Please respond by Monday, May 17 by leaving a comment on this post.
We're looking for two kinds of things:
1. Suggestions for our long-form discussion prompt.
2. Q&A about the shows, behind the scenes details, and miscellaneous (including off-the-wall and off-topic questions). Ask us about games or other media, life in general... You name it.
One caveat we've given in the past: If the question is too personal or gross, we may dance around it and not give a direct answer.
We look forward to making this new kind of WOFF! episode together with you.
Comments
I just finished replaying Dishonored 2 after deciding that, despite my initial dislike of the series, it and its precursor were worth revisiting. The wire frame is incredible but I got hung up again this time, as I did in my first playthrough, on the absurd Kantian moral essentialism restricting and denoting the character's actions. After sneaking past hundreds of virtual mosaics of citizens gunned down, tortured, and dehumanized by the enemy NPCs, I am entirely dissatisfied with the idea that not only is a lethal route in both self defence and retribution morally equivocated with the coup actors but also that the game's narrative framing of those choices resounds hyper specifically about what Corvo or Emily must be like if they act as such (selfish, cruel, flippant). Given that games have historically had some trouble providing satisfactory narrative and play context for verbsets built around things other than combat (in AAA), why do you think that there has been so little exploration of the purposes of violence and what that violence may express in video games?
Béa(u)
2021-05-17 10:46:21 +0000 UTCMisc question: if you had to do one or the other, would you play through every Kingdom Hearts game or read through every Lord of the Rings universe book? As someone who has played the Kingdom Hearts games, might I recommend the Lord of the Rings option :')
Nich Phillips
2021-05-17 01:34:42 +0000 UTCNon-gaming related: What job interview question are you most happy you no longer have to answer? Gaming-related: favorite Pokemon and favorite region? For me it is Golduck and Sinnoh (Diamond/Pearl).
Ryan
2021-05-16 22:19:16 +0000 UTCThis is purely a behind-the-scenes question, but whatever happened to the separate patron-exclusive RSS feeds? We got one for Adaptation Decay and one for Abject Suffering, but after that, none materialized. Is this a problem on the back-end?
Cassandra Banner
2021-05-16 21:55:34 +0000 UTCMy one year old daughter's new favorite music video is David Bowie's Dance Magic Dance performance from Labyrinth, and she wants to watch it at least once a day. The clip on YouTube starts with the baby brother surrounded by a bunch of goblins, bawling his eyes out as the music for the song starts ramping up. I imagine this is why she likes it so much. That this baby, just barely younger than her, is her viewpoint character. Just wanted to share this because I know you guys have an appreciation for the movie. On a related note, what are some of your earliest media memories?
SindrElf
2021-05-16 21:39:56 +0000 UTCHow frequently do listeners/fans reference a bit or line from an older episode any of your numerous shows that you just straight up don't remember? I had this thought the other day because I fairly frequently think about Kole's amazing rant from the Fallout 3 WOFF about cleaning up the goddamn skeletons (half the time it's aimed at myself to get something done in my own life). I wondered the other day if he'd even remember this, given the sheer amount of output you both create. Apologies if that's a weird question, just curious about that sort of thing.
Chris Meixner-Croft
2021-05-16 21:36:44 +0000 UTCWhat is your perfect weather for enjoying a nice day?
Markus Blomer
2021-05-16 18:38:41 +0000 UTCWhat's one thing you frequently do in games that clearly goes against the designers intent, but makes things more enjoyable for you? E.g. I turn up the brightness in every game I play, because I hate super dim, murky environments, even when they're obviously intended to look that way.
Alex Honeydew
2021-05-16 18:29:58 +0000 UTCHow long till you guys do a resident evil village episode? More seriously, are there any shows on the network that you have stopped producing or put on hiatus that maybe new listeners don’t know about and may enjoy? Any shows that you look forward to revisiting at a later date?
Jonathan shields
2021-05-16 02:48:42 +0000 UTCI'm getting married next year and, for my bachelor party, my best man is writing a special Call of Cthulhu table top campaign. I've never played before but we talked about it a lot and when he told me I was kinda blown away. Originally I didn't have a question and was gonna share this random thing about me. Instead I have a question; when have you used gaming as part of a party or celebration? Have you ever had a gaming themed party for a birthday or Christmas etc?
