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It has always seemed odd to me that Brad has been cited as the best writer a few times by other GB members and yet struggles articulating himself often.  Ah well, he doesn't seem to fit into the category of straight man or comic like I think the rest of the staff does.  Still enjoy him when he talks about Dota though since I'll never play it.

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For one thing, it seems like it's more that he has a good technical understanding of language – he knows all the proper grammatical terminology and so on. Beyond that, being a good writer doesn't necessarily mean being able to verbalise one's thoughts on the spot; it's quite possible he's more articulate if allowed to stew on things a little, which is something writing better allows for.

My main complaint with Brad is that it sometimes seems like when he's coming at a game with a strategy that isn't really working, he seems weirdly reluctant to try something else. I'm sure I can be the same, but for whatever reason I notice it with Brad, and I find it quite irritating.

Examples: refusing to combat-brand in Shadow of Mordor, or his insistence on getting stuck in unnecessary combat in Dying Light. I suppose I'm just being a "you're not playing it right" arsehole.

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Brad's bants are easily the weakest on GB. He also doesn't have any real interesting non-games topics he can draw on or really any great knowledge of many games, and the ones he does know well he feels the need to constantly denigrate and apologize for liking (peer pressure from Jeff being a contributing factor). 

 

I've also began to notice that he seems to have trouble articulating why he likes games, which, for a reviews editor (is that still his official title?) is kind of a gap in the ol' CV. 

 

He needs a sabbatical or a vision quest or something to revitalize his contributions. 

 

Brad's always been like that.

 

 

It takes longer than 2 minutes for him to mention that Journey uses 3rd person in a 3D world. "The end is where the end is."

 

Brad IS the straight man, or at least he used to be. The "issue" is that he's not as good at hosting as Ryan was. The thing is that no one is as good a host as Ryan was. Jeff's probably the best choice, but Jeff works best in the role of being asked things rather than asking, and bouncing off another personality, which used to be Vinny. Brad's also always the one who will fight to the death for games. His crusades in the GOTY podcasts are half a decade old. He's just not that good at articulating himself in person. I feel his pain sometimes, honestly.

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Brad driving a QL is usually a recipe for frustration. I've been a huge fan of the Drew/Dan QLs, and Drew mentioned that Dan will be his co-pilot for sims from here on out, which should be great fun. I think Dan has been a fantastic foil for Drew, and has coaxed the young Scanlon out of his shell a bit. I definitely miss Vinny on the Bombcast, but the recent spate of Vinny/Alex QLs have been fantastic (especially that broken pirate game, oh God).

 

Though I've been recently making my way through the Bombcast back catalog again in order, and there definitely was something about the original lineup of the show that has since disappeared into the ether. RIP Ryan Davis.

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Brad driving a QL is usually a recipe for frustration. I've been a huge fan of the Drew/Dan QLs, and Drew mentioned that Dan will be his co-pilot for sims from here on out, which should be great fun. I think Dan has been a fantastic foil for Drew, and has coaxed the young Scanlon out of his shell a bit. I definitely miss Vinny on the Bombcast, but the recent spate of Vinny/Alex QLs have been fantastic (especially that broken pirate game, oh God).

 

On the other side, I think having Drew there pulls up the level of Dan's discourse, making him seem pretty clever and insightful at times. 

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The whole time they were playing Majora's Mask, Dan just kept talking about how much he loved it so much and didn't ever explain the game to new players :/

It's a strange, backwards game that definitely needs a big fat warning sticker on it, so it's annoying that they just rolled straight through their 40 minutes without critiquing it much.

 

Just wanted to get that one off my chest.

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It's a strange, backwards game that definitely needs a big fat warning sticker on it

MAYBE FOR VIDEO GAME BABIES

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The whole time they were playing Majora's Mask, Dan just kept talking about how much he loved it so much and didn't ever explain the game to new players :/

It's a strange, backwards game that definitely needs a big fat warning sticker on it, so it's annoying that they just rolled straight through their 40 minutes without critiquing it much.

 

Just wanted to get that one off my chest.

 

He does that in the MGS videos a lot too. It drives me crazy.

 

Feels nice making good on the thread title.

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Considering that everyone else at GB hates video games, I'm willing to put up with a little over-exuberance occasionally. That being said, I was actually trying to make a buying decision based on that Majora's Mask QL, and it didn't help me much.

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I primarily derive value from QLs through what I would describe as my LP Synesthesia; I can very reliably get a feel for a game by watching other people play and react to it.

 

As for critique, good lord why would you go to Giant Bomb for critique? That is, unless you want to know if something is bad, so weird, dumb, super fun or if it has styyyyyyyyle.  In fact, they should probably replace their 5 star system with that.

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They should replace their rating system with Dan diving every developer into "dorks" and "cool guys."

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I primarily derive value from QLs through what I would describe as my LP Synesthesia; I can very reliably get a feel for a game by watching other people play and react to it.

 

As for critique, good lord why would you go to Giant Bomb for critique? That is, unless you want to know if something is bad, so weird, dumb, super fun or if it has styyyyyyyyle.  In fact, they should probably replace their 5 star system with that.

 

I guess I have that as well? I guess what I use GB for is taking a list of games that I am interested in and prioritizing it to decide what to buy. Also occasional surprises (I watch almost every single QL) and yes, the style quotient. 

 

In this particular case, having the Majora's Mask pro steering the Quick Look didn't really feel useful to me, as it doesn't really give me a good idea what it would be like to figure out all that calendar stuff if I didn't already know what was happening. So I was unable to figure out if the time and exploration aspect (which I had problems with before) would be interesting or frustrating given the 10 years of my taste changing and the various usability improvements in the new version.

