#13 - RIOT MMO World PvP, Helldivers, Player Housing, Bandle Tale, & MORE!

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Hello and welcome to the creaking saltsoap tables of the brazenhydro pub in Bilgewater.We're your hosts and Grove and Conquestand today we'll be sharing apint and talking all thingsRuneterra and beyond. And so there's acouple of things we'regoing to talk about today.I think, uh, I don't know if anyone'sheard of Helldivers. I'mpretty sure you have, uh,most people have. We're going to talkabout what this could mean for the riotteam in the riot MMObecause I think they're looking right.There's no way they'reputting on the blinders. They'relooking at what's going on in the market.They're looking at world ofWarcraft, which, uh, I'm not,I'm really not following too muchanymore. And we'll talk a little bitabout riot games, action,art RPG, which might include thesefeatures and more in terms ofmultiplayer and third person.And so that's something we woulddefinitely want to talk about.We'll talk about the right ofMo in general and just kind of go on atangent. But the firstthing that I want to talk abouta little bit is Helldivers. You've heardof Helldivers, right? Conquest.I have. I have heard about Helldivers alittle bit. I haven'tlooked too much into it myselfbecause I'm not a shooter type of guy forthe most part, but it's kindof hard not to hear about itat this point. It's really blown up. It'sdefinitely a unique, uh, game of its ownthat we've never seenbefore. It's really, really cool. Yeah.So a little bit about Helldivers foranyone who's not in theloop. Helldivers is basically this gamewhere you, you have your ship and youkind of fly around todifferent planets and there's not factit's not like separate factions.Everyone's on the sameteam, but you're out pushing these worldsand you're fightingagainst AI. So there's differentkinds of AIs. There's like the aliens andthen there's the robotsand they kind of are pushingback and people have to work together topush back these, thesepeople, these like, whateverthey are, aliens or robots, it dependsand push them back and kindof take over these outsideplanets. But it feels like almost like anopen world thing. Andthere's two things that I wantto touch on. One is the feeling of playerhousing in that they havetheir ship where they're kindof traveling around and two, the openworld, like battling feelingthat they're getting from thisgame where everyone feels like they're onthe same side and you're advancingtogether. And there'slike that sense of camaraderie andadvancement and the ever changing world,right? Cause the worldis changing based on what the players do.If players aren't doinganything, then the enemy'sadvancing. And if you're doing something,you have to likecoordinate a little bit more and,and push into harder and harder planets.Yeah. So I feel like theRiot team should definitelylook at that and try to incorporate somepieces of it into theright amount because it's, it'ssuccessful and it's just for a reason. Icompletely agree. It's, it'sone of those things where we'vebeen talking about it for a while. Theidea of not being afraid toforce the player out of theircomfort zone. I definitely think that'swhat hell divers doesand why it's so successfulis that it's a pretty merciless game,right? You can loseterritory that you just can't be inanymore. And same with the idea ofgaining territory andexploring like new places thatyou're never really used to. So helldivers comes off this ideathat like, it's not really,it's not putting the player first in allof the right ways, youknow? And I wish more MMOs didthat. This should not be a free, man. Weneed to go back totheir images today too.Oh, we do. That's the main thing in helldivers is you are like,you're not master chief,you know, you're, you're just a, you're,you're a soldier, youknow, you're just a Spartan.That's it. It feelsvery, very Halo reachy.Halo reach, like, yeah, you're a Spartan,but guess what everyone else is. So like,everyone's dying. So it's not reallyworking out for you.Yeah. And it's like these communitydriven missions. And Ireally feel like you need that,especially in a memo. And I'm not surehow they, I mean, you couldhave, I don't want to see itjust be events and very narrated events.I'll say this, if I don'tplay really well anymore,but I played, what was it? It was battlefor Azeroth and they had the,where you're fighting against AI as ateam, but you're fighting against the,you know, I'm talking about war fronts,war fronts. What an almost exact,it's, it's very similar in conceptthough, when you think aboutit, right? Because they haveterritories, you're working as a team.There's no one else. You'repushing these territories andthe farther you push the harder it gets.And you're trying to getto this last, you know,trying to get to like even farther in,right? And you could dodifferent stuff to help advance andall this. And I usually like people whoare a bit stronger, arekind of leading and everything.It's very similar in concept, but one isdone extremely well andthe other is done extremelybad. Yeah, I'm going to be honest beforeHelllivers, I didn't think that likeplayer versus AI could bethis like dynamic to a point where you,the player get reallyinvested in holding your groundand pushing territories and things likethat outside of like,like, like, like, like a singleplayer experience, like, like some kindof RTS, you know? But yeah,in this case, it shows thatyou can have like, this is kind of like ahalf MMO going on here, where theycompletely put out anykind of PvP. It's purely PvE, but youstill have all those PvP concepts of, ofan MMO and world PvP.And I think it's really taken to like theextreme, just minus theother players. It's super cool.I would love if they did something likethat with like, howWorld of Warcraft screwed upwar fronts. But can you imagine if warfronts were actually like,like, yeah, like this time,the Horde won more war fronts or like gotlike a higher score overallthan the Alliance and theirwar fronts. So now this zone just belongsto the Horde. The Hordehas quests here. The Alliancedoesn't. They kind of did that with warfronts, but not nearlyenough. Yeah, like it was there,but barely like you got like two questsand they weren't worth doing.Do you think it's the instanced aspect ofit? By instance, I meanlike, you know, there,yeah, you're inside this little bubblethat it's happening in and it's notactually affecting theworld, even though I understand itaffects the world and thatyou control the war front andwhen you can do quests there or whatever.But it's not doesn't reallyfeel like you're in the worldanymore. You know, you're in an instancedevent. Dude, honestly,yeah, I see what you mean,because if we look at it, because thatalready was a thingthat was in WoW Classic,where, you know, if the Alliance is ontop of this town, killingall the quest givers and spawnkilling the flight path guy, you're notgoing to be able to questthere. I guess a Horde player.Yeah, you can't do the quests. TheAlliance are going to spawn camp yourcorpse and they're goingto kill the quest givers. But if theHorde reclaim it, like,you know, they fight back,they kill the