Call and Response: WOFF! Dispatch, August 2020
Added 2020-08-15 03:59:06 +0000 UTCHello! The purpose of this post is to call for your questions and prompts for WOFF! Dispatch. Please leave your response as a comment on this post by the end of the day on Sunday, August 16.
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
What makes a good cat? Cuddliness, chonkiness, being talkative? Kole, do you think you can identify these traits in the kitten you're getting?
Rick Wolf
2020-08-16 23:48:58 +0000 UTCSince starting shelter in place I've already gone through a few cycles of weeks where I get through tons of games, and weeks where I'm just not interested in the hobby. Do you guys experience periods of gaming fatigue at all? What tends to send you into them; life events, taking on too beefy of a game, encountering a dud? What seems to trigger the end of them for you?
Rick Wolf
2020-08-16 23:46:54 +0000 UTCHow important is music to you in a game? Have you ever played through a game you didn't particularly enjoy just to hear the soundtrack? Conversely, have you ever stopped playing a game you did enjoy because the music was terrible?
Isaac Hoff
2020-08-16 17:16:28 +0000 UTCWhat's your favorite console controller: A) conceptually? B) to actually use?
Holland Hume
2020-08-16 12:34:13 +0000 UTCKnowing your fondness for Halloween and all things spooky, do either of you have any favorite local legends, haunts, or scary stories? Even if they turn out to be pretty mundane in real life, visiting spots like that is a fun weekend trip for my wife and I whenever autumn rolls around. (For instance, a few years back we took some friends to Centralia, PA, which is supposedly the basis for the town in the 2006 Silent Hill film, complete with the underground coal mine fire that's been burning since 1962).
Mark Mahler
2020-08-16 12:06:40 +0000 UTCAll the talk about Devil May Cry and Dante's "coolness" got me thinking- which video game character do you think has the best or worst taste in music, assuming they have or get access to the music from our world?
Dave Jackson
2020-08-16 01:25:43 +0000 UTCI loved DMC as a kid. It hit me at just the right time (16), and I poured hours into it. I have memories of playing Dante Must Die mode and feeling an intense drive towards mastery. In particular, the boss fights - when I wasn't dying - were thrilling and had me feeling like some sort of martial genius; a melding of avatar and player that I think exemplified a high of gaming. That said, I think your dichotomy about players who strive for mastery through repetition as opposed to moving towards novelty is an interesting one. You discussed it as if it was about the type of person (with Gary clearly putting himself on the novelty side of things). I wonder, though, if there are factors about individual games and life circumstances that can move us one way or another. I don't know that today (employed as I am) I would have put as much time into dying, restarting, repeating, practicing moves, and doing all of the little things it took to master DMC. I also suspect that some games are structured in ways that push players to desire skill building for its own sake. A Banjo Kazooie collect-a-thon didn't have me chomping at the bit to master double jumps, but I spent hours in Yoshi's Island perfecting my egg-bank shots, regardless of in game reward. Do you think there are styles of game design that lend themselves to players striving for mastery? What are some games that have such design?
Phil K
2020-08-16 00:54:03 +0000 UTCI was thinking lately about the blind spots in my gaming history. Are there landmark titles or entire genres you feel you know little or nothing about? Do you feel like it's important for WOFF that you try to fill in those gaps?
Autumn M
2020-08-15 19:40:05 +0000 UTCA lot of current parents who are introducing their kids to video games grew up playing video games themselves. It was always a struggle for myself growing up cause my parents just did not 'get' the whole thing about video games or why I enjoyed the hobby so much -- something that still hasn't changed with them though I am now in my 40's. It was a struggle as a kid to get them to play anything with me, and as a only child I had no siblings. I could talk my Mom into a occasional game of Pac Man or Wheel of Fortune or my Dad with Super Tecmo Bowl or Tetris. Those times happened so rarely, though, I can count them on two hands. I'm rather envious about adults who can look back on doing gaming with their parents -- it's not that my parents didn't do stuff with me, it's just video games were a no-no. Do you have any memories or experiences playing video games with your parents or siblings, and did they 'get' video games or just tolerated them?
