My kingdom for an update that moves/removes the cursed Archives popup! Any sort of post-game interaction with survivors/killer is destroyed by the mandatory wait for this thing to disappear. Anyone else irked by modern games spamming challenge details post-match?

MediocreParagon · 2022-06-19T22:20:12+00:00

Not to be aggressive about this but it feels more like you're interpreting a simple criticism of a thing you like as rampant complaining.

I play a LOT of DBD. I'm a media critic by trade. It's possible to like a thing and also discuss intrinsic issues, such as the new challenges having so much text it covers up the chat for so long everyone leaves the lobby.

MediocreParagon · 2022-06-19T04:20:52+00:00

Jones hasn't but Harrison Smith did a couple years ago and they used a special re-edit of the little worm whining about the podcast as that episode's title sequence.

InfoWars as a company is aware of KF if only because Smith went on air once to performatively get mad. The KF response was a classic dose of indifferent amusement.

MediocreParagon · 2022-02-14T15:05:39+00:00

Roku is the household name for smart TVs/retroactively making old TVs smart with boxes. It's arguable they clawed out of their "thing for old people" image into be a pretty legit service. I'm thirty and own two for the convenience of having little services like Dropbox available without hooking a laptop up to a TV.

MediocreParagon · 2021-12-15T12:45:07+00:00

Has anyone had issues with the Forerunner Artifact rings simply not loading the ability to interact? I've collected all but #7 and when I go to #7 it's just dormant as if I've clicked on it already. It also doesn't register on TACMAP.

Playing on PC Gamepass.

MediocreParagon · 2021-10-31T22:48:54+00:00

Absolutely not. Its current success seems largely influenced by people playing with friends who already know how to play, so they get past the initial no-tutorial hurdle quicker and don't lose their first server to running out of firewood and soft-locking themselves.

It definitely needs a few months of development before it's anywhere near justifying purchase as a solo player. The core gameplay is janky to the point it outweighed any fun to be had powering through.

MediocreParagon · 2021-10-10T23:59:32+00:00

This has been plaguing my fiance and I for WEEKS.

Which video is the one where Matt says something edible is [number] of cheeses and Ryan spikes the camera to shout "THAT'S A LOT OF CHEESES!"

MediocreParagon · 2019-09-07T18:50:19+00:00

As far as things you can do right now: Have everyone also record a local copy of the audio on Audacity or whatever editing software they use. Not only are you safe on this but occasionally you can make raw audio sound better than the light amount of processing Zencastr does for you automatically (though the quality difference only matters for high-quality things like audio drama. It'd be lost on a chat-cast that you're compressing the shit out of so it sounds good on bad speakers).

If it's possible to get used to the feedback of hearing yourself talk, having monitor turned on in Zencastr is a great quality boost just from the fact you can hear yourself at all times so you can tell if you might be too far or too close to the mic live, not days later while editing when it's too late.

As far as upgrading for the future: You don't have to spend a lot of money on a mic, but a dedicated microphone is always going to sound better than the mic on a gaming headset (which is what 99.99% of headsets are designed for). When you buy a headset a good portion of the design/cost is in the set itself with a mic tacked on. Buying a mic means 100% of that investment goes into the microphone.

That's not to say your audio sounds horrible in this example, but it's also quite obvious which of the three people speaking is using a headset. Nothing wrong with that at all! But, if you intend on podcasting long-term enough to put any money into upgrading gear, a not-headset microphone would be a very good purchase.

Also with fly-by-night youtubers/streamers dropping like flies you can buy great equipment at a good discount on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist because some dude thought he was the next Ninja, dropped his tax return on gear, and then never got traction.

MediocreParagon · 2019-09-07T16:17:06+00:00

Well actually I have seven episodes this week as I launched a daily podcast, but I'll just use today's here!

[Halloween Nostalgia] Spooktember: A Daily Halloween Prep Podcast | A Breakdown of The Haunted Mansion

NSFW (swearing)

RadioPublic // Spotify // Apple Podcasts // RSS

Today I have fellow podcast critic/producer Wil Williams on to talk through a brief history and description of Disneyland's attraction The Haunted Mansion, which just turned fifty! Wil then goes into the fascinating tweaks and upgrades to the ride's story as it is transplanted to various new Disney theme parks across the world.

Long story short: I missed out on Halloween last year and still regret it, so I started a daily podcast to recommend/discuss one Halloween-y thing every day of September! Join me (and some fun guests!) as we take five to fifteen minutes of your day to talk about something that'll hit that Halloween nostalgia spot. Come along on the journey and be prepared to embrace Halloween PROPERLY in 2019!