Alliance players in thattown. Now you can questthere again. It was literallythat simple. It wasn't even like Ibelieve it was intentional, right?Because like they could havemade invincible NPCs, but they didn't.They made quest givers killable andstuff. And I love thatbecause, yeah, it created that organicexperience. I think war fronts weretrying to do, but didn'twork. That organic feeling of takingterritory and losingterritory. It was literally justtrusting in the players to do that forthem. They did not have to manage Jackto make some really amazing, like fightsover territory. Ithought that was awesome.But the thing is, I'm going to be honest,I think these implications could be huge.Go ahead and continue. I agree. I wasgoing to say, like, thething is that always leads topeople complaining, right? That like, oh,I want a quest. I can'tquest. These guys are killing me.Oh, no. And now with their corpse campingme, it's like, dude, I don't knowsomething about that.We're total masochists about this kind ofstuff because I think it's so cool.Like I would just leave at that point,right? Like if I can't gethorde to gather up and fightagainst, you know, the Alliance takingover the town, I'm just goingto leave and go do somethingelse. But people get really mad aboutthat kind of stuff where if you get inthe way of their singleplayer experience. Yeah, you're right. Ithink it's I think it's avery loud. I know people justI think people in general don't do notlike world PvP in thatsense, taking over territories.But then you look at helldivers and itworked out great. So like, it'sinteresting. Maybe justbecause in helldivers, you know whatyou're getting yourselfinto compared to an MMO.It might not be everyone's first priorityto, you know, fight forfight for your continent,fight for land that might not well, youknow, people have in mindwhen they go into a gamelike World of Warcraft compared tohelldivers are prepared tolose land and take it back.And the game's kind of made around that.Right. So it's not asfrustrating for some people.You could isolate it, though, like itdoesn't have to be all ofRuneterra is constantly likeNoxus and Demacia and they're constantlybad. I don't think thatneeds to be that you couldisolate it to like a cathea, you know,where the void is where, OK, in thatarea, it's a constantbattle and a constant war. And it'salmost like I'm pretty much likehelldivers where you'readvancing and you push, you can gainresources or whatever. And you have youhave your little basesthat you can build out and then you coulddo the same thing in theFroyard. There are other exampleswhere it doesn't really matter, but Ilike to imagine like what'shappening in Song of Nunu,the corrupted ice. Right. You can workwith that however you want.The watchers seeping out and allthat kind of stuff. Yeah, but it wouldneed to affect it would needto be in the world. It can'tbe. Yeah. I wonder if they're going to dothat. Are they going to youthink they'll have instancecontent? There's an example of an MMO newworld that doesn't haveinstance content at all, right?Yeah, yeah. Even the dungeons in NewWorld are notinstanced. I remember, right?But but I don't know. I mean,the thing is like that's kind of toughand not like non-instancedungeons. But then again,I'm always thinking about the traditionalsense of MMO. We don't knowwhat that's even going to beyet. But I always think like in thetraditional sense, I guessit would kind of suck if like,let's say some more like like of anorganic MMO where youactually have to gather your groupget to that dungeon and, you know, getgoing with it with your full group.If I go in there and everything's alreadydead, I'd be kind of annoyed.I mean, you just like sit there and waitit out or go do a differentdungeon, you know, but why?Like why not just have it instanced inthat case? Because I justdon't see like the benefit of itnot being instanced, you know, like Idon't see the same stories.Hmm. Set stories should beinstanced where it's like a set dungeonis a very set story. Youknow, there's a linear path.You're kind of going through it. Nowthey're all linear, butmost of them are pretty linearand story. And it's like a story thatyou're experiencing. Icould see that being instant.I would like to see something that'snon-instance, especially I don't thinkthere's going to be thatthe faction divide in Runeterra. Yeah,it's out happening. Andthere's not going to be,yeah, there's not going to be a horde andalliance kind of thing.There'll be some like,I think there's still be that that prideof like where you'refrom. And there'll be somefactors that affect you because of that.For example, if youcreated a Democian character,you cannot be a Noxus. But I want to seelike something in theworld that's alive that playerscan affect. I feel like Helldivers did itreally well where, youknow, you actually are makingchanges and then and then they canemulate that in some areas withinRuneterra. You can do thatwith the Shadow Isles, where there's anisland, there's likeparts of Bilgewater that areconstantly having whatever hero wings. InIcathea, you can befighting the voidlings.And for all your, like you were talkingabout the corrupted dark iceanimals and stuff like that.In Demacia, you could befighting the mage seekers.Yeah, as a Noxian, dude,get in there. Yeah. Yeah.There has to be some change in the world.Dude, yeah, I know. And the thing is, Ifeel like the more we talk aboutDemacia and Noxus, the more I wonder ifit's like, like, yeah, like, what if,what if they go the really soft route?That would bother me somuch. Where if you're Demacian,you go into Noxus. Technically, you cango into Noxus, but just likeNPCs have different dialoguefor hating you or something. I feel likeI wouldn't besurprised if they do somethinglike that. And it would upset me verymuch. I want to be talkingabout like how you're thewhen you make a death knight, you know,you walk through yourmain city and like you'rejust walking through. Everyone's like,you're no one likes you.Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would justbe like that. I can see them doing that.And I would not like it. Ihope they don't go too softin terms of Demacia Noxus and how theyinteract in the open world.Yeah, I would like not to see thateither. Yeah. And I thinkif you're there's certainthings we take over territories, I wouldlove that. Yeah. But Idon't know how possible that is.It depends how big I feellike we we're limiting our scopeto the technology that we know, which isfrom the games that we've played.That's true. If youmake a server big enough,you can have that Demacia Noxus conflict,along with all this otherstuff, all going on withinthe same world. The thing that theproblem is, like we'resaying, okay, all this we want, likethe hell divers type thing going on inthe catheter and thefroyard and we want the NoxusDemacia battle going on. And we want, youknow, everyone's. Yeah.And I also want Aurelion Solconstantly looming over Shurima. I justwant him to be like, youknow, 4K ultra particle effectsconstantly going off. Please just anentire galaxy in his hand. Yeah, yeah.No, I want him to be likea full 3D model rendered. Yeah. Please.And like you can turn