Forumwarz Podcast October 5 2009
Evil Trout: Ahkay. Allow me to do the intro now, then.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Fine.
Evil Trout: Okay.
BINGEBOT 2015: That was it. It was good.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Thanks.
Evil Trout: So uh, welcome everyone to the Episode III development podcast. Uh..
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Woo!
Evil Trout: I think uh, I think we called the last one "Zunecast", so maybe this one should be a "Zunecast" as well. I...I think it's unfair how Apple has a monopoly on the casts, y'know?
BINGEBOT 2015/Jalapeno Bootyhole: Mmhmm.
Evil Trout: Uh, I am Evil Trout. As always. Who else is here?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Jalapeno Bootyhole is in the house.
BINGEBOT 2015: {tongue click} And uh BINGEBOT two-thousand fifteen.
Evil Trout: Y'know I always say twenty-fifteen.
BINGEBOT 2015: No, it's two-thousand fifteen.
Evil Trout: Twenty-fif...
BINGEBOT 2015: Which is...it's scary, because we're at that year is almost upon us, so the future will be now....
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Pfffffft.
BINGEBOT 2015: Quite shortly.
Evil Trout: Uh, it's not really almost upon us, is it though. It's like seven years. Well...
Jalapeno Bootyhole: But the problem is the world ends in 2012...
Evil Trout: Well I saw the trailer for that movie, it looks really, really horrible.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: What movie?
Evil Trout: Uh. 2012, or whatever?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Oh, cool.
Evil Trout: It's like disaster porn by uh Roland Emmerich or something, the guy who did Independence Day. Except, this time the whole world gets destroyed.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I think I'll skip that one.
Evil Trout: Although he did that in the Day After Tomorrow. But I digress. This is the Episode III podcast/Zoomcast so we're gonna talk about Episode III. {tsk} We uh, we have the thread open here. We talked about, uh, going through and picking out the best questions in advance but that seemed like too much like hard work. So I think we're just gonna wing it.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: You guys like rambling anyway, right?
Evil Trout: Kinda.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: No uh, I mean the audience. That's...
Evil Trout: Oh, well. Kinda.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Nothing like a good ramble.
Evil Trout: Yiiiup.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I was born a ramblin' man. Hah...
Evil Trout: Yeah? Is that a song?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah.
BINGEBOT 2015: It is. A very bad one.
Evil Trout: Cool. So uhhh...Aids woman's genitals wants to know..{laughter}
Evil Trout: Has a price been decided for Episode III yet-are you laughing at Aids woman's genitals?
BINGEBOT 2015: I am. That's a great name.
Evil Trout: It's like, we're starting the pod-Zunecast with a cheer. {tsk} Uh, has a price been decided for Episode III yet? Who wants to field this one?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I uh, I think none of us have thb-the answer for that I mean I have my own idea of how it's going to work out. {breath} Basically it's a uh, it's going to be similar to the price of Episode II only in as much as you're gonna get not only as much content, and as much work went into it, but much much more. Ahm, you're gonna get a lot of bang for your buck but uh, I do think that we're going to consider some kind of special pricing for people who've already purchased Episode II or some kind of package deal or some kind of uhm, early "buy in" package. {inhale} That said, we'll {fffhu} probably do something like we did last time around where we {pop} kind of guage our users in seeing what they consider reasonable price point. And then {breath} and then put together something ridiculously complicated.
Evil Trout: {breath} {click} I think it's normal for video games once they've been out a while to reduce in price. I-I don't think it would be fair of us to keep Episode II at the same cost that is is now forever. So I think it's likely that at least there'll be a package or some like you said some kind of discount. Something like that.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yes.
BINGEBOT 2015: So in short to answer a question "Has the price been decided for Episode III yet", the answer is-
Evil Trout: Neau.
BINGEBOT 2015: No.
{Evil Trout laughs}
{BINGEBOT 2015 laughs}
Evil Trout: No, we haven't decided. I think...before I always said like I want to see how big the episode is before we come up with a price. Now we actually have an idea of how big the episode is but...we're still not ready. {breath} I think what we'll probably do is when we will announce pre-orders, we'll have the cost then, and the release date altogether I mean some other people are going to ask about a release date anyway. So that's probably how it's going to work. {gasp} When we're closer to that.
{hamster squeak}
Evil Trout: So uh...leet lol with a bunch of ekusu's in there "Why did you ban hand of god?"
Jalapeno Bootyhole: We didn't.
{hamster squeak}
Evil Trout: Okay, moving on.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Uh, -XI- says...heh, I remember this, he's...he's in INCIT right now. Will there be any other gameplay updates in Episode III other than the ones that you jus-that have just this recently behehn implemented? 'k. So they're talking about the uh, what we call Episode 2.5 enhancements...{breath} and Trout can probably handle that one.
Evil Trout: I think that we uh...we put out most of that kind of eh-enhance like {fumble} sorry I this is a ****ty answer. But uh I think we...the gameplay updates...hold on a second.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: You printing something there?
Evil Trout: No, I hear that though. 'kay I'm trying to answer this question a third time. {breath} I think that there will be some small gameplay updates with Episode III. I think we probably blew most of our load with the gameplay update thing that we released recently because we put in a lot of stuff there. {inhale} Now with Episode II, when we launched it, we included a bunch of free updates at the same time. I-ack, I think this time the difference is that we released the free updates slightly earlier to get so you guys can get used to them and when Episode III comes out it'll be mostly a content update. {inhale} I think there will be a couple little things, but like nothing, nothing major like what we recently released.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: {bemused} That sounds about right. {hmph} Uh-oh, so here we got SanDyk {heh}
Evil Trout: Yeah, you can ignore that one.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Hyeah.
Evil Trout: It's just frese-please read this thread.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Uhh...how 'bout a "sneak peak" on the Episode III plot asks Fran. Fwoo-hoo, I dunno, man. {breath} Do we wanna do something like that?
BINGEBOT 2015: Uh-uh.
Evil Trout: I don't, I don't think so, like, it's...why would you, why would you want to know what the f-well I guess we...they'd want, some people like spoilers I guess? Like Fran?
BINGEBOT 2015: No uh uh, I think we could offer some spoilers. Eh-eh if I may, I uh I won't divulge too much, but uhm, Fran, if I may. Ahm. There will be contacts. {laughing} There will be forums. And uh, you will pon things. {panting} Okay. Moving on. {breath}
Evil Trout: I-I think, uh, we can say a little more than that. It-it picks up where Episode II left off. {brief pause} I don't think it's a huge spoiler to say that your character is not going to be dead for the entire game.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: {click} Uhm, m'yeah that's fair ha hah, you definitely uh will eventually do things that living people will do.
Evil Trout: But I mean we kinda did that at the end of Episode II. Already.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah. I would like to...
Evil Trout: You're dead.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I would like to..
Evil Trout: You're really dead.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: ...divulge something if it's okay. There is a, new villian. What you might even call, a supervillian.
Evil Trout: Mhmm.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: That you're going to have to contend with. Pthat uh, I think is pretty multi-faceted. And interesting! And evil.
Evil Trout: Mhmm.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: And t-that's gonna be your uh, "bugbear" so to speak.
Evil Trout: Think we'll resolve finally a lot of the "loose" plot points that {squeaking} were present in Episode II. I hope that we won't leave anything hanging by the end of this episode. Uh, this, this completes, as we've said before, it's kind of a, the story is a bit of a trilogy, or more like broken up into episodes, and this completes this particular story arc. And uh...I think, I thi-I hope people will enjoy the ending.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: We are trying to get more plot-holes in there though.
Evil Trout: Pfheh heh heh.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Deleting lines...at random.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah. {squeak}
Jalapeno Bootyhole: So basically.
Evil Trout: What's that horrible squeaking noise? I'm sorry.
{awkward silence}
Evil Trout: What horrible squeaking noise?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Like...
BINGEBOT 2015: I heard it.
Evil Trout: Is it this?
{squeeeeak squeeek}
Jalapeno Bootyhole/
BINGEBOT 2015: Yeah!
Evil Trout: It's me and my chair.
BINGEBOT 2015: Alright.
Evil Trout: I'll try t-to not do that anymore. Moving on! MC Banhammer says, "Will our characters need to be Level 35 to begin playing Episode III effectively?" Uh, the main reason is that you do not need to be 35 to beat Episode II even though that that is the level cap. {swallow} I can uh specifically answer this one {page turning} because we have this all organized now. Uh, Episode III is meant, the beginning, the first type of challenge you will face is a Level 30 forum. So...
Jalapeno Bootyhole: {chuckling}
Evil Trout: And it goes up from there. So, basically uhm, if you're Level 35 at the beginning of Episode III, as many of our regular players are, you'll have uh, uh a little bit of a head start but not much because before you know it...
BINGEBOT 2015: Mhm.
Evil Trout: Things are going to get much more difficult. There's quite a larger level spread in this game. So {breath} no, you do not need to be Level 35 to start, you need to be Level 30. If you beat Episode II before Level 30 which is possible, uhm, you might have to grind a little to get up to the uh, to be able to beat the first couple challenges but hopefully not for very long, I mean there'll be a lot more places to grind.
BINGEBOT 2015: That's a pretty good segway into our next question. Which is, "how high is the level cap"?
Evil Trout: Thi-This leaked, didn't it? Uhmm...
Jalapeno Bootyhole: It did.
Evil Trout: I think one of our users figured it out because we replaced the level up icons.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Ricket posted it, so he gets props for that.
Evil Trout: Yeah thur's...the new level cap is 69. the very mature number.
BINGEBOT 2015: I believe this was one of the first things we defined about the game.
Evil Trout: Yeah, I actually...
BINGEBOT 2015: From the very beginning...
Evil Trout: Yeah, like, three years ago or whenever we started, uh, designing this, uh, actually uh yeah it's been, I've been working on this full-time for almost three years now it's kinda crazy to think about that. Uh, we, yeah, JB was like, we were talking about like, you know the World of Warcraft is up to sixty levels, well now it's eighty because time has gone on, but {breath}.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Mhmm, mhmm.
Evil Trout: And then, and then JB was like 'well we can have sixty nine levels" and we're like, that's a really lame joke.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Fu fu fu.
Evil Trout: And then we wrote it down and now we're actually doing it.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Haaaah! Yes, I love that. Fu fu.
Evil Trout: Fu fu.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I just want to give a shout out to dobnits for uh designing the...level indicators.