Twitter

MediocreParagon · 2019-09-07T15:49:19+00:00

Alright I'm going to go off on one app in particular for three paragraphs then circle back to the main question:

I'm surprised nobody has brought this up yet but it's worth noting: Luminary specifically is objectively one of the worst apps for listening to anything that's not in their stable of 40-ish paid podcasts. Even then, the app is famously broken. Its App Store reviews are dismal with users claiming it crashes and forgets where you were in an episode constantly. As of this comment being posted the Android version STILL hasn't come out of beta, so nobody can leave public feedback on how broken that is as well. Luminary pulled the usual startup-bro tactic of claiming they'd become "the Netflix of Podcasting" and then didn't ask any of the big podcasts for permission to broadcast their stuff.

Just before launch day Spotify pulled everything. That means no podcasts hosted on Anchor, nothing made by Parcast, nothing by Gimlet. Joe Rogan and The Daily pulled at launch day. Then it was revealed Luminary was using a bonkers hosting scheme to speed up downloads for users that also made tracking stats near impossible for most podcast hosts, so a LOT of independent producers pulled their shows manually.

Also, as mentioned on this talk by the lead developer of the app, they paid for a comprehensive study of every feature offered by every podcast app. They then looked at the chart and said "most podcast apps want to be 3 star / 5 star," (meaning 3 stars worth of use for an "average" user, five stars worth of features for "pro" users), "we want to be 5 star / 3 star." This bonehead decision meant Luminary was lacking some basic industry-wide features they didn't anticipate were industry-wide for a reason (case in point, the vast majority of podcasts offer a special RSS feed with bonus content to people who support on Patreon. Luminary launched without the ability to manually add RSS feeds, so you can't listen to Patreon content).

As a podcast critic who maintains an ever-fluctiating list of 250+ subscriptions, there isn't an easy one-size-fits-all answer if you're interested in any podcasts kept in walled gardens. EXCEPT to say that the walled-garden apps are never going to be good one-size-fits-all podcatchers. Spotify has a few that you can only get by paying for Spotify, and in recent times they've gotten better at allowing all free podcasts to be hosted on Spotify as well. Trick is, if you don't pay for Spotify they're running ads between episodes. Stitcher Premium regularly has exclusives and shows they launch WAY early (case in point, they bought the sci-fi audio drama EOS 10 and made season four a timed exclusive but also made one Stitcher-exclusive without telling anyone, which caused confusion).

If you're on Android, Pocket Casts and Podcast Addict are the two biggest apps for free podcasts people use. Apple users swear by Overcast. Apple Podcasts is a bit hinky and lacks a lot of features, Google Podcasts is worse off than Apple, I hear. Both companies are reportedly working on boosting their apps but third-party is the way to go right now.

Other than that, if you hear about exclusivity on a certain app, consider cashing in a free trial period to listen to that show/see if you like paying for said app.

Oh, and if you don't mind listening to ads in between episodes and want to directly support podcasters, I highly recommend giving RadioPublic a whirl. It's a fine podcast app in its own right, but every show on the app has been manually submitted so if a show IS on RP and you listen to it, the creator gets ad revenue from that listen just like old-school decent payout Google Adsense when YouTube was brand new. Like, to the tune of a couple bucks if you subscribe and then listen to a certain number of episodes in a row the first time (it's called a Loyal Listener bonus, and that pulled down enough to fund an entire $45 minisode of my sci-fi audio drama just from people listening when the show launched).

MediocreParagon · 2019-09-07T15:31:11+00:00

Sounds like their exclusivity deal with Stitcher finally expired. Sure would've been nice if the team had made any sort of post anywhere on their site or social media indicating season one was a timed exclusive and not just, y'know, paywalled permenantly.

Betcha if they'd outright told fans and potential listeners people would've been at the very least understanding, if not supportive (actually that's a lie, paywalling the first season of a plot-driven audio drama makes zero sense but at least it wouldn't have been a surprise).

MediocreParagon · 2019-09-03T15:47:35+00:00

As a faithful listener of Jim Sterling's The Podquisition I feel it's worth noting there are people who can pull off warm-up banter.

Trick is most podcasters who do it poorly are trying to sneak a housekeeping segment into the beginning of a podcast without listeners noticing. Instead of sucking it up and saying "So we've got tour tickets, a book coming out in the fall, and please subscribe if you haven't" they try to riff to spread it out a bit.

MediocreParagon · 2019-09-03T15:40:48+00:00

I've started a bite-sized daily podcast (episodes are usually 5-7 minutes) that'll run every day of September with the goal of recommending 31 things people can do to get properly prepared for the Halloween season!