Chris Blanchette
2021-05-15 22:17:44 +0000 UTC(you can skip this part when reading the question, it's just a comment) Hey y'all, not sure what my name shows up as on here, but this is chaoticwickie on the slack and twitter. Happy to write in for the first time, I've been having a lot of fun with some spirited conversations in the slack, especially during covid times when I can't have these conversations with friends IRL. Thank you for maintaining such a cool space for online discussion, it's a necessity, at least for me, to have these kinds of spaces available in times like these. (Question starts here) We were talking in the slack about not understanding obvious or intuitive "rules" about engaging with games that can generally be translated across all games in a genre. Moonborne said his example was being too stubborn and not understanding that you always have to engage with every mechanic in a character action game even if they have a high learning curve, otherwise you'll run into a brick wall eventually. My example was realizing that developers are generally trying to help you out with weapon placement in shooters, so if you get a new gun or there's a specific pickup before an encounter, the encounter will most likely be much easier if you use that pickup. Understanding that item placement was often intentional really escaped me until I was in my early 20s. What other commonly understood facts or tips about games escaped you for longer than they probably should have?
Jacob Vasser
2021-05-15 17:41:54 +0000 UTCAre there games you really don't want to cover on WOFF even though you feel like you should? Games that spark huge conversations on social media, games loved by Duckfeed fans, etc.
Autumn M
2021-05-15 16:46:37 +0000 UTCPotential longform prompt: In your Pathologic episode you mentioned that playing that game made you excited about games that come from contexts outside of the U.S./Japan dichotomy. What are some games that you found explored their context of origin in an interesting way, or shed light on where they came from? In case this data's interesting, here are where the WOFF games you've covered are from: Denmark (Hitman, A Hat in Time) Belgium (Divinity Original Sin 2) Sweden (Soma, Wolfenstein: The New Order, Mirror’s Edge, Penumbra, Magicka, A Way Out, Amnesia, Bionic Commando) Estonia (Disco Elysium) Norway (Dreamfall, Owlboy, The Longest Journey) Finland (Legend of Grimrock, Alan Wake) Poland (The Cat Lady, The Witcher, Frostpunk, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger) UK (Rollercoaster Tycoon, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Arkham City, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, Hellblade, Arkham Asylum, Crackdown, Tomb Raider) France (Call of Cthulhu, Life is Strange, Dishonored) Russia (Tetris, Pathologic) Germany (Spec Ops: The Line) Ukraine (STALKER, Canada (Child of Light, SSX Tricky, Eternal Darkness, Baldur's Gate, Deus Ex: Human Revolution) Australia (L.A. Noir, Shadowrun SNES) Japan (105 games) U.S. (the rest I think?)
Andrew C
2021-05-15 15:58:06 +0000 UTCAmerican singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett accidentally clips you at a crosswalk with his seaplane. You're fine, and he's clearly at fault, but he will lose his seaplane license if the authorities get involved again, so he instead offers to settle things on the down low by buying you a for-real Cheeseburger in Paradise. Where is Paradise, and what's on that burg?
Alex Shaw
2021-05-15 12:52:56 +0000 UTCCan you think of good uses of diegetic music/sound in games? You've talked in the past about the importance of sound design but I'd be curious to hear what you think about how sound or its absence within the context of a game's world affects you experience. I thought the street performers singing Karnacan folk songs in Dishonored 2 really added to the verisimilitude of the world.
Tom Healey
2021-05-15 11:27:58 +0000 UTCI saw Gary talking about 'modal play' in the new Resident Evil game and I was immediately intrigued. As a kid horror games used to turn me off because they were too scary, now I find most of them boring and rarely frightening. However the way Gary was talking about this type of play seemed antithetical to how I usually hear you talk about modality in games. I'd love to hear your thoughts on what makes Village different, what makes the variety work for Resident Evil but not 99% of other games? P.S. 60FPS BLOODBOOOOOORNE
Dylan Sowers
2021-05-15 10:50:33 +0000 UTCDo you guys have any thoughts on Alan Moore's Lovecraft-based comic works (Neonomicon, Providence etc.)? I know Gary has mentioned them a few times during Unfilmable episodes so I was curious if they were something you'd ever consider covering or if they're just too dense or don't really fit the format of the show? P.s. the patreon backlog has been a huge comfort during the pandemic, keep up the amazing work!
Matt Nolan
2021-05-15 10:29:42 +0000 UTCQuestion about other media here: I've been watching the Simpsons in order for the first time and I'm currently on Season 4, collecting the boxsets as I go. I'm really loving it but everything is clouded by the certain doom that is supposed to be season 10 and onwards. Does it really get that bad in the season 10-20 stretch?
Joshua Kaluba
2021-05-15 08:17:55 +0000 UTCAfter losing my job to covid last year I decided to enroll back in school and pursue a different career path. However, after 4 semesters in, I came to the conclusion that this new path was just not for me. It was gut wrenching to force myself to quit after all that time I had dedicated but ultimately it worked out as I am way happier now and found a great new job. My question for you is, have you ever had to quit something that you dedicated tons of time to, such as school or a career, and how did you deal with it?