Evil Trout: Mhmm.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: You guys know dobnits?
Evil Trout: Yeah he's...
BINGEBOT 2015: Nope
Evil Trout: Around?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Heh heh heh..Jay's never heard of him.
BINGEBOT 2015: Nope. Never heard of the guy.
{laughing}
Evil Trout: Ahh...is there a preorder E-Peen this time? SanDyk wants to know.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yup.
Evil Trout: Yeah, there will be. Um, I-
BINGEBOT 2015: Skip to the nex-
Evil Trout: I would even like there to be uh, like for people who pre-ordered both to have like a super E-Peen! But we'll see if we'll actually do that or not. But I think it would be cool to uh reward our loyal customers.
BINGEBOT 2015: Will the "Super E-Peen" be worth more than a regular E-Peen? Or is it just called the "Super E-Peen"?
Evil Trout: Naw I just meant that you'd get like let's-if you preordered Episode II you get one E-Peen, preordered Episode III you get another E-Peen, but if you preorder both maybe you'd get a third E-Peen.
BINGEBOT 2015: Could I preorder Episode II now to get the "Super E-Peen"?
Evil Trout: No. Preorders of Episode II ended like a year ago.
BINGEBOT 2015: I'd like to, uh, open a thread. Would someone please open a thread - to reopen preorders for Episode II!{laughing}
Evil Trout: That doesn't make any sense. though. 'cause they could just buy it!
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Let's move on.
{laughing}
Evil Trout: Okay. Uhh..There's more questions here! Even though this is the last episode do you feel that there may be some special missions in the future?
{squeak}
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Definitely. In fact there's a few that uh, I'm kinda scratching out of Episode III right now cause it just doesn't fit, we couldn't really finish them or it just meanders too much, so those will be released as specialized contents in the future, and other little things like that. I-I can't see why not.
Evil Trout: {click} You know this might be a good time like nobody's actually asked this but I'm hkhsadweqa{something was cut out}
Jalapeno Bootyhole: As far as like, actually mapping out the episode itself?
Evil Trout: Mhmm!
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Well, this one was a much different process from how we've ever done it 'cause it was much more democratic. {breath} I have our apprentice team, or, we call the "creative sweatshop". They...like we had a ****load of ideas and it was kinda annoying for them to have to listen to them and grade them.
Evil Trout: Mhmm.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: But as we did we kind of...ssallowed other people to pitch things and just took the best of each one, and uh, so we take, those are basically what we call side missions. The core missiongs themselves, a lot of that had been decided years ago when we first came up with Forumwarz and-
Evil Trout: It's a little different in a sense that for the previous two episodes, you and I designed pretty much everything, right? Like I know there was forep...for Episode II that was not entirely true we had a little bit of help.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah.
Evil Trout: Like, like Escher wrote uhh, one of the characters and, uh...
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah.
Evil Trout/
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Little Billie?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Was done by uh...oh christ can't even remember her screen-name right now.
Evil Trout: Hmph. That's very professional.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I never knew her by her screen-name.
{microphone tap}
Evil Trout: Only by...the shape of her bum? [MT: What?]
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yes. It was bum shaped.
Evil Trout: {rapid subject change} With Episode I you and I wrote, I guess 100% of it.
BINGEBOT 2015: {annoyed} Ahem.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Heh heh.
Evil Trout: Did you...did you write anything for Episode I?
BINGEBOT 2015: Yeah, we all contributed through our uh, "creative meetings"?
Evil Trout: Oh, like the ad-libs and stuff. And I go...
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeck.
BINGEBOT 2015: Eck.
Evil Trout: Yeah yeah...I was thinking more like the conversations and the missions and things like that.
BINGEBOT 2015: Yeah, we all contributed to conversations but not necessarily the plot points and character design and all that and that kind of stuff.
Evil Trout: And then...Episode II we had a little bit of help. In Episode III we actually had a lot of help. Umm..
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yes. And we're
Evil Trout: Yes
Evil Trout/
Jalapeno Bootyhole: We're
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Going to do our best to acknolwedge everyone who contributed {gasp} and I have a feeling that it'll kinda come out like, someone will say look this conversation was really funny, and you know Phineas or Bashy or plk or someone could say, "well, actually I, I did 98% of that one." Yeah.
Evil Trout: It's interesting though because like there's no single writer for any particular thing. Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Well.
Evil Trout: There's no piece of text on the site that has not been read or punched up by more tha-less than two people, right? So.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah, that's the idea. And uh, everything goes through so many iterations like uhm, even during Episode II I remember last time during the Beta MC Banhammer would read something over and would say "hey, it would be funny if so-and-so said this and like, yeah it would!" I-
BINGEBOT 2015: Mhm.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I can throw it in there. That's the beauty of, of releasing content that's live.
Evil Trout: Yeah. It's interesting cause like I know, well I'm not really experienced with professional writing like television or anything like that but generally I know you have certain characters, and characters have to have a voice, and we do that to a certain extent. But we're kinda blessed with our platform of the internet in that you can get all these writers with different voices and they can contribute different kinds of voices to the game, because on the internet, ther-you're dealing with so many different people. And, I think it works out really well, like you-if if you don't like the voice of one particular mission I mean if it doesn't resonate with you, you'll play the next one, you'll be like "this-this is hillarious".
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah, exactly. That's..we want to make the experience as varied as the internet itself.
Evil Trout: Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Getting the actual site voice down is a bit trickier, but I find people are really good at it and they really understand it like when I look at itembuildr, especially the new stuff that comes around even though yeah, everything gets downvoted to hell, the stuff I read uh, it's very true to the style guide that we gave them and just the voice and the tone that we've kind of created, which, is also a rip-off of 4chan and ED but that's, that's another story.
Evil Trout: Kyeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: {pedophile laugh} Heh heh
Evil Trout: Anyway, the right {tongue twist} it's been an interesting process I know personally I, I'm spending more time integrating Episode III than uh, designing I mean we, we designed the overall story arc and plot points years ago but I mean the side missions and things like that it's been more like, you punt something over to me and say is this cool, is this doable, what do you think of this, read this script but it's been uh I haven't been actively writing nearly as much and that's okay by me 'cause I think that some of these...uhrm most of these apprentices are much funnier than I am anyway. There's some hilarious content in Episode III. I was laughing my bum off.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Literally.
Evil Trout: I think I have a new favourite character, too. I said in em, Episode II The Lonely Gunman was my favourite character that we came up with. And I think we, I don't know if I talked about this before but err it's interesting because when we were designing The Lonely Gunman, when we were pitching ideas on a Sunday creative meeting I was thinking "Wow, this is horrible" {inhale} like we were I remember sitting around picking animals that the Gunman would be like obsessed with and I was going to push turtles and spiders and stuff like that but for some reason we just decided on giraffes.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I think that might have been Hadyn.
Evil Trout: Hadyn? Hadyn suggested that? Anim-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: He {cut} yeah.
Evil Trout: And I was like, "this is going to be crap. This is going to be so bad, and then you...went, you took it away and you came back with what I thought was actually the funniest content. And, I've heard that from other people too uh, I mean everybody has their own favourite. But I know that that is definitely a crowd favourite. Like uh, more than one person considers that hilarious. {breath} Anyway Episode III, and uh I'm not going to say who the character is because I think that there's another conversation that is really 'really good.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: No joke.
Evil Trout: Amongst the best.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I don't know who you mean.
Evil Trout: I'll tell you offline.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Alright.
Evil Trout: Okay.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Type it in.
Evil Trout: {laughs} Okay, I will. Um...so ah, continuing on.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: The best attack of each clbum? I don't know if we should give that away but uh there is something cool that I really want to do and I dunno if we can do it so I kinda don't wanna promise it if it can't be done.
Evil Trout: I don't think...
Jalapeno Bootyhole: You know what I'm talking about, right?
Evil Trout: Yes. I don't, don't, don't think we should give that away.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Okay, fair enough. There is one clbum of each, of each uh ptbt. Okay, sorry. A clbum of attacks within each clbum which I call a "superpower" and uh they each have their own category and it's sort of like...it's not quite what you would call "magic" but uh hah hah it's like uh it's a particularly strong attack. That...that I think takes the characteristics of each clbum and makes it really exaggerated
Evil Trout: Mhmm.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: And uh I think people will like it. Or I hope so.
Evil Trout: Mmkay. Again, Sandyke, you're monopolizing this zunecast here. Are-are there any new clbumes? The answer is no. Unfortunately, uhh we're going to stick with the five. {louder} We're gonna wh...wh...I think I'm not going to say we're going to fully flesh Permanoob but Permanoob is getting a little more than the Permanoob has gotten in the past. I mean like, the Permanoob has like three or four attacks now so there's going to-that's going to be a little more fleshed out. Otherwise, unfortunately no. That's something that we'll have to look to in the future.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Alignment is a nice question.
Evil Trout: And I've said in the past we dropped the ball a bit with alignment in Episode II. I remember one of the first blog things we wrote about was how alignment was going to be a factor in Episode II and that's because one of the first missions we designed which ended up being the last mission integrated which is the uh I'll say I'll bumume everyone who's listening to this has played Episode II but it's uh the suicide mini-game {MT: GIVE ME MY ALIGNMENT BUMP}...
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Mhmm.
Evil Trout: Where you have the control you use your alignment to get worse choices and stuff like that so I was thinking "wow, we're like really going to use alignment in this episode!" and we didn't really from that point on. So I feel like, uh, that was a bit of a mistake. Having said that, in Episode III there definitely is uh more than one place that we've designed where alignment is a factor. So I think that that's going to be interesting to people who care about that.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah, and as we've said a couple times we plan to respec alignment overall so that it's easier to become neutral if you want to be neutral.
Evil Trout: Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Easier to be good. There's going to be some major choices and...I do think it'll be worthwhile to, y'know play through as good or evil..
Evil Trout: Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: BUt for reasons we shouldn't divulge.
Evil Trout: Yeah the respec-ing of alignment will happen before Episode III so that people will get an opportunity to see where they lie.
{fawcet}
Evil Trout: The problem is basically now it's it's not hard to be good and not hard to be evil {MT: lies} but it's hard to be neutral...
{fawcet}
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I think.
Evil Trout: And uh I think that so we need to make the net for the neutral alignment much bigger.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah, exactly. And I remember that Banhammer was telling me how much trouble he had being a neuter.