thegraphics down to like one,you know, for like your potato computer.He'll still be fullgraphics all the time. Yeah.I would like every single star to emulatelight. And so when AurelionSol is flying over certainareas, it actually cast the shadow. So ifyou're a fish individualwith every water particle effectgoing on and you catch that fish, theshadow of Aurelion Solwill be cast onto the fish.Yes, yes. But I won't be fishing becauseobviously it's goingto be me and 100 otherplayers doing some Noxus versus Demaciatype deal to take over that area.You brought it into Shurima too, bro.It's not everywhere.We're gluing this desert corner. Allright. That's the Noxus way.Come on. That's that'ssome classic Noxian action.I'm not taking overShurima. What am I doing?So here's what I want to say, though.This is my main point withthe hellfire or hellspawn orwhatever it's called. Helldivers. Themain things that I wantedto touch on is, first of all,the world is changing and it's changingin the world, not inthe instance. Number two,the the player housing, the player effectof not feeling like you'rethis super all star and thatyou're one part of a very large group.You're not thissuperhero. You're not a champion.You're a hell diver. And there's a bunchof people diving too. Andthat's it. No one's talking toyou like, wow, you're great. They'relike, yeah, you know, go go kill somestuff. You're a regularguy. Yeah, don't go alone or else you'redead because you're oneguy. Yes. And number three,I wanted to look so in helldivers, youkind of have this shipthat you that's almost like aplayer housing for you. You use that togo to the differentplanets and stuff. What if playerhousing? I see. I think that would behard. I would think so. It'stough to say where your playerhousing is in the world and then everyonehas a player house in theworld. I would personallylove to see that where you have, youknow, a thousand players inDemacia right now and eachof them have a house like a like a placein Demacia. I think that'sawesome. I agree. Like I saidbefore, I still think Final Fantasy 14did that perfectly. Limited housing.Yeah, people have tofight for it. You can sell your own tosomeone else. Sell that plotof land that you own. I thinkit's so cool how they did it in thatgame. Like I would not change anythingabout how they did that.So that's how you would. So the way I wasgoing was like maybe youcould have a housing that'skind of mobile in a sense. Like maybeit's something that isn'tjust this stagnant placethat like the ship, right? The ship'sflying around. Maybe wecould think of something inRuneterra that's in a similar sense whereyour house isn't taking upspace when you're offline,but it's there always when you're onlineand moves around in asense. But at the same time,the only way I could think of it is usinglike a yordle pathways tohave a home in some placein the spirit realm. And that's just toomuch of a stretch. Somaybe that is the right move.I personally like fantasy strategy. Yeah,I like having a sense ofcommitment. Like you live inDemacia. That's that's your home. Youchose built your house inDemacia. So you live in Demacia.You know, like you can be from like fromthe Freljord have your home in Shurima.Yeah, that just means you started off inthe Freljord now yourhome in Shurima. That's whereyou built your house. I really like that.That sense of like it justadds more to like your RP,I think, to your character, some depth interms of what you call home.I like that idea personally.Rather than yeah, yeah, I'm with you onthis traveling everywherewith your home on your back.I mean, I guess that could also be anoption. You could haveboth. Maybe like your travelinghome is not as big if you choose to gothat route. But I personally just likethe stationary home more.And I do think that you need to haveplayer housing. It has tobe a thing and you have toshow it off. Yeah, it just had so muchcustomization, add so many more things togo out and get in theopen world and in instance content andliterally every form ofcontent you can tie player housinginto it. You know, I always think of likekilling a raid boss andmounting this head on your wall.I still think that's one of the coolestideas ever. And just howthere's like a billion things.I'm with you on there.I'm with you on there. It opens so muchfor it adds value to everypiece of content and justadds so much more to do. I love it. It'sjust it's always goodin any MMO regardless.That's a must. 100 percent. That's amust. I feel like Final Fantasy'sdirection is the way that theywill end up going. And it's betweeneither from. Yeah,for me, it's either thator actual player housing. That's not eveninstance like it's there.Like, you know, you guys have differentinstances of like you walkin as a housing area that'sinstanced. Yeah, I they could do that andhave one for, you know, eachplace like one for Damasia,one for Maxis, one for Streama, or theycould actually have it in the world.Those are only two options I can see.Well, the problem is that they actuallyhave it in the world.Housing would become a serious issuebecause this is a riot MMO.Because I was going to be popping,especially at the beginning.So, you know, like, I hope the Masiyadoes not end up becominglike 100,000 square feet long,you know, just to fill up. Yeah. Yeah.I like there's always the.It when I like that, the apartments are.Yeah, you know, you go up to your room.The apartments being instances good, too.Yeah, you can't make it so big that it'simpossible to travel.So I understand that.Like where you but you want the runningto be slow and youwant travel to be slow.But then if you make it too big, you haveto increase travelbecause no one's going to runthrough the end of the day just runningto the other side of the Masiya.Yeah, yeah, exactly.Just because like the residentialdistrict is like a billion houses.It's tough to balance.That's really tough to balance the scopein terms of size, theactual size of the world.And then traveling around the world.Like I want the world to be massive.By the same time, yeah,you do have to travel.But then I don't want travel to be fast.Like I want travel tobe almost like classic.Wow, we're traveling.Yeah, if you want to go from one side ofthe map to the other,that's a significant thing.Yeah, it's not just like hopon this and then you're there.Yeah, I was going to say the same exactthing where I was like, Idon't I still think thatvanilla classic World of Warcraft from2004 is like lightning in a bottle.Like I swear they gotreally lucky with that.Those developers, I wonder howintentional everything isbecause the running speedwas perfect, which is insanely important.Right. The scale of things like mountainsof enemies of like justgrassy plains of the path.Everything was scaled perfectly to whereyou felt like you weretraveling a large distance.I like that's what matters more is thatit feels like you're travelingrather than just did they increase thespeed to the increase it a lot.I think you go like twice as fast now.Like why man, I feel like yeah, the samezone like the same zone from classicwhile to retail. Well, the classic onefeels bigger, likegenuinely I can't get past in myhead. I'm like, wow, why does