Sam_C
2021-05-15 06:34:09 +0000 UTCICP has The Gathering. Duckfeed has Duckfest. But what about beverage? What's the Duckfeed nation's Faygo equivalent?
Ipoop4U
2021-05-15 02:55:22 +0000 UTCHow are you guys doing? How is your mental health and stuff? If it’s too personal feel free not to answer but even tho I’ve never met you guys personally, I do feel like you guys are my friends ( sorry if that is a little weird I don’t mean it to be)! I love the interaction with the dispatches and look forward to them every month! Love the show and all that you guys do! Also I started playing re 6 for the first and I’m looking forward to when you guys cover that game! Also free free to not answer this if this is too long but what is your guys favorite Era if WOFF?
Joseph maneol
2021-05-15 02:40:32 +0000 UTCI've been playing Monster Hunter Rise, and getting more into it's community than I tend to for new games (anticipating updates, watching youtubes, chatting on discords, etc.). I feel like going back to an older Monster Hunter game would be a completely different experience, especially since I think the sense of community built within the themes of the game dovetail very nicely with actually engaging with it's community in real life. Would you be open to doing a WOFF for a freshly-released game where the community aspect is known to be important, or are your multiplayer allergies just too strong?
Matt Bixler! Hello!
2021-05-15 02:33:43 +0000 UTCDear Gary and Kole, what's something that you NEVER wanna hear be recomended to you again? P.S. You really should read Infinite Jest. Signed, A curious listener.
Jacob Cochran
2021-05-15 01:51:48 +0000 UTCFor both RE7 and RE8, I had no interest in playing the game, but I wanted to see the story beats so I watched a commentary free playthrough on You Tube. It was a good way to see the setpieces/story twists and not have to actually deal with gameplay that I wouldn't enjoy. Do you ever do this? Is there any game that you wouldn't recommend playing, but would recommend watching cutscenes/a full playthrough on Youtube?
Zoombini
2021-05-15 01:29:55 +0000 UTCOften "ludonarrative dissonance" is spoken of as a bad thing—that it's a mismatch of narrative and gameplay that undermines both. But are there any examples where ludonarrative dissonance is actually a positive? Where that mismatch between narrative and gameplay has an interesting, emotional, and/or entertaining effect?
Andrew C
2021-05-15 00:30:18 +0000 UTCI'm doing this question just as I am about to play Mass Effect: Legendary Edition for the first time and it struck me this is the first time in a LONG time I've paid full price for a AAA game on a pre-order. The last time I did that was Fallout 4, and before that Skyrim, so not that common. In the 90's and 00's, however, I used to pre-order games all the time at full price. Nowadays I'm just like 'why should I rush to buy this when my backlog is so large and if I'm patient, the game will be on sale in a few months on Steam?' But there MUST be tons of people still paying full price for games at day one. So is this still a common thing and I'm just a cheap bastard, or are there more people in my situation then I realize, which might someday cause a game industry decline or correction? How many games do you guys buy full price day one still in 2021?
Greg Polander
2021-05-15 00:29:54 +0000 UTCDo you think the tail end of survival horror games need the "empowerment phase," when you either get some overpowered weapon for a short time or you're just stocked up with resources? Personally, I always enjoy getting to turn the tables on enemies for a bit, but do you think keeping up the tension of those limited resources right up to the ending makes for a better horror game?
Mark Mahler
2021-05-15 00:25:10 +0000 UTCI loved hearing that Kole has recently found a pinball arcade close to home. I had a simular experience just before the pandemic. I cannot describe the feeling of realizing that I am a grown-ass-man in his late 30s that can afford getting 80 quarters from the change machine. 3 games for $2? No problem. It feels so good to not worry as much about draining the ball. I wanted to hear if you had any insight or experiences that you could share. Do you feel you have improved? Do you have a favorite machine? "Monster Bash" is mine. Have any tips for new players? Keep up the good work and keep having fun. - Connecteduser.
Dustin Burt
2021-05-15 00:25:06 +0000 UTCOne thing that I love about your show is your use of music and audio from the games you review in each episode. I'm curious to know if there's a process to this behind the scenes: do you have to purchase licensing for each track?; Is it fair play since you're only using snippets?; Does the show being funded primarily (exclusively?) through Patreon mean licensing is not necessary? I'm pretty in the dark about this, and being that I'd like to do something similar in my own projects I figured I'd ask you boys how the pros handle it. Thanks for all you do, you're the best!
Rick Firestone
2021-05-15 00:20:26 +0000 UTCWhich movie, videogame and television show did you expect to hate, but ended up actually enjoying a lot? Love you guys!
My Dog's Name Is Yharnam
2021-05-15 00:10:52 +0000 UTC