Evil Trout: Mhmm.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Uh, I mean neutral. So I think that's, we're gonna have to address that.
Evil Trout: So uh..how p-powerful, rare will the Episode III items from the co-op be compared to everything else up to Episode II? Well, any Episode III item is going to be more powerful than any Episode II item. That's just the way it works. I mean there might be some exceptions we throw in there like Junk or joke items but yeah generally everything that's built in there will be more powerful.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah, I mean we're gonna have to spec those out too. But there will be some from the co-op that will be extremely powerful, I'll bumume.
Evil Trout: Mhmm.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: So Nyk is ripping Aldo a new one for that, that dupe entry. Which I thought was a little unfair.
Evil Trout: Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Any new services like Job Board of Kyoubai!? asks Fran.
Evil Trout: I think uh, I kind of already answered it - no uh, we won't have anything crazy like that with Episode III it's more of a content, storyline update, althought I say wh - there'll be tons of new items {fawcet} and tons of new .moar files and things like that but uh.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah. New features like that aren't, aren't in the works. But, you never know.
Evil Trout: I mean we, you look at, you said Kyoubai!, but uh Kyoubai! was added after Episode II.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yes.
Evil Trout: So, I mean we obviously have a committment to adding stuff to the game even between episodes. I mean like since Episode II I don't think we've added any paid content like it's been all all free throughout the year and there's been quite a bit that we've released so I think that you can see that in the future too.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Guys, just had an idea. Kyoubai! I-Phone app.
{awkward silence}
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Make it happen.
Evil Trout: Okay. It's already done.
BINGEBOT 2015: Osh.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Ok.
BINGEBOT 2015: It's worth noting seeing that we're talking about new services and whatnot we might want to talk about some other things
Evil Trout/
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Eh.
BINGEBOT 2015: A little closer to my heart perhaps. Domination?
Evil Trout: Mhmm.
BINGEBOT 2015: Um um just briefly in terms of yes Job Board and Kyoubai! you know obviously there'll it'll be an evolution but uh there are plans um after Episode III is launched I'm not, I'm not sure on the timing just yet but for a Domination revamp similar to what we saw with the gameplay revamp and the re-renewing of the Lemon Scoops. Um, there's been a Dom advisory board that has been set up there's already been some developments and we will continue to uh come up with some changes I don't really want to divulge anything right now 'cause it's all kind of eplastocine it's a mold that we're uh we're in the process of shaping but uh stay tuned as there will be a large, a rather large build and reawakening of the uh Domination game. I dunno if you guys want to add any details to that but uh I want to keep it pretty vague at this point partiularly just, you know we are putting effort into renewing that gameplay.
Evil Trout: Domination is definitely one of those ongoing things that uh, well MOST things on the site don't just get one implementation and stay there forever they get refreshed at uh, various intervals. We did a small Domination refresh this year but it wasn't nearly as uh sophisticated as we'd like so we're going to do a bigger one when we get the opportunity to.
BINGEBOT 2015: I mean uh, basically that's the polite way of saying "we're going to fix what we already know is broken".
Evil Trout: {laughing} Tssshahaha!
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah.
BINGEBOT 2015: {laughing} Fu fu fu.
Evil Trout: It's like the second you - that's the curse of web development is you launch something new that you think is awesome then immediately you get all this feedback, y'know? It makes me like, I know this is horrible to say but it makes me sometimes reluctant to change things because then I know it's going to spur all this more discussion about how it needs even more fixes. But there's only so much time that I have in a day and there's y'know we have so many things on the go that it becomes very difficult.
BINGEBOT 2015: Mhmm.
Evil Trout: I think sometimes people think that like we ignore or don't care about things. No! We obviously want the game to be the best game in the world we want the interface to be amazing but there's only so much time and we have limited resources so we do what we can and we try to prioritize. I know sometimes people don't fully agree with our prioritizing, but we're doing out best, y'know?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I do think it would be better if you had uh, eight arms
Evil Trout: Heh heh.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: A la Doktor Octopus. And several keyboards.
Evil Trout: I think I'd need eight brains too.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Ah, well, no, just four brains. Two arms each.
Evil Trout: True. Double true.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Hah hah hah...
Evil Trout: And we can skip Chile's question.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I don't think...
Evil Trout: I don't...
Jalapeno Bootyhole: ...there's going to be a lot of www drama. {chuckle} There are a little, the letter w will appear. Warn you.
Evil Trout: {laughs} Yes, there will be, actually there will be many w's, there will probably be as many w's in Episode III's text as there is in that one sentence there.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Okay, let's not give away too much, now.
Evil Trout: Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: {gasp} Uh-oh, hybrid clbumes? Hah hah hah hah hah!
Evil Trout: Hybrid is something - did we promise it? We probably did.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I kinda, mentioned it. I thought it was a given. But uh, no. The, I'm going to be straight up there's not really hybridization going on. And why would you want it anyway? I mean.
Evil Trout: Well it's kinda cool. I mean like you know you could say instead of being a full Camwhore or a full Troll I'm going to be half of both.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: {mumble}
Evil Trout: I mean you're not...you're not going to be as powerful in some ways but you can make up for it with other ways. I think that, y'know what, I've, I've always liked the idea of hybrid clbumes...
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Of course.
Evil Trout: It's just never been the right timing. I think it's likely that post-Episode III that still will happen at some point. When? I don't know, but I still like the idea and I'd like to uh, I'd like to do it. But no, you're right it won't be there for Episode III's launch.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: We should just promise everything after 2012. Because...
Evil Trout: {laughter}
Jalapeno Bootyhole: The world ends, right? So we're uh, we're off the hook.
Evil Trout: Exactly. He says when all of the new forums are available, will forumbuildr ones be removed?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Aha...
Evil Trout: I don't quite understand what this-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: So he's saying there's now, we're going to add uh a huge chunk of forums, ahmm so should we start getting rid of, y'know old forumbuildr ones and I think we do plan to uh strip out some of the forumbuildr...y'know builds that were kind of ****ty I-
Evil Trout: Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Would like to relegate them to a Rogue's Gallery or we could just kind of put them down the memory hole and just pretend they never existed but-
Evil Trout: Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: We're gonna have to do that just to clean up the interface. Uh.
Evil Trout: A long, a long time ago we actually ran a poll to determine what forum we were gonna ditch and I think Faux News won or something like that.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah.
Evil Trout: But, then we just didn't do anything about it and uh, I think it could use some pruning now. At least the, I know we got some criticism for doing it but I migrated all the forumbuildr forums this year over to use the new stylebuildr interface and while some of them arguably aren't as pretty, they're all functional. Like there was some in the past were like things wouldn't show up or when the text would shake there'd be huge white squares in the background, y'know.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: True.
Evil Trout: I thought some of those forums were more likely to be retired but now that they all at least work and look and are readible and stuff like that I'm not as crazy about retiring them. But in terms of keeping the content fresh and stuff I think it's a good idea.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah, uh. Will we do it concurrently with the release of Episode III? Not necessarily, uh.
Evil Trout: But it's something, again it's something that we could do shortly afterwards.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Okay, here's one from Chile P. And this is actually a good question. "Less gay cybering? I'm not saying it wasn't good, but it got frustrating to pleasure a conservative over and over" and honestly uh I do think the problem with these uh, these chats that are like a cyber mini-game or something along those lines because there's, the outcome is not always set in stone sometimes there's multiple outcomes and it's hard to skip them even though a lot of people have complained especially when they're spading in every clbum like, "God I'm sick of doing this Rilley O'Bill chat where I have to cyber like, it's kind of tedious. And uh, I feel your pain.
Evil Trout: Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I wou-
Evil Trout: I personally would like to read that over and over and over I do, I read it daily.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah. But it, it would be nice to have a skip, I think it would be nice to have a skip for the IDC chats that we have in Episode II so we're definitely cutting down on thsoe and also as far as I know there's no gay cybering in Episode III, so. That-
Evil Trout: I think that we don't have any cyber-sex minigames in Episode III. I think we've kind of done that, we've blown our load.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: So to speak.
Evil Trout: Yeah.
BINGEBOT 2015: So, as long as we can avoid chatting with Evil Trout we can avoid gay cybering?
Evil Trout: Yeah that's-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah exactly.
Evil Trout: And then, you're gay cybering in a way by listening to this zunecast, aren't you?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I'm masturbating.
BINGEBOT 2015: {laughs} I'm finsihed.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: So, we got through page one. {MT: OH GOD}
Evil Trout: On page two-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I have a feeling this is going to be a long one.
Evil Trout: That's, that's okay we'll edit it down or people can just listen at their leisure. Ahh, on Episode II we had, Fran asks, we had two forums that were originally buildr forums implemented into the Episode II plot. Uh, is that going to happen again in Episode III? You can answer this JB.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Ah yea, we have one.
Evil Trout: One.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: One single forum that we're going to use and uh uh should I say which one?
Evil Trout: No, I think you should uh, let them speculate. 'cause, it'll be interesting. I mean if they, they bribe the apprentice they could figure it out.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Here, here's a, they could actually figure it out for themselves. Ahh, I'm not going to say how but there, there is a way if they're clever. And if they pay a lot of attention.
Evil Trout: Okay, you'll have to fill me in on that later cause I'm not sure how they would do that, you...
Jalapeno Bootyhole: -total nerd.
Evil Trout: Okay. But yeah so there is I thought I knew there was one, I-I-I had a feeling there might be more than one, but yeah it's just one. {lick lipping} Nicco wants to know, "will the cred leaderboard return"? Well this is interesting because, the cred leaderboard was a super competitive kind of thing, but it kind of bit us in the arse that when a lot of the uh high end players when they bought Episode II they jumped up like crazy amount of levels which made Episode II a cake walk. Now a lot of those characters also then bought further characters and got to experience the Russian properly but it was a bit of a SNAFU. So, by locking the cred leaderboard for Episode II we've guaranteed that no one is going to start Episode II's content higher than Level 35. Although some people could have like headsets and stuff like that, so I mean they'll still have some advantages but it won't be the same as it was before. After Episode III though, it's interesting to consider that we could put the cred leaderboard there but if we do it basically means forever Level 69 is the, is the high end. I'm, I mean like we've said that this concludes the three-episode story arc but we also like this unvierse and we're not sure how we would continue. Would it be with a different character, would it be something different? I dunno. we basically, the problem is, if I say "yes" it kind of pigeon holes us into never having more than sixty-nine levels and I'm not sure I'm completely comfortable with that.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: There you go.