Greg Polander
2020-08-15 19:33:34 +0000 UTCAre there games that you feel focused on the wrong thing, or had the wrong scope or scale? Like the main character's journey wasn't as interesting as others', or the game ended just as the plot was starting to develop in an interesting direction, or that the story was too granular or too grand and the experience was worse for it?
Zaynation
2020-08-15 17:57:28 +0000 UTCI recently played Ghost of Tsushima while listening to your Disco Elysium episodes (which were great!). I was left underwhelmed and bored by Tsushima, aside from the visuals, and wished they had done more to make me feel invested in what I was actually doing. The setting was supposed to be a main part of what made the game interesting, but the world felt bland and generic in practice. What lesson do you think modern open world games could learn from a game like DE to make things a bit more interesting from a story and world building perspective? It might be an apples and oranges situation but I’d like to hear your thoughts. Could Elden Ring, for example, learn any lessons from Disco Elysium??
Joelle
2020-08-15 17:24:40 +0000 UTCHey guys, I’ve got a normal question, then a stupid hypothetical. First, If you wouldn’t mind, Im curious what your weekly schedules look like. You guys put out so much content, most of which requires consuming a not insignificant amount of media. Then adding recording and editing on top of that, it seems like you’d almost never have any free time to just play games for fun or socialize. For the stupid hypothetical, would you rather be forced to quit podcasting for good, or be forced to do an in-depth BFSC style show about the Kingdom Hearts series?
Cale Barber
2020-08-15 17:16:55 +0000 UTCWhy do game designers like fishing mini games so much? And to make it more of a question, have you ever particularly enjoyed or hated a fishing game? Personally I can't remember one I've liked, and it always bugs me when they're mandatory to progress.
Tara Martin
2020-08-15 16:13:33 +0000 UTCTopic idea: Falling out of love...with video games. I've noticed throughout my life, I go through long stretches of not playing games, sometimes years (the time near the end of PS2 and most of the PS3 is a black-hole in my gaming memory, and just recently FF7 Remake seemed to actively turn me off games for a few months at least). Have you ever had any spells such as these? What precipitated it? What got you back in? (perhaps too small for a topic, but hey, here it is)
Douglas
2020-08-15 15:19:46 +0000 UTCWhat us the best part of working remotely? Do you have any advice for people (like many teachers/etc) having to do it for the first time?
Markus Blomer
2020-08-15 13:03:58 +0000 UTCIs there any chance that you guys are going to do RE 6?
Joseph maneol
2020-08-15 09:25:33 +0000 UTCWhat was the first video game you fell in love with? Additionally, what was your first video game-related memory?
Caleb Smith
2020-08-15 05:57:29 +0000 UTCDo you prefer pop-tarts or stroodles?
Cthulhu R'lyeh Flatagan
2020-08-15 05:53:20 +0000 UTCWhat music are you guys listening to lately? Feel free to ignore this if there's a better venue, but since there isn't a Try This type show right now I'm curious. Quarantine / constant work from home has found me revisiting a lot of music that I haven't listened to since 10+ years ago.
Brad Carey
2020-08-15 05:06:56 +0000 UTCWith the exception of tabletop stuff, have you ever done any lore deep dives for games you don't expect to play? Either getting lost in wiki dives, watching cutscenes or lore videos on Youtube, etc?
Matt Bixler! Hello!
2020-08-15 04:41:14 +0000 UTCWhat are some of the ugliest games you still enjoy playing? I've been playing Hearthstone pretty regularly for about five years now and hoo boy Blizzard sure can crank out some lousy art.
Michelle
2020-08-15 04:18:02 +0000 UTC
![Murasaki [ムラサキ]](https://samsuka.com/istorage/44954.jpg)