it feel somuch bigger? Like whydoes this little areaof I always freaking lovedMulgore? You know that dude.And for some reason, Mulgore feelsmassive. It feels massive in classic.Well, and it's literally the exact samepixel density. It's like the same.There's no change. Sowhy does it feel so big?Why does this harpy freaking town overhere that have to go killall these harpies feel huge?But then when I go into retail, while itfeels so tiny, I thinkthe run speed maybe is.I think it's a big one little.That's crazy. That just a little knobtwisted a little bit too far.And it all falls apart.Dude, yeah, really, because that thatworld was made for that run speed.Like I'm also sure that was like at leastpartly intentional oflike them testing out.OK, how long does it take us to run fromone side of the barons to the other,which is like this likelarge, desert landscape?Like does it take too long to get boring?Does it stay interesting?Do you see different like different typesof enemies as you run by?Does it feel like the landscape ischanging as you run through it?Like there's a lot that goes into thefeeling of not just, OK, Ineed to get to this place.That's the feeling oflike I need to travel.I need to get through thisworld to get to that place.And that's like there's somuch that comes into that.It's crazy.I swear, I don't know howthat classic about that.But they did it so perfectly.I'm going to make ahuge statement right now.Bake is going to be big.This is like my where my head is at.How how big I actuallywant the world to be.I know I'm saying like, you know, there'sa to compensate for travel and all that.OK, look at, for example, Shurima.Yeah, on the map.I would want Shurima byitself to be the size of Kalimdor.I want it to be so.Yeah, I do not notincluding Targon, not includingIshtel, not including a Kathy.I don't want the whole thingto be the size of Kalimdor.I want just Shurima tobe the size of Kalimdor.I want it to be so big that if someone'sin Shurima and theother person is in Froyordand the person says,can we quest together?The other person in Shurima says, I mean,maybe tomorrow I will try to likefind a way to get to you andwe can quest together tomorrow.Yeah.Yeah.I'm not going to waste the wholeafternoon so we could quest right now bythe time I get there.Like you're only you said you're onlyplaying for what you said, another hour.There's no way I'm going to make it toyou and for us to do anything.By the time I get there, you're going tohave like 10 minutes left.I might make it to this town.I want the world to be there for thenight and I'll be about likehalfway there if I'm lucky.If I don't die on the way there, sometraveling by myself.Yes, this is that's how that's.I realize that that's very like I thinkwe're alone in that.I think a lot of peoplesay, no, that's too much.I want to do a quest with my friends andlisten, you cannotlisten to the loudest people.Maybe we're loud, though.Who knows?Look, I think complain is the loudest.Yeah, I agree.Always the loudestpeople in any MMO community.The loudest people are the people whoaren't happy with the game, right?People who want the game to change.But you need to consider the people whoare not talking on Redditor not talking on the forumsor Twitter because they'retoo busy playing the game.You know, exactly.There is people who are happy with thegame, never sayanything because they're busy.They're enjoying the game.I genuinely believe that there are stillto this day more peoplethat play and enjoy retail.Wow.More than anything else they've put out.Right.Like, yeah, I still think there areplenty of people playing Dragonflight.Plenty of people playing the nextexpansion of the warwithin, but they're not going tobe like talking aboutthe game anywhere, really.They're going to get off workat 5 p.m., come home and play.Wow.A six with the raid, youknow, with the raid group.And that's it.You that that's how they enjoy.Wow.And I think that's true for a lot ofpeople and a lot of them.I was saying the same is definitely truefor Final Fantasy 14.That game is a lot of people who playthat game single player and they'll justsilently enjoy the game andnever say anything about it.Yeah.They won't even watcha YouTube video on it.They're just playing the game.They they're pleasantly surprised whenthey log on and it's an expansion.Yeah.What?Oh, yeah.They'll hear the announcement on like onthe news when they like like like littlelike news tab when they boot up the game.Yeah.The battle.And when they open it up.Yeah.Yeah.Like the FinalFantasy 14 launcher open up.They'd be like, Oh, oh,new expansion coming out.That's cool.They log in.They talk to us.The raid group guyshear about the expansion.Yeah, we all saw the battle at launcher.It's crazy.I genuinely believe there's like Ibelieve majority of people are like that.They're not on YouTube watching, youknow, like whoevertalk for like 60 minutesabout the new warrior class updates.All right.You're talking abouthow the game is dead.They're playing the game.And I think even for the right moment,that's going to be true, right?Most people are notgoing to be listening.So yeah, playing the right.Oh, heck I won't be listening to us.I'm going to be playing the right.Oh, all right.Yeah, exactly.There's 10 people who got to travel fromcinema to Frolly or nine people are goingto be enjoying that journey.There's one person that's going to log onand complain about it.The other nine people arenever going to say anything.I have to realize lookwhere Blizzard ended up.Blizzard, the whole thing was that theyjust catered constantlyto the naggers and peoplewho just constantlysaid, Oh, I want this.Oh, I want that.I want to be special.Everyone needs to be special.And we need to be able to traveleverywhere as fast as freaking possible.Yeah.And now the game is like,Brain Dead Grind Festof just like most people.I honestly have a large majority ofpeople are just collectors, right?They'll just they'll do old world contentor they'll run likethe latest dungeons onlike normal difficulty or heroic.They'll do like mythic.They're watching TV likewhile they're doing all this.Yeah, yeah, absolutely.Right.I think those people nowadays are reallycasual with World of Warcraft.And that's just kind of how the gamesturned into this likestill end game focused,still like kind of competitive, but alsoeasily like a bit too easily accessible.You know, it's where you're just clickingyour buttons, get intothe dungeon instance,do your abilities, get out, do it again.You know, it becomes a little lessexciting after like the second expansionthat you play throughbecause you just realize that rhythm thatthe game has turnedinto that's kind of likehomogenized into over years of criticism.So it's just become a lotless fun after that, sadly.So I hope for us operate totake risks like that, like,like, dude, even justlike, OK, I want Shurima.Like, I love the idea of Shurima beingmassive and also justbeing a freaking plain desert alot of the time.You know, like, like, I think like, likeenemy variety will helpkeep it fresh as you'retraveling.You know, there's going to be differentareas of Shurima thatare going to have strongerenemies than others.You might see some giant freaking