Evil Trout: Although maybe sixty-nine is enough I dunno I'm, I'm thinkin' about it. So no, I don't, I dunno Nicco. Sorry.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: It is a great number. Ah...how about Fran's mentioning Pink Floyd fiasco. If you want to call it that. Hah...
Evil Trout: You know, the interesting thing about Pink Floyd, and uh maybe I've said this publically before and forgotten but like that wasn't intentionally supposed to be the hardest item to find, we-I did most of the distribution of Pink Floyd algorhythmically and that, we, we designed all the items ourselves but then, it kind of just distributed them out and that one ended up being the rarest one. And-{cut} uhh, it was never intended to be that one. It's kind of weird because I don't think any of us are huge Pink Floyd fans and I don't even think that's like closest, in even close to the funniest item that we have. So, for Episode III, there will be more super-rare items. Super-rare moar files to grind for that will be powerful but, I hope this time the funniest ones are amongst the-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Well we, actually that's exactly what we did. Uhh, we, we hand picked thanks to the help from the apprentice team, which is considered like, what's the best ones and then some of them are kind of fudged to correspond with clbum and type but uh, ah there was something that you needed to fix there, ET. But, and you know what I'm talking about.
Evil Trout: Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: But, now we use the same algorythms to distribute what we consider the best files and make them the rarest.
Evil Trout: Yeah. I mean they're all funny, they all had to pbum a certain level of, y'know, laugh, like if it didn't get a laugh it probably didn't make it into the game. Or at least a chuckle.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah, from someone.
Evil Trout: But yeah, I think, I'm thinking of one of the strongest items right now and it always makes me laugh but not for a reason that you'd think it would. It's a .leer file. For those...
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Heh heh.
Evil Trout: Who want to connect the dots later on.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yup.
Evil Trout: You know, you know exactly which one I'm talking about, don't you?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Of course.
Evil Trout: Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Ahh...okay, so. It's ChilePepino. The parody characters that were created during wh, oh, OH! Yeah, I, I can answer that. NO! Uh, we're not doing that even though I did talk to FAIL who did it last year for Episode II about, changing, uhm, the avatars to correspond with the contributers from forumbuildr elite and this time, no since we did a forumbuildr and uh people were making puns on existing players names those got upvoted I don't see the need to, to change the avatars like y'know Ellena Weight Limit it's a picture of a scale, if we were tuh y'know, parody her actual avatar it kind wouldn't make any sense. So.
Evil Trout: Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: We saved that stuff but it's kind of appropriate it's done in forumbuildr, it's using the same old ****ing avatars you've always had for years and a couple new ones that we added and uh, I think it just kinda works. And I, I actually really like how ah, Lamebait turned out. Like I was kinda worried that it would all be fine upstanding member of society fine upstanding member of society fine upstanding member of society, but I, you guys did a great job and uh, we have a ton of entries in there it's gonna be one of the biggest forums just as far as content and uh, you built it yourselves!
Evil Trout: Kyeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: {muffled laugh} Unlike other things.
Evil Trout: You know. We've mentioned, mentioned a bit about the content like, I think we have more hard numbers now on the size of Episode III than we did before. I don't think anybody specifically asked about this which is why I am. Why I'm uhm, brining it up right now. But I think we have more forums, more attacks, more items, and more .moar files than any episode we've done so far. Is that, is that true?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I'd, I'd say, like, just when you add up all the stuff, my calculationatrons would indicate that we have about 150% of of the content we had in Episode II {MT: holy snap}. As far as missions, as far as attacks, as far as items, as far as, uh, everything.
Evil Trout: Yeah. The ony thing I'm not sure about right now because I haven't played it through beginning to end is how long it will take? So like, I know we have more content, but I don't know how, how, how much that's going to translate into like, playing time? At this point?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: We'll just make it ridiculously hard.
Evil Trout: Bu-We don't want to make people grind forever.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: No! That's pos-impossible.
Evil Trout: Just for the sake of having...well, {laughs} that's not going to help anyone. People want to be able to beat the game. They want to be challenged. They don't want it to be cake walk but they also want to be able to have it be within the realm of beatability. If that's even a word. But yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Why wouldn't you want it to be a cake walk? All you gotta do is walk and you get cake. That's like, it's a great system.
Evil Trout: {laughs}
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Although the cake, as we all know...
Evil Trout: Is a lie? {MT: snipe!}
Jalapeno Bootyhole: {dejected}...it will always be a lie.
Evil Trout: Yeah. Thank you Portal for ruining cake forever. In every video game.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: {chuckles}
Evil Trout: Is it true, JB, that you use Axe Body Spray?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Ahh, I don't know where this, um, rumour came form but you know I'm, I'm not even going to answer this question. Do you know why? 'cause I know for a fact that leetlol is not listening to this podcast.
Evil Trout: Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: She-she went to great pains to uh, to let us know. So.
Evil Trout: Do you know why she, why she's asking this? It's so when she builds her little JB doll she can spray it with the appropriate smell. So that it smells like you.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I know she's got a crush on me. Why I used to pick on
Evil Trout: Let's face it, who doesn't?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I know I, I'm {pause}...very few people.
BINGEBOT 2015: Don't you think we should give her a little something though? Like, like, would it be too much of a re-, reveal to say that uh, you may want to make you little doll smell a little bit more like Old Spice,
Jalapeno Bootyhole: That's-
BINGEBOT 2015: And a little less like Axe Body Spray?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Old Spice: High Endurance. Smooth Blast. Or {faux french} Ekusu-ploh-see-ohn de frashur.
Evil Trout: {giggle}
Jalapeno Bootyhole: And I can, I can post a video of me rubbing it on my armpits. If you're-
Evil Trout: Please don't.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: It's so cool
BINGEBOT 2015: I'd like that video.
Evil Trout: {disbelief} Ok...hah hah.
Evil Trout: And then she says "is it true you bought the Aerosmith version of rock band?". First of all, is this indicating how much of a video game nerd I am but I don't think there is an Aerosmith rock band. I think there's an Aerosmith Guitar Hero.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Hah hah hah...
Evil Trout: But uh...so no. By the way, like uh, yeah 'cause I'm not a fabulous person.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Hahaha...there you go! Ah..'kay, do you have an iPhone version of Forumwarz? **** that.
Evil Trout: Not anytime soon. How many Easter Egg goatse? Um, as many as will annoy you.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: {chuckle}
Evil Trout: Are you being serviced right now? I wish.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Drop stats. From Dunatis.
Evil Trout: So when you say "drop stats" I bumume you mean .moar files. 'cause they're the closest thing we have to drops in the game. Uhm, I think the existing forums will probably stay the same, although there has been some discussion and I think it's going to happen that we are going to be adjusting some of the levels of the community forums. We did this with Episode II as well. The idea is we want to have...for like, for example if we throw you a Level 38 forum and there's only one to grind at, that gets kind of boring, so it would be nice if you had like a community forum or two that you could also spend your time in? So I think we're going to be readjusting the levels of the community forums and if we do that then we probably would have to adjust what .moar files are dropping in those to be more high-end items. So yeah I guess they would adjust in that sense. But uh, any-I'm pretty happy with the levels of items that drop within the first two episodes. I think you'll expect to see those same items just dropping in those levels of forums.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Drop it like it's hot. Drop it. Like it's hot.
Evil Trout: You're thinking that the whole time. That joke, that whole, the whole time I was talking weren't you?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Not a joke. I'm just telling you to do. To do that.
Evil Trout: Yeah. hand0fgod wants to know how awesome he is. On a scale
Jalapeno Bootyhole: On a scale of 1-10. I'll give him a minus-
Evil Trout: On a scale of 1-10. I'd give him a 10.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Hah ha-minus 10.7. {wheezes}
Evil Trout: That's outside the bounds of, uh the scale.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: He said I could say 11.
BINGEBOT 2015: No, its 10-10.
{pause}
BINGEBOT 2015: You can say 11 but it's still out of the realm.
Evil Trout: So JB, spacekadt wants to know, "What was your favourite part of the Episode III development"?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: And the most frustrating.
Evil Trout: Yes. I-I have my own answers for this. But I-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Then you should answer, because I can't think of one right now.
Evil Trout: Okay. My favourite part of Episode III's development is honestly when I get something back from the writers and it's hilarious. And uh...and I feel that this is a great contribution to the game. And uh...So that's, that's really cool for me. It's like Christmas when I get a new conversation.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah.
Evil Trout: And I get to read...but I mean and the downside is of course that it's not going to be the same conversation like I'm going to have to read it a couple times and I'm going to have to program it and stuff like that but uh, so by the time it gets in the game I'm probably sick of it but the first time it's always really fresh and it's cool when we come up for a plan for a character and someone makes it even funnier than the plan was.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah.
Evil Trout: So I like that a lot. Most frustrating for me is by far to fill in the gaps of content that need to be filled in. So for example, I don't have the exact number but there's like maybe 150 new items in Episode III.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah.
Evil Trout: And uh, collecting images like the descriptions, those were fine. But collecting images for them is very tedious. I mean you've got to hunt down um images we either purchased them from a stock image site or we find public domain images for them. And we had a lot of help with it, but even, even something like finding 40 images is incredibly time consuming. Like it can take days of work. Y'know.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Mmhm.
Evil Trout: For something that's...we're probably going to pick a crappy image anyway but we need to have that image there and that to me is very frustrating just working on monotonous tasks over and over again. Like I wish it could all be fun but unfortunately like with any job there's a lot of filling in the blanks.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: You're right and there there there's got to be more like that, thats t-the harsh irony is when you think all the content is over I know you're gonna message me when I'm at work. It's like, {nasal voice} "hey uh, we don't have an away message for so-and-so, do you think, I think we need to have one if they're gonna go offline". I'm like, oh **** we never did that, so you go iiin, you write
BINGEBOT 2015: Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: A little away message. And make sure that I f-notify you so you can flag it properly. And those things are really tough. Uh, but uh, y'know when you're dealing with a lot of content it's a piecemeal and you've got to remember the connections between them. That is, uh, it's really tricky.
