WTF @ TFW - 227 - November 23 2012

Discussion in 'WTF @ TFW Transformers Podcast' started by Vangelus, Nov 27, 2012.

  1. Vangelus

    Vangelus Long Live the New Flesh Moderator Content Contributor

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    WTF @ TFW - 227 - November 23 2012

    [​IMG]

    Vangelus says "Emiliano Santalucia" a lot, GogDog is high on Thundertron, and Seth's got a pile of Caesar on this week's episode of Won Ton Fruit At Trans Formers World Two Thousand and Five.

    00:00:00 - Opening
    00:01:02 - Intro
    00:08:41 - Aligned Continuity Sideswipe Design
    00:16:17 - Thundertron Concept Art
    00:28:59 - New Pic Picks
    00:55:03 - No Future DLC Planned for FOC
    01:14:19 - Hotline Voicemail from Gojira Prime
    01:37:02 - Listener Question from Wingnut
    01:46:53 - Intermission
    01:47:08 - What We Got This Week
    02:27:21 - Why Rider Pathos is Awesome This Week
    03:28:46 - Ending and Outro

    Want to leave an audio listener question outside of Youtube or Private Messages? Call our WTF Hotline! These questions may be answered in recordings outside of numbered episodes, but feel free to mention your preference if it really matters to you.

    That number is...
    (318) 775-9830 or (318) 775-WTF0

    iTunes users - You can subscribe to and review the podcast here:
    iTunes Store

    Zune users - You can subscribe here:

    zune://subscribe/?WTF@TFW=http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/external.php?type=rss2&forumids=404

    The RSS feed which includes a media link for the m4a file is:

    WTF @ TFW Transformers Podcast - TFW2005.com

    And if you want an MP3 version, it's linked below:
    http://www.tfw2005.net/podcast/WTF_TFW2005_-_227_-_November_23_2012.mp3
     
  2. GogDog

    GogDog Logic's wayward son Veteran

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    Wow, this was fast. Good job, Vangelus!
     
  3. Baltan

    Baltan Space Ninja

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    Vangelus always gets those odd-team podcasts out so fast. I don't know how he does it.
     
  4. excelhedge

    excelhedge Overseer of Weird

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    He Doesn't sleep.....
     
  5. Noizemaze

    Noizemaze Noisemaze Collector

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    If only we knew how the editing was done so quickly to allow for such a speedy upload.
     
  6. Anti Spark

    Anti Spark It'S DUB Or Nothing!

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    Excellent! True very fast!
     
  7. Baltan

    Baltan Space Ninja

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    It's like he has help... or something. Hmm.
     
  8. Heat Guy

    Heat Guy Well-Known Member

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    Dang, now I want Thundertron.
     
  9. SoundMaster

    SoundMaster Likes RID Bulkhead.

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    I think IGear Manatee is supposed to be Reveal The Shield Deep Dive.
     
  10. Noizemaze

    Noizemaze Noisemaze Collector

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    Intermission was the best.
     
  11. Armoredfoe

    Armoredfoe Active Member

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    Listening now :) 
     
  12. Silent_Magnus

    Silent_Magnus Taint of Primus

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    We actually have gotten another piece of Aligned continuity artwork, besides the 13 stuff you guys see at Botcon, thanks to that "Transformers Vault" book that came out awhile ago.
    [​IMG]
     
  13. GogDog

    GogDog Logic's wayward son Veteran

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    I meant to mention the obvious OG13 but I forgot, then I assumed that went without saying.

    I have The Vault but haven't really read it. :lol 
     
  14. Tsali

    Tsali New Member

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    I hate 'I listen to everything' so much. Anytime someone says that to me I ask them for their opinion on Brazilian crooning. That usually gets my point across.

    I really appreciate the dissenting opinion on the Prime episodes. I too am slowly falling out of love with Prime, but there is still a lot a like about it. I'm all for hearing about aspects of the franchise you guys dislike, because you guys are always reasonable and level-headed, and Transformers fans are not usually known for being civil about things they hate (or love). I think a discussion between people who like and dislike things are fine for podcasts as long as someone doesn't go full on heel announcer.

    I've never commented on one of your podcasts before, but I've been listening for years. Keep up the great work!
     
  15. Rodentus prime

    Rodentus prime Old Git

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    I prefer Inuit throat singing.
     
  16. Rexidus

    Rexidus Autobot

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    I'm currently listening to it right now and you guys brought up Fall of Cybertron's end of support. I'm very glad you guys are level headed enough to not be upset about it. I've had to start avoiding the video game forum because it just pushes my buttons with all the rage going on.

    But if you want to know some of things about the game, I can shed some light. If you don't want to know or don't care about the behind the scenes stuff at game developers you can go ahead and just stop reading this probably sizable post. I won't take offense to it.

    It was mentioned something to the effect that Hasbro was paying High Moon for the game (or something along those lines). That actually isn't the case. It's Activision who owns the license for Transformers video games. They looked at the developers they own and game High Moon the task of making the game. Activision is High Moon's boss; what they say goes. Granted this was fine with High Moon, in fact it is completely plausible they asked to do it, but ultimately it was Activision's decision to have High Moon do it.