bugmonster or something justlike traveling across thesands off in the distance and you can gofight that and die if you want.Like, you get like 20 people together,you're not going to kill it.That kind of stuff.I want an oasis to fill it up with stuff.Yeah, exactly.I want to have some interesting stuff init, stuff that willkeep you interested as youtravel.But I still want it to not be full onthat on the desert, dude.And I think, OK, is it just me or does itsuck how much recent?Wow, their zones areso dense compared to.Yeah, they everything is packed in.Yeah, it's possible.Just trying to fit every corner.There's a little cave there.I got to put something init and leading up to the.Even like there's going tobe something on the outside.There's this bridge and we've got to usethis bridge or something.It's like, dude, likeI can't be a bridge.Overload like.Yeah, I love me some barons.All right.There's a tornado, butit's not just orange.They got orange rocks.They got yellow grass and then they gotsome like antelopecreatures running across it.It's so good.My God, I love it.I love me.Just some like I can seewhat's going on so easily.It's so clear and simple.What's on my screen?All right.What I'm running through.I hope riot does.I hope right.It's not afraid to like even just likethe planes between Damasia and Noxus.I want those to just besome nice green planes.Keep it so.Yeah.Keep it so humble.So nice.Just something I can easily run acrossand enjoy the run across those planes.God damn.That's all I ask for in terms of zones.Keep it nice and simple and pretty.Not everything needs something.Yeah, that way.When you do have something, it's big.It's noticeable.You know, I'm not passing from likeinsanely bright, crazy,like fairy forest to likered, hot lava magmaburning red, orange everywhere.Lava area, you know.Yeah.That way, when you have it, it's going tobe a jarring transition.Oh, yeah, that too.Transitions betweenzones are very important.But I was just thinking like when you dohave a jarring area, it's going to showcompared to your moreplain and simple areas.You know what I mean?You need some zones to stand out.You need some zones to blend in.I think most of your zones should justlike blend in a little bitand just be an enjoyable thing to look atinstead of like thisfreaking theme park of an area.I mean, I am so copiumed out on the rightof my mo and how much Ibelieve that they actuallyknow what they're know what they're doingand they have the right idea.Like when I go back to the right of my mowebsite, I'm a more recruiting website.We talked last time aboutthis initial image, right?It shows this the main character in themain image, the onlyimage we have of we're makingin a mo is a random person with literallynothing on like they'rethey look like a peasant.You know, they're justlike a starting adventure.They have nothing and the people arelike, they're just basic.They're so basic.We've heard they're not it's not andremember we said theycould have gone any way.They could have had like someone perchedon top about to drop down into Demaciaor or you fighting a freaking dragon.At this point, they're dragging crazy.Dragons are everywhere, right?Oh, yeah.Every day I look, we're intears getting a new dragon.No, it could have been like that.But instead, they chose instead.They chose a simple,simple, simple adventure.Yeah, okay.They understand it.And then if you scroll down, you neversee anyone that's like a hero.You know, you look atthe adventurers wanted.This is when people looking at thebillboard, looking atthe different bounties.You know, that's it.They're just looking for bounties andeveryone's just standing around.And there's no one that's that's.She's not standing over Goliath, youknow, or standing overlike she's not killing.Gods.Some giant serpent.Yeah, she just everyone's just there.And it looks like maybe these two aregrouping up with her on that.Who knows in the back, like the big guywith the little guy.Oh, yeah.Yeah, I like I like that group.That's a cool group.I'm a fan.Yeah, yeah.That looks like they might be forming aparty because shecan't kill that by herself.And then even you scroll down here, theseguys were not prepared.Like this is a group.This is a party of four losing like thatguy in the front was the tank.Yeah, the healer is gonelike that guy's mid sprint,kicking up snow.I mean, the tank's gonna die for sure.Has aggro.Yeah, it's over like the hunter is as ausual hunter doesn't even have anarrow locked, you know.Yeah, that's that's one hard.That's going to bethat's going to be expected.Yeah, yeah, I love that.This picture specifically of of like theyou know, these guysclearly like the Freljordhunting or maybe being hunted by thisgiant like yeti looking beast.Maybe it's like a troll would be my guesslooking at him withlike the main and the beardbeing like a like a orangish color.I would think it's a troll.Yeah, it's definitely a troll.Yeah, those are huge and Freljord.They're not they're like that.That is the actual size.Yeah, that's terrifying.In the tusks.Yeah, that's so I'm listening to this.There's like part of hishelmet, but I love that.My God.But you know what?I love how in this scene, even in thisvery this is like by farthe most action packed.Like image they have out of the three.And even then it's like this is somerandom no name yeti.Just a creature native to the Freljordfighting some random no name guys thatare clearly outmatched.Yeah, like everything about this scenejust feels like some day today dangers that they face intheir life.And that's what I hope even Mopi comes isthat exactly we're goingto see this kind of like dayto day just this is life in the Freljord.You know, we're not going to be like saveus champion from the watchers.They're breaking out right now.Giant, giant evil tentacully monsters.No, no, let me just fight a yeti.Let me help out this little village withlike with their monster problems.Okay, before we worry about some freakingall encompassing darkness.That that's exactly what you said exactlywhat I thought when I saw this image.And that's exactly how I feel about allthese images that noone's no one's a superhero.And that's another reason why I broughtup the hell divers game isbecause in there, no one's asuperhero.No one's top of the mountain.Everyone's basic and everyone's justlike, yeah, you're asoldier and that's it.And that's fine.And more than anything, hell divers makesme happy just becauseof the fact that it makeseveryone else happy thatthey want that experience.Do people maybe people are a little bitof masochists like us.They want to lose some fights.All right.They want to get just completely stompedand have their planet lost forever.Something about that dude in open worldexperience where you're playing withother people in realtime that I that can't be matched for me.And I think it doesn't always work out.Yeah, there's a big problem.How's scrolling?I saw a video like they were fighting onthis front one of thefront planets and he was likelooking at the basically the otherplayers instead ofpushing forward on that frontplan are literally just sitting back onthe back planets where it's safer.You know, yeah.And so yeah, like stuff like that's