Evil Trout: I mean it helps that we've done it. This is the third episode we've built so I think we have, it looks like you were a lot more organized figuring out everything that needed to be done. Like I haven't seen anything close to major being missing at this point. So that's good.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah, uh. And I, I really owe it to uh, to the apprentices too especially, might as well give a shout out to plk. And that's probably one of the, my favourite parts of the development is the just like I'm embarbumed at how organized some of our apprentices are. Especially plk she's just like, we'll create a Googledoc and it's like all nice formatting and HTML tables and stuff.
Evil Trout: Mhmm.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: And, all the blanks. Y'know, sometimes there's blanks but you know what you need to fill in. And that to me was just like probably the best part of the development was actually having people uh who y'know I was looking for apprentices and that's what they're doing, they're using their skills to apply it to what's supposed to be my job.
Evil Trout/
Jalapeno Bootyhole: {laughter}
Jalapeno Bootyhole: But like yeah it's such a big job this time, I really think that I benefitted a lot from having people uh y'know also really dedicated to making this thing really work.
Evil Trout: Makes you envy like big game companies in a way where they have like "project managers" and different employees to do this little stuff instead of, like when you your doing an indie-game with this size like you have to do a lot of work that you'd rather not do. A-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah.
Evil Trout: Lot of organization.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah. You gotta, you gotta do, y'know bits and pieces of everything which is all kinda awesome but it would be nice to have a few uh, middle managers-
Evil Trout: The advantage is that we get ultimate creative control over our property, right? And the disadvatage is we have to do it all ourself. Y'know.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yep.
Evil Trout: Things like, well, another frustrating thing is like for example like, like I got into IT and I like, like I've always been a developer but I've never really set up many servers and as a result like, 'cause we had no one else to do it for Forumwarz I had to do that myself. Or {cut}ktay learning how to pay taxes. Learning how to incorporate. Doing all these things that I'm like completely uninterested in. But there's nobody else to do it. Right. So that's like, that's fallen on my plate and that's kind of annoying. But uh...
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yup.
Evil Trout: Some people like that kind of thing. But I, I just don't. I would rather just like have things set up in a way that I could program all day or develop all day but, that I mean that's just the price you have to pay.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: {derp}
Evil Trout: hand0fgod wants to be wants to be, wants to know "will you begin working on a new mini-game after Episode III is done?". Well,
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Ohh ****. I know what he's-
Evil Trout: This is interesting.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Talking about. Hah hah.
Evil Trout: Well there's, uh I bumume he's talking about the project that we hired invariel over the summer for.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: No, he's talking about the one that I always wanted to do.
Evil Trout: Oh, that one?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: 'cause he kind of helped with that. Yeah.
Evil Trout: We actually have some work done. Uh, like I said invariel uh, he's a student and over the summer as he lives in the same city we do uh he worked on a project for us. We haven't r-haven't really announced formally yet, I think we're still not ready but it's another, it's another mini-game another M-game what have you-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I'd call it a "meta-game".
Evil Trout: "meta-game"? Okay. It's kind of interesting and he's got uh he built a lot of the foundation for that. So that is probably, well, at some point after Episode III we'll pick that up and then try to flesh that out. So yeah, there's definitely at least a lot of development has occured and design on a new minigame so I think we'll expect to see one of those.
BINGEBOT 2015: And the mini-game itself is actually more integrated with the game than something like INCIT-
Evil Trout: Yeah.
BINGEBOT 2015: Or Domination. It's not that meta. It actually is will enhance the game more like itembuildr as it's actually integrated with your character and will help your character develop and build.
Evil Trout: But unlike itembuildr it's not a content. They're not, we're not "creating" content specifically.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Exactly.
Evil Trout: It's kind of like, I'm going to say this but maybe regret it, but it's kind of like PVP.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Hmhm.
Evil Trout: Okay. Think about that.
{heavy breathing}
BINGEBOT 2015: Heh heh.
Evil Trout: So uh...let's skip ahead. There's a bunch of crap questions. Page 3 maybe?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: It's the "hump" page.
Evil Trout: Chile again wants to know, "How hard would you say Episode III is?" Uhp, I don't know yet. I think, I mean the goal for me is never make a game so hard that it's frustrating {microphone) so uh I think that it should be a challenge, but I think that it shouldn't be like slamming your first on the table like have you guys played that game uhm, slowtion man? I beat that game but it drove me ****ing crazy I know some people love games that are that hard but like I-I think for an RPG it's more about the story and the experience and the journey than it is being super-challenged all the time. Having said that I think we'll have some forums that'll be like really hard to beat, but.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yup. Then Oz-I'm moving down a bit-2 year Peen like the Veterans of. Heh, I think that's a good idea.
Evil Trout: Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I don't see why not.
Evil Trout: If someone's been with us for two years that's fantastic and I think we should reward that.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Uh...forum streak to 200? It's
BINGEBOT 2015: So uh if I may, although streaks may be extended to 200 because we have more than 100 forums I can't say that they will be tied to the Pistachio scoops in the same manner they are today, so streaks in and of themselves may be completely reimagined if you will. So the fact you have a streak may still continue I'm not entirely sure. However pistachio streaks and the scoop earning you get for streaks will likely change in the future.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Now what about-
Evil Trout: I thought-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Peens is what he's specifically asking, too.
BINGEBOT 2015: Yeah.
Evil Trout: I think, y'know it just became a bit ridiculous when there was 100. Y'know?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Well it's 25 actually.
Evil Trout: Okay, that's true. Twenty-five Peens. But it's for something it's a challenge but it's not I dunno I, I personally don't consider it a fun challenge to get up to 100. Maybe some players will disagree I mean the fact he's acting about, asking about it implies he disagrees a bit but it's more about, I dunno just like playing the game over a long period of time and most of it isn't challenging because only a few of those forums if you're Level 35, and I bumume if you're going for 100 you're Level 35. I don't even know if it's possible to get 100 if you're not Level 35 because you gain so much cred along the way. {breath} Like, I think most of it is not going to be challenging it's just going to be monotonous. And, I dunno. I, I also found it was kind of annoying to make all those Peen.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I liked naming them.
Evil Trout: Really? You liked it?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah, it's like, okay what's uh 136 gonna be hmm {breath} but-
Evil Trout: It's like-{laughs} or go to the Wikipedia page for 136 and see what-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah.
Evil Trout: What numbers occur for that. {MT: What?!}
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah, that's pretty much what we did. Hah hah hah...How do you feel about Franch Gingers?
Evil Trout: Ahh...good? I don't know where the French thing is. You know I actually did study French immersion. But I don't really speak French very well so that's, that's a weird meme.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I think it's 'cause you're Canadian.
Evil Trout: All Canadians are French?
BINGEBOT 2015: We are.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: That's right, Franch.
Evil Trout: Fraunch. Franch. I don't even, I wonder who started that.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I know-
Evil Trout: I know Fran has said it alot but I don't know if she's clever enough to say that. Oh my god did I just diss her? {MT: Maybe, but you did make me lol} ****.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: It does contain her name within the very diss. Franch.
Evil Trout: That's true!! Uh um...
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Holy ****.
{silence}
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I think we're on to something, people. How 'bout was. Will there-haha, I can't hear-be an arbitrary ways to get banned?
BINGEBOT 2015: Of course.
Evil Trout: Probably.
BINGEBOT 2015: Most definitely.
Evil Trout: If was isn't being banned on a regular basis then we haven't done our job properly.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Humph humph humph. Okay, Joseph of SUburbia-will Ophelia mammary glandsupp be given a reason to be eternally online?
Evil Trout: Sffph! Does, does she?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: She's always online. Yes. She's-you always get the same 2007 copyright p-poem as her away message.
Evil Trout: Yeah that's, that was intetional?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: {holding back laughter} Yup.
{animal sounds}
Evil Trout: Moving on! Uh, will there be a transcript of the podcast? {MT: No. Never.}
Jalapeno Bootyhole: ghax.
{laughter}
Evil Trout: If someone does it, then yes.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: If ghax wants to do it, he can. Hah hah hah!
Evil Trout: Uh, regarding the items built for the Episode III hijack in itembuildr how powerful/rare/easily attainable/expensive are they going to be? Uh, I'm going to fit them in 'scuse me, sorry. I'm going to fit them into the uh, the ecosystem of items like basically the way I, the way I do it is I usually start at the end at the beginning and I say, "well how strong is the strongest item going to be", "how weak is the weakest item going to be" and then, put everything on a scale. So it really just depends on where those items get put on the scale. I don't think that they're all going to be good, I don't think that they're all going to be bad. I think that they're probably going to be spread out in a more or less random distribution. Uh uhm, depending on how it all fits in. And what they look like and stuff. So. I can't tell you.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Clbum stores?
Evil Trout: Will there be new clbum stores?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Hell to the yeah.
Evil Trout: Yeah. We did it before, we're doing it again. So there will be new stores for you to access.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: {fgsfds}
Evil Trout: Will hackers ever have a powerful attack with a short refresh time? I-think that it's likely that they will but don't quote me on it until the game is close to done like s-Episode II I remember the cooldowns changed drastically even in the last few weeks leading up to the beta. So, I can't promise anything.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: And now hand0fgod is going on about the Peen. Ahh...I think he's being facetious though.
Evil Trout: When do you think it'll be ready for release?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Arm.
Evil Trout: It's amazing it took this long to uh get this question.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Well there is uh, a pool going on right now.
Evil Trout: Yeah. I uh, I don't like answering this question. Because I, the truth is I don't know, I mean we've made a lot of progress and like especially now that the gameplay thing is done I'm working on Episode III more or less full time. It's going pretty quick. Every week we have our weekly meetings it's like okay this is done, this is done, this is done, so I mean, a lot of progress is being made. But uh, we're not going to release it until it's ready. I think it's safe to say that it won't make Halloween at this point. Uh, that would have been the ideal time for us to release. But, I mean like I, I really wouldn't feel comfortable unless we had about a month of testing and since Halloween is within a month and we haven't started testing then it's not likely to happen. But uh, we're going to get it out as soon as that I think it's, it's good and ready.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Makes sense.
Evil Trout: Yeah.
{chair noises}
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Okay. Raepdog's got an interesting one. {clap} You're gonna have to answer this one, 'cause I don't know what he's talking about.