 

It turns out that I get far more of use from an unskilled and unresearched Quick Look than I ever do from a video where they know what they're doing :)

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"Win Dave Lang's Money" was an incredible 7-10 minutes from their Pax East live show, which is coincidentally the entirety that I got the chance to watch live purely by chance.

 

 

e: does anyone else turn off the PAX casts (and any other things, GB or no) the moment they open up the floor to do Q&A? I have this thing where I'm so profoundly bodily embarrassed for the people asking questions, I just can't do it. I have had this same thing happen to me for more than 20 years, back to when stupid made-for-teens sitcoms like Saved By the Bell(ding), Boy Meets World, and Full House existed.

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does anyone else turn off the PAX casts (and any other things, GB or no) the moment they open up the floor to do Q&A? I have this thing where I'm so profoundly bodily embarrassed for the people asking questions, I just can't do it. I have had this same thing happen to me for more than 20 years, back to when stupid made-for-teens sitcoms like Saved By the Bell(ding), Boy Meets World, and Full House existed.

 

I've been having a bad spate the past few months where I just have no tolerance for most questions asked at panels or presentations. 75% of them are something the person asking already knows but wants to be seen and heard asking. 20% are something already said in the talk or elsewhere, possibly something too clueless, offensive, or ignorant to ask at all. 5% are questions that actually start conversations not in some way designed to sidestep the questions themselves, and that's probably generous.

 

Really, the hardest part about being a presenter (at least, from my experience in an academic setting) is being able to take the absolute garbage most people consider a passable question, find the actual utility within it, and then answer that naturally while making it look like it was the intent of the person asking. It makes me wish that there'd be re-edits of streams that cut out the questions and just put the answers together as a less-focused second talk.

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I've been having a bad spate the past few months where I just have no tolerance for most questions asked at panels or presentations. 75% of them are something the person asking already knows but wants to be seen and heard asking. 20% are something already said in the talk or elsewhere, possibly something too clueless, offensive, or ignorant to ask at all. 5% are questions that actually start conversations not in some way designed to sidestep the questions themselves, and that's probably generous.

 

Really, the hardest part about being a presenter (at least, from my experience in an academic setting) is being able to take the absolute garbage most people consider a passable question, find the actual utility within it, and then answer that naturally while making it look like it was the intent of the person asking. It makes me wish that there'd be re-edits of streams that cut out the questions and just put the answers together as a less-focused second talk.

 

I think you just described utilizing game dev feedback as well. This is not a thing that I've developed, it's a thing I've always had. When a teacher in school would ask if there were questions, and certain people raised their hands, I'd preemptively cringe. I can't help it. I feel bad, and I know Q&A is something the GB community at large likes a great deal because of the interaction, but I think it's almost universally awful. :[

 

This is not a problem I have with questions read by presenters on podcasts or assorted other places you'd do that, because it's someone's question pre-screened and curated, and read in the presenter's voice.

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I think all panels should move towards a "questions from a hat" model, where the presenter can actually read the question for himself before addressing it and choose whether to do it or not (and written questions don't come with stutter and quivering voices). I feel really uncomfortable with most of the stuff people come up with during those panels, but I think having a questions section is important.

 

But yeah, "Win Dave Lang's Money" is probably one of the best things I've seen in a while.

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Nothing makes me uncomfortable after watching Q&A panels from Minecraft/My Little Pony conventions.

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"Win Dave Lang's Money" was an incredible 7-10 minutes from their Pax East live show, which is coincidentally the entirety that I got the chance to watch live purely by chance.

 

 

e: does anyone else turn off the PAX casts (and any other things, GB or no) the moment they open up the floor to do Q&A? I have this thing where I'm so profoundly bodily embarrassed for the people asking questions, I just can't do it. I have had this same thing happen to me for more than 20 years, back to when stupid made-for-teens sitcoms like Saved By the Bell(ding), Boy Meets World, and Full House existed.

 

As the gentleman who got up at the last Idle Thumbs PAX prime panel and asked about Firefall instead of Firewatch, yes I cringe every time. 

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As amusing as it was, I found Win Dave Lang's Money to be tamer than I was expecting.  But maybe I have unrealistically high expectations by comparing it to previous shenanigans such as a Twerk Brad contest or seeing Dave Lang get a (fake) bottle smashed over his head.

 

That part with Tim Allen's book was surprising though.

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I've generally been enjoying Danswers, but I had to stop listening to this latest one. If your podcast's audience primarily seems to be people looking for relationship advice, maybe don't invite on a guest who says things like "back in college, I just wanted someone to rape me" or hooks up two friends for sex because one of them is drunk.

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Agreed. I get that she's a comedienne and not everything she says should be taken seriously, but then again they should have considered that she wouldn't be the most suitable guest for a podcast centered around getting advice.

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Ooof, I haven't listened yet, but I had a tingly feeling that this one wasn't going to go so well. 

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Yeah this episode was interesting for learning even more crazy stories about how Dan leads a charmed life and will never die, but not great for receiving usable advice.

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My favorite part was when Nicky advised the Danswers audience to try her sexy handsome Australian friend's technique for breaking the ice at a bar.

it was basically "be sexy, handsome and Australian while delivering a feeble pickup line" though I'm not sure she realized that

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This seemed like the first Danswers that had a wildly different tone.  Everyone trying to be as funny as possible and ultimately just giving out either bad advice or coming off as cringe inducing.  The whole "don't have a baby unless you have $100k" anecdote also sounds insane until you start trying to rationalize that she probably just meant people who don't have the means shouldn't have children.

 

Does the Q and A portion of the latest PAX panel have any moments that make it worthwhile?  I also have a tough time getting through those sections so I'll likely skip it (and my guess is the audio issues only made it worse) but figured I'd ask.

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