goingto happen where youneed to start being like,guys, we need to do this or we need topush forward or whatever.And that's that's yeah, even it's becausestuff's not working out and it's notcontained in like a perfectlittle bubble of let's skip overhere and then let'sdo this and everything.You never know what's going to happen.And because you're depending on otherplayers, you're always goingto have weak links and weaklinks.Yeah, are not a bad thing.But they are a bad thing, butthey're not like a bad thing.Or you want to rule and it makes it allthe more rewarding when youactually band together andyou're like, we actually did it, guys.We actually.I've got it brought ourselves togetherand we took over this planet.That's amazing.Got it.What?Kong Kong.I've got it.Let's hear it.Let's hear it.Do not strengthen weak links.The game should not try to strengthen orcompensate for a player's weaknesses.If a player is bad, itshould show that they're bad.And if a if a character has weaknesses,it should have weaknesses like theright.Should not try to compensate or makethings easier or shrinkthe the gap between a reallygood player and a really bad player.If a player is really bad, it's becausethey're really bad and that's OK.And it shouldn't be liketrying to make the game easier.Sorry, this player can like more closelyalign with even a betterplayer where a better playercan't be that much better because thenyou're justsimplifying the game too much.The game should be hard and a bad playershould always benoticeably bad and they'regoing to get they're going to get shippedfor it and that's OK.Dude, agree.Agree.There should be, of course, if you're badat the game, that doesn'tmean you can't play the game.All right.I'm sure there's going to be some likeeasier stuff for you likelike heck, there's going to becertain quests.They're not going tobe as hard as others.You know, are you but canyou go into the dungeon?At cap level and not knowhow to use your abilities?No, that dungeon has one difficulty.If you're not good enoughfor it, get out of the group.I like that because accomplishments andMMOs are different fromaccomplishments in any other game.When a player accomplishes something,it's actively able to berecognized by other people.You know, if somebody has, you know, thethe freaking what's it called?The the the the black the silithid mount.Right.From yeah, this fromthe war of the garage.That was an exclusive.And that would be crazy.Right.Yeah.And what you had to do toget that mount was insane.It what you had to do was taking hoursupon hours of your life andthe hours of the other people.Yeah.Your guild actively had to help you andthey had to ask fornothing in return other thanyou get to ring the gong and you get theawesome mount that they do not have.They gave tens of hours of their life tomake sure you got it.That is insane to me.But there was also noeasy way of getting it.There was only one way to get that mountand you had to be damngood at the game to get it.Well, also, even then it wasn't as goodas what you had to becrazy enough to go for it.You had to do so manyhours to invest enough time.Yeah, you have to have the knowledge tocomplete the quest line,which was insanely obscure,especially at the time because theInternet was different back then.But like, dude, everything about that isone of my favoritethings in any any MMO ever.It was insanely hard toget very people have it.And that's what made it special.Nobody could just go get it.There was no difficulty slider.There was nothing like that.You just either got it or you did it.If you were not good enough to get it,get good at the game.And I think that creates a seriousinvestment in any MMO.It does.Series actually caring about the game.Achievements actually.I can tell you what happened, though.If you did that today, people would sayit's not fair that therest of the guild people whoinvested the time aren'tgetting rewarded for that.And they would say,also, it's just a time sink.It's way too much time invested in justkilling something over and over again.It's like monotonous.Those are the kind of complaints.But but the people that are complainingabout it just don't go.Just don't do it.Just don't do it.There's going to bepeople that are enjoying it.They're not going tobe complaining to you.That's what I hope.I really hope that they that they seethat there's going tobe people complaining.But you need to like ratio it like athree to one ratio thatevery three complaintsis worth one good comment about it.Something like that because way morepeople are going to log onand complain than I know.Almost no one.I've never logged onand said this was great.I never logged on andsaid this is shitty.But but that's what I'm saying.Like most people who log on are going tosay they're going to go voiceproblems and then go voice their whatthey're upset about.No one if someone's enjoying something,they're not going to sitthere and go review it.Oh, right.Just thinking about that, there was somany complaints aboutthat quest line and I stillthink everything about it was so good.Like, do you know that that one part ofthe quest line where I thinkit's like you have to guidethis one centaur way and do it throughlike the moonglade or whatever the heck.It's something like night off like anarea where you'rehelping out this this like dryad looking guy.And yeah, as an alliance player, youknow, like you have tolike guide him through thereand then you have tofight him at some point.I think you fight like some sort of likeSator at the end and theboard can just come in andruin the whole thing.Yeah, they can just kill the Sator waytoo fast before like helike completes like thequest for you and everything.They could just go in and kill the Satorand then you're screwed.You have to wait like I forget how manyhours before it resets.And I love that.I don't like the mechanic.That meant alliance guilds or hordeguilds like vice versa.Now, I'm schools would have to hire otheralliance players tobring them in to fightoff the horde long enough so that theycould complete the quest.That kind of stuff.I'll say that can't make up, dude.You that's so special.And it was because therewas no other way of doing it.There was only one wayto get that mountain man.So special.I don't like the mechanic, but I likewhat the mechanic caused.Right.I don't want it to like I like the theafter effect of the mechanic.I would like to see like a better way ofto be done other thanthey can just come in and,you know, kill the guytoo fast and it bugs.It's like clearly a bug.You know, it was it was clearly a bug.Yeah, hopefully I want to see thatemulated where it's not a bug.Yeah, that's what I'm saying to you.Like obviously, like yeah, a lot of veryspecial stuff in classic.Wow was actuallyoversights or bugs of some kind.But if you can do thatkind of stuff intentionally,kind of like how hell divers is doing itnow, you'd see how magical it can be.And how many experiences you still seepeople talking about like 20 years laterfrom classic.Wow.And that's because of those organicexperiences that you can't get by justlowering the difficultyof the dungeon or of the raidor of this insane quest line.Yeah, I generally.Divers is like that where