Evil Trout: {Simpsons comic book nerd voice} When will you do more to faciliate role-playing in the forums like you said you would when you split up the forums? There is still no place to civily role-play! That's kind of like, not the appropriate place to put the question mark but I-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: {laughing}
Evil Trout: I dunno. What, what do you want from me? You know like we're doing our best here. And uh, I, you could role play in the role-playing forum I guess and if you don't like that I don't really understand what you're talking about.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Well you can civily role-play and I think it's, if you're talking about a devoted subforum, no there's no such thing but there's been more roleplaying like, you know you get more gimmick alts coming out and thanks to Phineas' uh I mean someone's y'know gimmick alt union kind of praved the way for uh civil role-playing. So-
BINGEBOT 2015: Mmhm.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: You, you can role-play, in fact you're probably role-playing right now.
Evil Trout: Yep. Role-playing-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Very very subtle.
Evil Trout: Yeah. So, Amy Rose who's got a Sonic the Hedgehog avatar wants to know well the first one's a dupe but do any or all of you live off this? Uh...I guess I do. I mean like uh, I'm the only full time Forumwarz employee right now. Uh, I don't make an amazing living I've said this before like if I worked at a bank or something like that I'd probably earn a lot more money. But uhh...but I am definitely pulling a salary and making ends meet.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: So I-I wouldn't call it "living". {laughs}
Evil Trout: {laughs} Pffst it's more like poverty really.
BINGEBOT 2015: It's an existence if you will.
Evil Trout: Yeah it's. No, it's not poverty. It's like, it's fine, but uh, it's I'm nobody's if, if the question is "is anybody getting rich off this?" the answer is no. Nobody's getting rich off this.
BINGEBOT 2015: Not. The answer is "not yet".
Evil Trout: Yeah. Until we go public. And then, make-
{poooh}
Evil Trout: No money at all because most companies wouldn't touch this with a 10-foot pole based on the content we have but it's a labour of love. That's why we, that's why we do it. If the question is "could I get paid more somewhere else why am I not doing that?" well it's because this is so much fun. And you don't have to answer to a ****ty boss. I AM that ****ty boss.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: He is, folks. He is. Well what about speaking of which that "Evil Trout Hate Club", they want uh, she wants a bigger Peen. {laughs}
Evil Trout: Well I, I'm not like, I don't, the thing is like, I did promise people, the people who got the Evil Trout Hate Club Peen for those who don't understad s-oh, it says right here in the thread but basically we promised the ability to join phase III of the gameplay tests but the way things worked out it just didn't really make sense with the timing we were looking at and we'd gotten a lot of good feedback from the first two phases. So a lot of people were ****ed, rightfully so that I'd promised them the ability to test but couldn't so I gave them the Evil Trout Hate club Peen. And she's asking like, will it get any bigger or will we get anything else? But the thing is like, yeah I'm sorry that you missed out on your chance but on the other hand it's like, it's not like you did something major that would deserve a big E-Peen. Like basically you got an E-Peen for nothing. Right? For just taking the time to sign up. So I-I'm not sure that y-I'm going to give out a bigger reward for that to be honest.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: {gulp} Ah Bear asked a few questions. Hey, I thought you were dead. Um, psst, and they're kind of uh dupes.
Evil Trout:Okay well he wants to know if we're going to have a leading up to Episode III if we'll put up like a Episode III level strength forum. We might, actually! Uh, I-I don't want to promise but that's like something that could, we could do with not too much effort that would be fun for people to try and play. Like, I think the way it worked with The Great Firewall of China was we gave them a Peen if they beat it by a certain time.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah.
Evil Trout: And uh, yeah I'd like to do that again if we have the opportunity. I mean I don't want to promise, but I think that would be cool.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Ahh...Fie wants to know, wants to know if he will be featured in some satiric form. Uh, you know we don't like to really satirize our own players unless-
Evil Trout: We've done it before.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Like doing it over and over again. {laughs}
Evil Trout: {laughs} I think Episode II we did it with uh...what the hell is his name I can't believe I've forgotten already. He was so annoying.
{awkward silence}
Evil Trout: The guy who's gonna stick-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Oh! Zongay!
Evil Trout: A knife-yeah, Zongay. He's going to stick a knife in our throat. Yeah, but.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: And that was fun. But like no one even gets that reference anymore.
Evil Trout: Nah, that's the crappy part about it. I-I hope that the character is funny on its own, and that you don't-
BINGEBOT 2015: I think it is.
Evil Trout: Eh, quantenggnggngg wants to know, "Is Episode III the final episode"? Well, I've said this, the final episode of this story arc. And yes we're going to focus on Dom after that but uh, is it the end of Forumwarz? I think, the eh, universe is expandable. Let's put it that way.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Hmm?
Evil Trout: Page 4 maybe?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Ah hay...will Episode III be good? No. Will it star Ron Paul? Yes. Major gripes?
Evil Trout: So are you anticipating major gripes? You know it's inevitable at this point. Uhh...there are people who will play the game in ways that, y'know go against the norm for example and if we make changes that we think will benefit most players we'll end up upsetting them and they'll have gripes. There's sometimes things like, we make mistakes. I mean the benefit of a web platform is that we can push out updates and hopefully fix the mistakes that we make. But we will make mistakes We have in the past, and we will in the future. So, am I anticipating? Yes. Is there anything in particular I wonder if this is what you're asking is there anything in particular that I'm doing that I think will **** off people? No. I wouldn't do something that I think would **** off people unless there was like, a r-unless in the long run I felt it made more sense. So...yes I'm anticipating people to be ****ed at me because they always are, but not for anything in particular.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: And here comes a, Joey Buzzsaw with kind of a drawn out suggestion that Banhammer (god bless him) shut him right down.
Evil Trout: Pssht.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah. W-You know you can still do that stuff when you're not a mod, MCB. Just keep that in mind. He-Bill Murry Fan 733 "how many male reproductive organes-" FINALLY a troll question.
Evil Trout: Pff.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Thank you, Billy Murray Fan or as I like to call you, L2. Ah, I have about seven on average but you know it goes up-
Evil Trout: You mean the length of the male reproductive organes are seven on average or you have seven on your mo-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Seven. Actual male reproductive organes. Yeah. It's amazing that I can even talk.
Evil Trout: I-yeah, I-I don't don't know how many I have in my mouth like the thing is on-
{laughter}
Evil Trout: They come in such different shapes and sizes it's like a mood you don't you don't want to eat desert for dinner, right? So you don't always want a big black male reproductive organ in your mouth you sometimes you want a small Asian-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: You consider that desert?
Evil Trout: It's just like a different taste is what I'm getting at. Like...
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I think it's the uh, melanin.
Evil Trout: Ssshhiit. It's black, it's black chocolate.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Water-melanin. Hah hah, racist joke! Sheeh.
Evil Trout: Will Forumwarz ever be fun to play, JB?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Uhh, if you like pressing 1 2 1 2. Heh heh, that's lots of fun.
Evil Trout: Eh now it's 1 2 1 2 3, 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 4, you know that's basically it.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: By the way BINGEBOT is GONE. Uh, he has to go.
Evil Trout: Yeah it's-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Probably going on a regatta somewhere.
Evil Trout: He lacks the foresight here lots...
{pff}
Evil Trout: You know an interesting thing about the 1 2 1 2 thing. Yeah, like I agree that's something that like before even Episode I launched people who I'd shown the game to were like "you know it's just goint to be 1 2 1 2". But you know what like here's a little, here's a little secret. All roleplaying games-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Heh heh heh heh.
Evil Trout: Degenerate to 1 2 1 2. I mean I played World of Warcraft for a long time and it was like that yeah, you throw in 3 once in a while, 4 once in a while, but I mean s-you do in Forumwarz as well. I hope that the gameplay updated made it a little more varied and interesting. Like you have to make more decisions and stuff like that but I mean if you're really organized player and you've organized your toolbar well, you can play most RPGs with very few changes in commands. I mean that's, that's what RPGs are. They're about extending the length of a game by introducing some repetitive aspect to it. And I think they've always been like that, it's just an issue of how well can you disguise it? Now I don't want you to think that we designed Forumwarz as a way to disguise repetitive gameplay it's about a way it's about creating a universe and a time committment and enjoying yourself and exploring the universe. But uh...but yeah, like, that's, y'know I've always though it's a bit unfair you know for criticism.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Well, actually, to be honest um, that wasn't the question it was "where it'll ever be fun to play".
Evil Trout: Hah hah hah hah! True.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: {gasp}
Evil Trout: So, uh, yeah I did. There you go I answered a question you didn't ask. Deal with it.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: What happens to Bingebot?
Evil Trout: Uhh...
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Is it true we treat him like a second clbum and then...
Evil Trout: I don't know. Do you think he'll listen to this?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I don't know. Probably won't.
Evil Trout: Haha...I... Bingebot is not the...uh...I mean different people have different time commitments to Forumwarz. and I'd say that...uh...Bingebot does not...uh...like...put in as much time as me while I'm full time. Does that make sense? Even as JB because he works full time for months of the year. He comes to all of our meetings and things like that, but...uh...I don't know how much time he has outside of that to get to dedicate to Forumwarz
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah, so we don't treat him like second clbum...uh...he's first clbum...
Evil Trout: Yeah, it depends on how much time...
Jalapeno Bootyhole: ...executive clbum.
Evil Trout: It depends on how much time he's willing to put into it. That's basically what it comes down to. I know previously he had a job that allowed him to...spend more time on Forumwarz during the day and stuff like that. Now he doesn't have that luxury.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah.
Evil Trout: That might be one reason why you don't see as much of him as you did before.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: The other thing is...uh...he's usually at the drive-thru getting multiple...you know...Big Macs and so on.
Evil Trout: Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: That...that occupies a lot of spare time as well.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Here at the beginning a spunky female love interest...well thats bumuming that...
Evil Trout: Yeah, that's bumuming you're male.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: A heterosexual male.
Evil Trout: That's true. I mean BruceBear would disagree.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yes, so...
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Sexist!
Evil Trout: Now there's no...there's no love subplot. I'm actually kind of happy that we don't have a romantic subplot in our story.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Not yet.
Evil Trout: Because why does every story have to have one of those?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Uh...that's a good point, and kissing is icky.
Evil Trout: She is backing me up a bit.
Evil Trout: Re-Re like...it's fun. You know if you want to play as a Re-Re that's fine, but it's not like...just...it's...it's...it's a tolerated clbum because there's no piece of code that forces you to not be a Re-Re, but it's not a designed clbum and it's something that you're doing more like an emergent gameplay than something that we're actually planning on supporting. Will you ever see any kind of create your own blog feature where cool people post things though people fabulous personging it up. This is more of a suggestion. This is not... Will we ever? Maybe. In Episode III no.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: How do you deal with people who always want... I don't know if people want more user-created content, do they?