    It was also Activision who decided the budget. One of the key things in game development is cost vs reward. Everything costs something to make, time, money, man power, what ever. That is weighed against how it will impact the game. If it isn't a big enough boon to the game, it gets cut. Bungie and Halo are an exception to the norm. Halo has tens of thousands of players playing daily years after release. They can release a bunch of maps that have to be downloaded because even if it does split the player base, that split player base is still large enough that a players experience isn't negatively impacted. In Halo 3, they had separate playlists for DLC maps. Having prohibitive content in games, like maps, does split the player base. But Halo and Call of Duty have so many players that that isn't an issue. Fall of Cybertron can't do that. As you guys said, if you don't have the DLC map, you are unable to play a game that uses it. So in order to keep their smaller player count united, they decided not to release DLC maps. Now a bunch of people are pissed that there is DLC locked on the disk; specifically characters. The reason characters are on disk is one of practicality. When your system is told it has to display OPTIMUSTRON1337 using a specific list of pieces, your system needs to have those pieces available to draw it. If it doesn't then OPTIMUSTRON1337 would fail to be displayed. Most games have a fail safe for such a situation that would simply display him with default pieces (what ever High Moon decides is default). But if OPTIMUSTRON1337 paid for his Dinobot pack but he's being seen as Warpath; that kind of defeats the purpose of having character customization. So you need to have a way for people without the DLC to be able to at least display it. You either include it on the disk or you require a download. Microsoft charges I think $10,000 for required downloads; ie stuff they have to have a hand in. High Moon can make balance changes for free because you log onto their servers and they can change the values of weapons (like damage) there. In order to download something for the game, you HAVE to go through Microsoft, Sony, or Steam respectively. Steam might or might not have a similar cost and I would bet they do. I'm almost positive Sony does as well. So for games of this tier you have to have it on the disk. Also, remember that this is Activision who decides this. They write the checks so it likely they told High Moon to have 3 DLC packs for the game and to include the content on the disk. FOC likely cost $20-30 million to make. It would be lucky if it made that back. DLC has been a fantastic way for games to make more money and recoup those losses. Some times it is done to simply milk the customer, yes. But some times it is just done to try and make the game profitable.

    Now as for the excuse that they cannot add any more colors because of hardware limitations... I'm not knowledgeable enough to say it's BS or it's truth. I'll raise my eyebrow at it but I trust High Moon to be honest.

    And finally I wanted to bring up the size of the teams they have at High Moon. I would guess High Moon has around 60 people working on a game. In fact, it could even be 30. Bungie used 100-200 for Halo reach. But the thing to remember is, not all of those people need to be on the game all the time. When the artists get done with Fall of Cybertron they can be moved over to Deadpool. They would have nothing to do if they stayed on FoC. Were I to guess, I'd say High Moon was making WFC with 60-ish people and as it was wrapping up 20 of those went to work on the DOTM game. Those guys were likely joined by another 20 maybe new hires. The 40 left from WFC started on FOC and possibly brought on another 20. As people finished up DOTM they started working on Deadpool. Now that FOC is done, they probably let a number of people go and the core team has moved to Deadpool. I also wouldn't be surprised if 10-ish people were starting to work in the 3rd Cybertron game. Really in game development resources, and by that I mean people mostly, gets shifted around a lot.

    I hope I shed some light onto some of the why's of Fall of Cybertron's design decisions. I won't claim my statements are 100% infallible truth. I have some knowledge of how things work behind the scenes at game developers but there is so much variation that nothing definitive can ever be guessed.
     
  17. updatedude

    updatedude Well-Known Member

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    Just listened up to the finishing up of the first listener question, and I'd like to throw in that the fact that you guys are positive is totally a major reason why I've stuck with this show for so long and I'm still excited when new episodes come up.

    A little cynicism in shows is fine, and in fact, adds some "spice" to it. But there's an invisible line that when crossed, turns cynicism into bitchin' & moanin'.

    WTF@TFW has a good balance. You guys are generally positive, but when something is blatantly bad... like if the face of a toy is undeniably derpy, then yeah, you guys call it out for it or playfully mock it. Heck, sometimes the mocking makes the toy suddenly desirable.

    Conversely, and I intend no "trolling" or undue offense... the "second season" of Prime Time... well... I've downloaded every episode, but toward the end, I've only been skimming (usually to reach Aaron's bits), and outside the first few minutes, I have still not listened to the final podcast. Again, I mean no offense, but it just ain't my cup of tea anymore.

    I find that to me, the show not only focuses on the bad parts of an episode or the good parts in a negative light, but that you guys tend not to talk about any cool parts of a given episode as much anymore. And I admit that I don't necessarily agree with all your criticisms of the show either. Primarily, I don't think it's a sign of "bad writing" when the writers don't go in a direction that we the audience expected them to go.

    Apologies for any offense. I hope it'll be taken as constructive feedback.

    With season 3 of Prime being quite a ways off, I hope that when the show returns and you guys hopefully continuing Prime Time, the long break would allow you guys to be more enthusiastic for the source material (although if season 3 sucks, then it sucks y'know?).

    Enthusiasm breeds enthusiasm, when you guys are happy with the subject matter, it makes listening to you guys a happy experience. Take your BayMovieverse "bashing" for instance. Sure you bashed it, but in a way where you're "happy". As a result, it's fun to listen even when you're being "negative" about it.

    Anyways, that's it. Good show so far.
     
  18. guard convoy

    guard convoy The Big Daddy

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    Here is some pictures to show a microman female with an Alternity Convoy

    This proves someone actually bought the Dai Atlas :lol  who I still love even if I wished he had a new head

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
  19. Hosta

    Hosta Banned

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    forget the podcast! i'd rather have that pie that's in the picture at the start of the thread:p 
     
  20. MovieGodOptimus

    MovieGodOptimus Well-Known Member

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    Damn... Now I want Thundertron... but I'll get the Leo Prime version... Pirate Prime with Moon turning into a sword... is... SO AWESOME!