it's a lot.It does a lot for them.Yeah.Hell divers.I think only hasthere's only one difficulty.It is what it is.Yeah, it is what it is.You don't know like you're logging on.You don't know what you'regoing to be experiencing.And I feel like that's also somethingthat's that's compellingwhen you don't know exactlywhat's going to happen.You don't know exactly howhow the enemy is going to be.It's unknown.I mean, that's one thing that I likerating and I like dungeons.But I've always been PVP because I likenot knowing what's going to happen.I like not knowing what's notwhat I'm going to be facing.And I like not knowing whatI have to do exactly to win.I like rating too, but I've always been Ithink rating I was verymuch like I just have to learnhow the mechanics have tolearn what I have to do.And then I just have to execute on it.I need to learn my class, get my gear.And then once I know the mechanics,there's no way I can lose.Yeah, man.I felt like PVP there's always a chanceconstantly that I could lose.Yeah, yeah.Because the other person is just ascapable of winning as you are.Unlike in PVE, where, you know, theintention is that you win PVP.Your goal is to win, but that's not theintention of the devs.It's very different.And that's why I loveour PVP so much too.I agree that it's just you can have theseepic battles and lose completely.But those are also some of my likefavorite memories is losing horribly.But just thinking about howinsanely cool that fight was.Like I think people take world to thewrong way a lot becausemost of the time people thinkof world to be,especially in World of Warcraft.They think of just getting corpse campedright by like some rogue.But like if you actively roll PVP,there's a very bigdifference between passive worldPVP and active world PVP, right?Where you are going out of your way tofind other people whoare actively world PVPingand getting involved inthat community is so cool.It's easily my favorite part of retail.Wow, which is shocking becauseI did such a small community,but that community is very tight nicheand very, very cool because it.When you get a group of like 40 playerstogether because, you know,like the other faction is camping thistown or camping thisflight path for your for yourfaction for your fellowplayers is trying to level.You get in there with your big groupflying down from the sky or whatever thathow the heck you'd sneak in there andfight your way through someother army of other players.Oh, man, there's still to this daynothing else like that.And that can only happen in MMO.That's why I'm hoping Riot does somesense of like Noxus,Demacia, but I don'tthink it's going to happen.It's just helldivers, I think makes itmore possible than it was before.But I'm sure they've already made theirdecision on this, right?This is like a pretty deep mechanicaldecision for MMO if they'regoing to have factions or not.I don't think they're going to have anykind of world PVP,but man, what I hope so.And I think helldivers proves thatthere's some sense of likepeople are OK to lose thingsbecause then it makes it meaningful.Man, that's that'sactually a really good point.Sometimes the threat of losing somethingis what makes it valuable.Yeah, that's how I feel.And I'm almost can do that because you'rein this world with other people.There's only one of this thing in this,like, you know, open world server, right?Things are limited.Things are finite.So it's just.Dude, just philosophically, I'm most of the coolest thing ever to me.Especially in an open world server sense.Without a doubt, I think without a doubtme and you specifically for sure.We're both MMO players.Oh, yeah.100 percent.But that doesn't mean that there's notother stuff to lookforward to till the right.Oh, right.Because we're going to get that.We're going to get the name this year.That's not I'm not announcing the news.OK, that's just speculation.We're going to get the name this year.We're going to get a little tidbit.We're going to get a little littlesnickerdoodle, a little little sprinkle.Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.Yeah.I hope I freaking hope so.I doubt it, though.I feel like it's going to be like likemaybe a couple moreimages, maybe like a couple verylike shots and then maybe like they'llshow like one of the cities orsomething like a little pieceof a city or something like that.And then it'll be the name.I think that's whatwe're going to get this year.Then next year, I think will be thecinematic and stuff andmaybe even the the Alpha.Dude, with how much riot is spreading outin terms of like, youknow, they're beyond just likeLeague now, they're releasing all thesetitles with like, youknow, the RPG on the way andeverything like that.You think we're going to start seeingsome kind of like riot, like justannouncement type of thinglike, like, like Nintendohas like Nintendo Direct.Don't know about Blizzcon.PlayStation has state of play.Oh, yeah.Yeah, they should.I would think they will.Because yeah, at this point, they got somany games, dude, like.I feel like people would genuinely tuneinto that kind of thing,especially once the MMO drops,like I could always see them showing offupdates for the MMO, showingoff updates for for Legendsof Runeterra, a place for League ofProject L, Project L,Project F, dude, and like any othergames they put on announcing becausethey're obviously goingto have more titles in thefuture, it seems like, you know.So yeah.And even just like showing off their likeshows and stuff like, youknow, with season two ofArkane, they're definitely going to domore in the televisionmovie spotlight with how wellArkane is doing.I think I would love if they had somesort of like justdedicated to their own seriesand games to announce stuff.I would get so hyped for that.Yeah, and I think you'll see maybesmaller titles too,like the riot forge titles.I'll be doing we dohave Bandle Tail tomorrow.We've not mentioned that yet.I'm 100% going to bebandling it up tomorrow.OK, we got a Bandle Tail tomorrow.We got Project L, which is already hadbeen like players haveliterally played it, which I think,you know, it waseither going to be released.I feel like it will bereleased really early next year.I think it'll be a surprise release inthe summertime orsometime either in the summer,early, well, in the summertime, late thisyear or early next year.And then we have Project F, right?That's an action RPG, which people aresaying that there'sspeculation that it could bemultiplayer.So that could be cool.It's an ARPG.I think that that could be fun.That's in development.So all the Project L,Project F, I think are farther off.We have Bandle Tail.I'd say Project L comes after that.Project F comes after that.And then I think the right of them all.Oh, no, I could definitelysee that timeline happening.And then who knows what theheck they're going to like.You know, start workingon in between now and then.Like we might see someother projects in the alphabet.Who knows?They release agameplay footage of Project F.No way.Have they?Hold on.I still feel very little about that game.Hold on.I'm gonna find out right now.It's I wish they came out with the nameslike I'm gonna be weirdedout when they announced likeProject