Evil Trout: I don't... It's weird to me though that...like...I understand that people **** that...like...while you're having your users create things...but it...it's kind of weird because it's like...it...it adds value to the game. Some of the funniest content we have is user-created. I don't know...like...people...people seem to think that...I guess it's a business we should be creating one hundred percent of the content ourselves, but I...I disagree because when we get a lot more of it, everyone benefits, and people legitimately enjoy creating it. Maybe you don't, but...uh...I'm telling you...like...if you...if you look at the buildr people and how serious people take it and...like...how...like I...I have the stats on the server of how avidly people check their scores and things like that. People get really into it, really want to see their idea...uh...uh...survive, so...
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah, I think...I...I honestly can't imagine Forumwarz without it. It's become...kind of like...a thing...that I think is considered unusual...uh...about it, and I...I guess I kind of like that because I...I've always thought that's the way you build a game like this.
Evil Trout: Mmhmm... Skully wants to know when Beta testing will begin. It'll begin when we're...when basically...when I...when I feel like the skeleton of the game is complete and everything is in place. "Are you considering opening the economy?" Now this is interesting that you're asking because we debated a lot after Kyoubai came out about whether...uh...Flezz was important and whether it gave you a competitive advantage, and I think most of us, including you, I don't want to speak for you though...uh...just determined that it didn't give you such a huge advantage that it shouldn't be allowed, so...uh...would I be...would I consider it? Sure, at this point I would. I think Kyoubai went over well. It's...it's successful. Whenever I go in there, people are trading items. Maybe...uh...a more direct way will be good, so I think thats something we'll look into.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Gamblebot.
Evil Trout: Uh...I...I wonder how many people are still playing Gamblebot. I actually haven't looked at it in a long time. When episode 1 was around Gamblebot was trememdously popular because I think there was less to do in the Forumwarz universe. I don't know. I'd like to program some more games. Some of them are just really complicated. Like...the amount of time it would take me to a poker game. I don't know if it would be worth it, but then again, maybe if people are still playing it, then maybe it would. I have to look into it.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Catt although... mixing the real in-game economy, for instance having game-usable items that can be bought for BP or allow BP to be sold on Kyoubai. How do you feel about that, Trout?
Evil Trout: I don't know. You know...like...if...if...I think there's two different aspects there. It's like...as I understand in...uh...Kingdom of Loathing, every month there's an exclusive item available for purchase and people can purchase that item that gives them an advantage. Plus like you can buy, when you spend 10 bucks on Kingdom of Loathing you get an advantage in the game but that as I understand it, that advantage is not something that you can't grind for given enough time.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Mhmm.
Evil Trout: Or you can't, like, get enough meat to be able to buy them or something like that. So i-it's an interesting model where they've gone the route of saying "all the content of the game is free" but you can help yourself through the game with money. Uhm...versus ours which is like, we generally frown upon buying an advantage in the game. Uh, but we have locked out content that you need to pay to access. Having said that, we'll never kick you out you can always level up and play and have a lot of fun without paying. You just won't, you'll miss out on the core storyline and the fun of experiencing that. So would we be open to more mixing like they do? Maybe. I think, I think at this point no. I think I'd, I think I'd rather continue the way we've been going through Episode III at least after that I dunno anything's possible we'll look into, I'd like to hear people's opinions, to be honest. Like, what would they think of an item of the month, y'know? Do they think it's silly? Do they think it's fun?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Y-you know my idea that I suggested, a while ago.
Evil Trout: Which would be?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Peen-of-the-Month Club? {laughs}
Evil Trout: The Peen-of-the-Month yeah. You're bu-you're not buying an advantage, you're just buying-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: A Peen!
Evil Trout: Peen.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Al-
Evil Trout: But you can argue the leaderboard, the Peen leaderboard and Catt although has an impressively long Peen looking at it right here it's 23 inches.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: {whistles}
Evil Trout: Y'know like, it y'know I think it kinda sucks sometimes when you play a game where it's like, where you're working really hard at it and then someone who's y'know just spent 100 bucks is competing with you. I mean you can I dunno. It's, it's a bit weird. I have mixed feelings on the whole thing.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Mhmm.
Evil Trout: And uh-You don't want to **** off all these people who've spent all this time playing your game for so long. You know how I said I'm just thinking aloud here, earlier I said it's normal for games to get cheaper as time goes on and like Episode II will be cheaper in some form whether it's a package deal or discounted price or something like that. But uh, I'd be more open to letting people grind their way into the content once it's been around for a while. Y'know?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Mmm.
Evil Trout: 'cause it's just, that's just the way game economics tend to work. So. {paper flipping}
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Uh he also asks, "what's next for the site?" which is kind of uh whooh
Evil Trout: Yeah. Big one.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: And uh uh I don't think we should tackle that right now.
Evil Trout: I eh, well part of it is that we don't really know, right? Like uh...
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah.
Evil Trout: If at-if people continue to like the site and continue to support it then the site will stay orer will continue to evolve. It's really uh, it's a really a function of the community. And if it makes you know, as long as we can do it we will. Y'know.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Mmhm. Crinkzpipe: You happy with what Forumwarz has become?
Evil Trout: I'm, I'm tremendously proud of it like, especially like it's so you know when your're a computer/programmer/developer like I am it's like your job is someone comes to you with a specification or an idea and you make that idea concrete. And it's, it's, it's really difficult to think very far in the future. Because there's so many factors that can come into play whether it's like economical audience and stuff, things like that y'know and like from Forumwarz was initially my idea, it was something I just thought up one day and I thought hey this is a kind of neat idea and I, I introduced it to JB and BINGEBOT later and stuff like that. And it's, it's I wanted it to become a big site, y'know. Like the size it is now. Like, I think, I would have been really happy if it was a fraction of the size that it is now. And uh.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Mmm.
Evil Trout: It like, it's it was really interesting in the early days when I had the idea and I would tell people about it and like I would often just get these blank stares. Like-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Heh.
Evil Trout: What are you talking about? That's a stupid idea. Why would you ever do that? Why would you even consider quitting your job to work on that? Which is what I did. And it's like, y'know like I, I'm pretty active in the Ruby community in Toronto and like I would meet all these people and they'd be like yeah, I'm working on like Facebook, but for students. Y'know.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Hah!
Evil Trout: But that's, that's kind of the idea-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: For dogs! Yeah.
Evil Trout: So it's like and then, they'd be like you're working on a game, what? Like, and I was kind of worried about if at first 'cause I'm like what if nobody plays this 'cause it's like it was the kind of game, I've always loved games like this y'know. JB, we were talking about this the other week, we liked the game Saints Row a lot on the X-Box. And I just recently beat Saints Row II and thematically our game has a lot in common with that. Kind of, y'know the made up fake brands. And the fake universe. And the role-playing of someone in the real world. Now in Saints Row you're a gangaster, so it's a little different.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Well in real-life I am a gangaster. So.
Evil Trout: That's true. And then I always loved Jones in the Fast Lane and stuff like that. When you-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yup.
Evil Trout: Where you played an actual person and again in this world of parody so...I always loved games like this and I knew there was an audience for it I just didn't know how big it would be. And I think like, like you said you talked about the early days like when we first launched the SomethingAwful goonds and we got like, so many people playing it I was like "wow" like, this is really like catching on. And then seeing it grow through the over time to the point where basically we have 200,000 accounts, y'know it's uh, it's it's a big deal y'know and uh I-I'm really happy that I was able to , y'know contribute my part to bring it from that to here and I couldn't have done it without all these people obviously, but yeah...so like...
Evil Trout: But yeah so, like, I am very happy with what it's become I mean there's aspects of it that need improvement, we talked about that earlier. But, I mean I'd highly recommend to anyone listening right now who has an idea or wants to create something to, y'know, do it 'cause like it'll, it feels really cool when people send you emails saying "wow I love your game, your game is hilarious!" and things like that.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Mhmm. Yeah it is, like it's I never really stopped to reflect on it, uh I mean because I don't work on most of the aspects of it I just look at the small picture. But at the same time uh I'm always like kinda thinking ahead what's the next thing we gotta do what's next.
Evil Trout: Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Improvement. What's the Content launch. So it, I'm not resting on my laurels and neither is ET.
Evil Trout: No.
Jalapeno Bootyhole/Evil Trout: It's still-
Evil Trout: It's still a lot of work. Y'know? Requires lot of uh poking and proding and feeling around.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: That's what she said.
Evil Trout: We've also met, we've also met a lot of cool people. To do-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah!
Evil Trout: Recently. To have people like, Y'know I always had friends on the internet before on forums or when I ran blogs nd things like that, but like there's a lot of people here, and there's a lot of people who know who we are and it's it's fun y'know, a lot of the apprentices we hang out in IRC a lot.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: They're really good, they're good people. Uh-
Evil Trout: Yeah!
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Uh I hope I stay in touch with them-
Evil Trout: Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: For the rest of my natural life. Because like I-
Evil Trout: You would.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I would always want their feedback. Or advice on anything I was doing and appreciate getting it from each other as well.
Evil Trout: And we were ablt to attract them from our audience. We-we built this game and we're like, this is the kind of sense of humour we have and the kind of universe we're building and people came to it and we y'know we met them through that. Or we would have, who knows how we could have met these people any other way y'know.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: That's true. And as far as I know, there are a few love connections that have been made on Forumwarz. That's-
Evil Trout: Yeah that's also cool to think that-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Heh.
Evil Trout: We directly resulted in people getting laid! Y'know?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: That's-I think I'm more proud of that than anything else.
Evil Trout: {laughs} But you've introduced friends and they've gotten laid. Y'know, like, in a way I introduced you and your girlfriend.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: That's true. I owe you big for-
Evil Trout: So. Everytime. Everytime you have s-are intimate, and I bumume you are, you should think of me.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I pretty much...do call your name out.
Evil Trout: That's true.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Hah hah hah...Um, so how-
Evil Trout: How much hate mail do we recieve? You know not, not that much. It, I do get it, and I get emails from upset players but it's not too much.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: I get disappointingly little. Ah, but then I think it's more like hate posts in Flamebait.
Evil Trout: Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: So I can actually just kind of "do not subscribe" to.