L.What's it called?Wait, G, Finity, Esport and all.Project F, man.But there's so many Project F's.Riot Games, Project F.Oh, there is a little bit of footage.What the heck?Is that is there something like officialfrom the League of Legends?League of Legends page.Yeah, what I'm seeing stuff too of likerandom YouTube videos.Yeah, like the little bit.Yes, like early development footage.Yeah, but I don't seeanything official from them.Yeah, that's the thing.Right.Yeah, it's very limited.It's like a little thing.It looks like, man, what's that?There's like a game, youknow, where you're paying.It's top down third person where you'rekind of adventuring together.A lot of games havedone a few games like that.Just in general, like isometric titlesare very popular these days,especially for like, yeah, titles.With that.Yeah, so you can look.Mm hmm.You can look it up.Everyone can look it up.You can literally seeit's barely anything.There's videos like obviously that arehours on it, I'm sure.But it's it's honestly maybefour seconds of actual footage.Yeah, of the game.So yeah, not really enough to go.So for all I know,that's Nylander's gameplay.I have no idea.Exactly.It's the same image, the same littlefootage everywhere, but it's there.And supposedly they couldbe making a turn based game.A 4x turn based game.Oh, there's a website that I really like.Yeah, there's awebsite that I really like.The writer mode has liketwo articles listed on it.I'll I'll link those in the descriptionfor anyone interested in either of those.Yeah.Yeah, you're right, right.It's growing.That's the thing, right?I feel like is at the initial stage ofgrowing and it's going to get to a pointwhere, yeah, a big announcement, theycould definitely do that,especially when you got the MMO, you gotLeague of Legends, yougot Legends of Runeterra.You'll have Project L, which isdefinitely a game that canbe carried for a long time.Like a fighter.Absolutely.Like that.That's going to stick around for a while.Yeah, we're going tosee some DLC characters.And luckily, thanks to League of Legends,they have a they have adecent pool of charactersto pick from for their DLC.So to say the least.So yeah, ever growing updates.Yeah.Yeah, we're absolutely going to seeupdates in Project L.In fact, I like if like Bethesda can dotheir own, you know,like YouTube live streamof like their game announcements.Riot definitely can.Right.Definitely has enough games lined up withlike live service gamesthat they're constantlygoing to be updating and releasing newpatches of content for that.They can totally do stuff like that.I would I would love it.Maybe once their cataloggets a little bigger, who knows?Yeah, which I don'tthink is that far off.I feel like that'sgoing to happen quickly.I wouldn't be surprised if we startseeing an event like that next year.Right.Like I totally think it's possible atlike the bare minimum,like once a year for bigannouncements.It makes sense.You want your game.You want someone who's like, let's sayI'm fully invested in them.Oh, that's all I play.And I just I'mwatching for the news and MMO.You want me to see your other titles andyour other projects and your other games.So I can play those too.That's how you get someoneinvested in your ecosystem.You know, that's why Apple every timethey freaking announce a product,they're always showing offtheir other products in time.Yeah, absolutely.Now people live for likecompanies live for that ecosystem.That's absolutely what Riot's going for.Right.And they're doing a damn good job at it.Like they're they're releasing a lot ofcontent for a lot of different games.Like releasing a lot of games, period.But it's all quality.It all has that that riot seal ofapproval that we know and love.So like man, I would easily and I think alot of people will easily watcha riot direct is what I'll call it.Yeah, the right.We've already named the MMOand their their show for it.Riot direct and Runeterra.What are we going to call Project L?Oh, man.Runeterra fighter.Right.Right.Riot fighter Z.Right.Riot fighters.Street riot.Yo, Street.Right.Street riot.That actually is not a bad name.Actually, yeah, butit's going to be something.Yeah, it's not a bad name, but I don'tthink that's going to be.No, I doubt I got to do that.Well, I see.I mean, there shouldbe a name drop sooner.I can't believe we're thisclose to Project L dropping.We have not gotten a name yet.I know.I don't even know whythey released the name.Like I feel like the name is somethingyou pick really early.And now everyone knows it as Project L.And now we're all going toknow this one is Project F.Like it's going to be weird to me to getthis name out of my head.Yeah, I agree.Dude, honestly, I genuinely think thatonce the riot title,like for the right memo,once that title drops, we're still goingto call it the right MMO.We've called it theriot MMO for so long now.When they release Project X as the title,I'm going to be like, come on.Yeah.Just give me the name.Do a title drop, but it's like, yeah, thenext letter in the alphabet is here.I'm releasing the alpha for Project X.I'm like, oh, come on, guys.What are we doing?Dude, yeah, I agree.I don't know.Give me one letter.I don't know.I feel about thismarketing thing that they're doing.Yeah.With all like the project titles becauseyeah, once Project L,if if Project L gets a proper name goesgenuinely at this point,I think they're better off justcontinuing to call it Project L.People will probably like Project L andthink, oh, League of Legends.That's what the L stands for.And I agree.Honestly, I thought that was the name.Like, I thought that was it.Like, that was the name.Yeah.Until Project F.Yeah, I thought that was it, too.I thought that was just called Project L,which honestly is not a bad name.Like, no.And at this point, it's stuck.So I think they have to commit to it.If they change the name, the name up now,it's going to beconfusing for a lot of peoplewho aren't like really kept up to date.I think we're going tobe confused of a feeling.I think so, too.I think we're going to be confused.But hey, you playing Bandletail tomorrow?I'm playing Bandletail tomorrow.You playing Bandletail tomorrow?I am playing Bandletail tomorrow.I will see you in Bandle City.Oh, man.Well, whether whether you'rea fan of the upcoming title,Bandletail or anticipation for Project Lhas filled you to the brim.I can assure you thatour tankards are empty.So that's all for this episode.Hope you enjoyed this hour of us spewingnonsense about how cool itis to lose things in MMOs.Stay tuned for next week when we talkabout how awesome Bandletail is.And if Enscro gets his collector'sedition, we'retotally making a tier list.Heck yeah.Yes.Oh, yeah, we're doing thatnext week at the tier list.Okay, the tier listis next week for sure.And to stay up to date on the goings onfor this podcast specifically,you can follow us at the Brazen Hydra onTwitter where you can add us questions,just topics for us to talk about.And you can also findus at thebrazenhydra.com.Thanks for stopping by.We'll see you in the next one.

The Brazen Hydra

#13 - RIOT MMO World PvP, Helldivers, Player Housing, Bandle Tale, & MORE!

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