Evil Trout: Well
Jalapeno Bootyhole: My own hatemail.
Evil Trout: We've talked about like uh, gamers in pbumion, people are really pbumionate about games like this, so like sometimes little changes **** them off. We get a lot of nasty comments and stuff like that but in a way it means that they care, because if they didn't give a **** they would stop, they would just stop playing the game and go away. But the fact that they care to vent and stuff like that means that they want the game to be better. Some are just bumholes though.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: {fgsfds} Hah hah hah...Yeah, but uh I find like for the most part, when its, it comes to one-on-one communication it's shockingly civil. Uh, it's kind of nice to know that it's for the most part I think our players and us we all see eye-to-eye on things.
It's weird like because I remember recently, y'know having a civil conversation with the user fine upstanding member of societymale reproductive organ, and-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: {laughs}
Evil Trout: It's like you see this guy's, you see this guy's name fine upstanding member of societymale reproductive organ in all uppercase letters with a hyphen in it and it's like, y'know and when you talk to more than one it's like totally normal and it's like discussing game related issues and I was like "this is kind of weird" y'know.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah that's a thing it's like you can pick a name and an avatar but it actually says so little about-
Evil Trout: Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Who you are as a person. And I think that's part of the fun.
Evil Trout: Uhh...let's see...there's more suggestions. How do you plan to keep the community energized, entertained after the release of Episode III? Meee...I think we talked about this. We have plans for other games. We have um I mean, the thing is for my schedule, the next while is to complete Episode III and to help Episode III get through testing and to launch Episode III. And I think Fran asked this before and I skipped ahead of it is like will, how long will it be before I leave my {fgsfds} after Episode II launched there was a lot of tweaks that needed to be made. Um, even with, even with a good testing thing there's going to be little things that need to be tweaked afterwards and I have to see that through so it's gonna take a while before we can actually sit and say y'know what's going to come up next. But, because of our awesome user-base and just like the amount of brainstorming we've done period, like we have so many ideas. So, it's not an issue of "well, that's all we have to do". It's an issue of "what are we going to do next". And that's kind of fun.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah. If, if all of the uh bug fixes that we have in mine were implemented tomorrow there would still be a hundred things we could do. Enhancements we could do. Just to make things more interesting. Or just, better for the players.
Evil Trout: So...Afterthotz asks will the clbum of items such as accessories, rings, and keys become a different repository for Episode III junk or will they actually evolve into other equippable items?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Hooh...how did you know that those clbumes exist?
Evil Trout: I think they're, I think through Kyoubai! you can search-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Ahh...
Evil Trout: Basic clbumes. You know what I think, ah it's safe to say one of those will be an actually Equippable in Episode III.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Um, yeah I can't, I don't know which one {laughs}
Evil Trout: Well, I though Accessories. Actually. There I've said it.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Oh.
Evil Trout: I though, I thought looking through the items Accessories were supposed to be equippable.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Oh yeah! Okay, there you go.
Evil Trout: So uh, yeah. I mean we, our database of items is pretty complicated. You know like it's, 'cause items not only have a player clbum that they are bumociated with (a primary one) they have a clbum of item-which could be like Special or Hardware or whatever-they also have a usage (is it rare?). Uh, sorry that's uh, they have a rarity which is like "is it rare, is it common?" and they have a usage which is like "is it equippable, quest" y'know Junk and stuff like that. So items actually are categorized in many different ways and the admin search is really complicated like to find the item you want to edit is uh, takes a little bit to look around I think.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Um, okay, um. Protivate.
Evil Trout: Uh...how's Protivate sold? I guess we can be honest. Not that well. It was kind of an interesting experiment. Um, we got on some Top 50 lists for sales and downloads especially of the light version and stuff like that but uh, no it hasn't been, hasn't been selling super-well. Having said that we're not doing too much to market it. And uh, I don't, I don't know what else to really try at this point. Ah, that we could do easily. I mean I've emailed review keys to pretty much every iPhone review site and none of them do it because there's like 50,000 apps in the app store and hundreds get release everyday and everybody wants a piece of it so it's a bit of a saturated market. Um, it was a fun experience to learn how it works. Um, I did it mostly because one of our users, uh contacted me saying he was interested in doing it. We worked back and forth. Uh, but the experience was fun, but I'm not sure it's going to be a hugely profitable thing at this point unless we can figure out a cool way to market it and get the word out.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Right, which. And we have no idea how we would do that. But it's, it's something that has to be done and like you said one of our users basically volunteered his time in order to get this app out so it wasn't a big deal for us to make that, that move and it didn't-
Evil Trout: And it didn't, it didn't cost us very much, let's put it that way, to do it.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: And even if it didn't earn us a cent, I can tell you that the INCIT reform that we've instituted-
Evil Trout: As a result.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: [we'd have] still had gone through. And I don't regret it.
Evil Trout: Yeah. I think, I don't, I-I hardly ever regret learning everything and it was really fun to familiarze with the platform so now that like if you wanted to do another app or someone asked we make a Forumwarz one which we're not doing now but y'know the possibility's there for other future Crotch Zombie projects and now I have a better idea of what's involved with that platform. And dealing with Apple and things like that. So.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yep.
Evil Trout: Got another clbum, we're reporting it-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: -critical hits. Subforums? There are subforums, quite a few subforums and boss threads in Episode III.
Evil Trout: Yeah.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Ah, no it's not threadconstructr's not going to be a subforum of Lamebait.
Evil Trout: It's a different forum altogether. Will we get a second shot at WoeIsModerator? Uh, if you had a lukewarm result? No? I mean it's not a core storyline thing that'll have a major effect on how things turn out. Uh-I guess it's one of those things in an RPG that if you wanted to have another shot you have to play the game again unfortunately. It wouldn't make sense, I mean depending on some of the endings I mean I don't want to spoil it too much if you didn't get those endings but like, you can't reverse some of the things that happened to what you do in that chat so it wouldn't make sense to have a second shot.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: "What new levels will you learn new abilities?" We probably don't know that yet.
Evil Trout: I don't know, but at regular intervals in having sixty-nine levels means that you will probably gain I mean when there's ten levels you gain abilities pretty frequently, when there's {yawn} thirty-five less so. So I think with Episode III you'll even see that it's, there might be a little more of stretches unfortunately between gaining new abilities but I hope it's worth it for when you gain that cool new attack.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: We, we did create a lot and I-I think it's going to be similar to Episode II's uh, the way it's staggered.
Evil Trout: {fgsfds}
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Okay. dobnits now has the last question. You know dobnits?
Evil Trout: Yeah, I've heard of dobnits before.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: So you said on many occbumions Episode III will end this arc, [will you] consider making a new arc in the foreseeable future?
Evil Trout: Well, well then we talked, we kind of talked about this but-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Mhmm.
Evil Trout: Uh, yeah it all depends on how well Episode III is resolved. Uh, recieved.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah.
Evil Trout: I mean, I don't, I don't know if I've directly said this but back in the day like if Episode II had been a huge failure like we would have probably put Episode III out but it would have been a fraction of the size and it would have just been like y'know a way to resolve things. It's like, if Episode III hadn't sold as well as it did, then like, sorry if Episode II hadn't sold as well as it did we-we wouldn't have the cool Episode III that we're launching now. So I think that that's probably also true for the future.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah.
Evil Trout: Like if, if the game, if Episode III does well, we will add more to this universe. Now like I said the question is how is it going to work? Because uh, I have different ideas, you know like, part of me thinks it would be cool to like create another character but then other people like, they get attatched to their character they've built up all this time. So I dunno if I'm fully comfortable with that, but there's like because our universe is the internet, you know there's so many stories and so many ways we can go about doing things, that it's, it's basically unlimited creative license. And like so there's no, there won't be a problem coming up with a new story arc or integrating a new story arc to the world it's just an issue of how will it work with gameplay and things like that.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yep. So as you can tell that we have a few ideas but we haven't actually come up with an arc. And, that can be seen as a good or bad thing like, I-I won't make or try to come up with a story arc for the sake of doing it. If something, i-inspires us and we think it's a really good story, and we think people would be interested in taking part in it we will do it. And I think we definitely have that ability. But for now, why don't we just keep it open ended?
Evil Trout: Yeah. With i-, with Episode, with the first time I came up with a storyline I remember this, we, we definitely had the idea for the Forumwarz universe before we had a story. Like we had been, we had been plotting out how Forumwarz was gonna work-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Right.
Evil Trout: Well before we knew exactly what the story was going to be. And like I came up with the storyline, and you, you came up with you refined it, you came up with how it integrates together, so it's like certainly doable again. And uh, I hope people like the storyline. Y'know 'cause it's like it's really interesting to me. It'll be a cool relief when uh, when it's done to have people finally see how it ends.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Mhmm.
Evil Trout: It's like Episode I it, like, it'll be interesting because when you've done Episode III you can go back and think, maybe I'll play through Episode I again or something like that. And you'll see that uh, we definitely hint at the way the storyline's going, it's just not very obvious, and Episode II we really start to get the storyline moving, and in Episode III it concludes and stuff like that. So I'll really be curious to see how well it's recieved overall as the story arc goes.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Yeah. I me-I hope they won't be ****ed off to find out that it's all a dream.
Evil Trout: {claps} Yeah, exact
ly.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: That's all.
Evil Trout: I don't think we've resorted to any cheap story devices and things like that. But uh, so uh, yeah, it's curious because yeah, I've seen people guessing and speculating on what the storyline is and uh, like with anything else no-one's quite figured it out. It-it'll be interesting-
Jalapeno Bootyhole: For sure.
Evil Trout: I want-I'm curious to see what, what, how people will react.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: And with that we have pretty much covered everything, so uh.
Evil Trout: Alright. But uh, thanks for listening and thanks for all your questions. I hope you guys have a better idea of how Forumwarz works behind the scenes and what to expect with Episode III.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Unban ghax.
Evil Trout: {laughs} unban ghax? Yeah, he, he didn't deserve that, did he?
Jalapeno Bootyhole: HAH HAH! No. None of them did.
Evil Trout: Hmph! Okay. Well uh, I'd like to dedicate this podcast to MC Banhammer. Our recently lost mod.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Pour some liquour out.
Evil Trout: Yeah uh, for all his hard work over the years. And I'm sure he'll be beta-testing if not playing through Episode III with everybody else. Take it easy everyone.
Jalapeno Bootyhole: Bye!
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