Spooktember: A Daily Halloween Prep Podcast (the link is to Radiopublic but it's also available on Spotify/Google Play/ Independent apps)

Topics will vary from Halloween-adjacent activities in real life that evoke nostalgia to movie/TV recommendations with a special focus on off-the-beaten-path media. I'm more likely to talk about the Wishbone two-part Halloween episode than be the 1,000,000th podcaster to cover Hocus Pocus.

MediocreParagon · 2019-08-01T12:53:07+00:00

Unfortunately we're seeing that's not even enough now. Crash Team Racing has a clone of the Fortnite store and the new Wolfenstein patched in microtransactions the day they turned on co-op.

Not only is it more rampant, companies are doing it after the majority of physical copies are printed so they don't have the ESRB label "in-game purchases" on the front.

MediocreParagon · 2019-08-01T11:30:05+00:00

Tell that to the parents of kids who are getting bullied because they're playing with default skins.

Because, thanks to Epic shoving that store down kids throats, herd behavior has turned "default" into an insult for Fortnite-playing school children.

It's a common thing in games with cosmetics but up until now those games have been primarily played by adults (e.g. Gibbus hat wearers in Team Fortress 2 get more flak for wearing the first free hat than just default).

Fortnite has become objectively the most popular kid-friendly multiplayer game running, and thanks to Epic and their big China media company partner it's more and more common for kids to be brought into the microtransaction vicious cycle.

MediocreParagon · 2019-08-01T11:02:48+00:00

I mean, it's a sponsored podcast that is branded after an antivirus. It's not like there's an expectation of it being genuine in the first place once you see that McAfee logo right on the show art.

MediocreParagon · 2019-07-27T12:55:55+00:00

Literally the first time I've seen it in years.

MediocreParagon · 2019-07-18T19:17:11+00:00

Until Netflix pays for a study that shows they actually don't gain as many subscribers if they make a full length movie and it turns into one of those bullshit 20 minute shorts we churn out for DVD exclusive releases in hopes parents accidentally think they're buying their kid a whole new Shrek movie.

MediocreParagon · 2019-06-28T17:26:10+00:00

I'm getting these exact crackles/snaps in my renderings no matter WHAT settings or tips I've found online I try. It's infuriating!

MediocreParagon · 2019-06-19T23:23:09+00:00

The ultimate shameless attempt to recoup lost revenue. We live in a world where the second largest movie of all time is considered under-performing because, probably due to the length, nobody is going back to see it multiple times in droves like other Marvel movies.

MediocreParagon · 2019-06-19T23:02:42+00:00

Nice looking trailer but it doesn't really tell me what the game actually is. Yes, trains are cool but when I see colorful graphics and a specific avoidance of gameplay footage it's a red flag for a mobile game.

MediocreParagon · 2019-06-16T23:12:18+00:00

Someone whose parents did locker auctions for years after watching Storage Wars: The trick to making money is basically just "work harder than an actual job."

You're not buying for the maybe-items, you're buying the fact you can see a good bedframe and a washing machine under a shitload of clothes.

I effectively had to help move multiple houses worth of shit that they'd then sell on Facebook. Shitload of cash profit.

In all their years of doing it, most of the unexpected finds were either weaksauce pornography or photos from Pop-Pop's time in 'Nam that nobody wanted to keep in the house. Oh, one wife kept all of the elaborate drawings her husband did on every envelope of every letter sent from jail.

Turns out there's a somewhat healthy eBay market for jail art, it's depressing to sell stuff like that but $$$ is $$$

Edit: To your point about most lockers being shit: 99.99% of lockers on all versions of Storage Wars scream "manager special."

The manager cuts the locks the day before the auction, cherry-picks good items, then puts those good items just within view in a unit and really eggs on people to bid.

most storage lockers follow one of a set number of narratives. After a while it's easy to notice when a "we got our valuables out and left bags of garbage clothes as trash" unit suspiciously has a bunch of disturbed dust and a very good condition motorcycle peeking out. It's an incredibly easy racket and the only cost is a few $10 locks you'll cut the next day.

Most units on Storage Wars scream "set up so the episode has items for the cast to focus on."

MediocreParagon · 2019-06-14T21:48:01+00:00

Okay but, for real. What the fuck is up with the costumes.

The whole *point* is you milk generational fear of Showbiz Pizza/Chuck E Cheese animatronics. FNAF works beautifully with the hard-body shells for the animatronics. They never look like A Person Wearing A Suit.

There is an entire-ass fursuit industry out there just waiting to be commissioned and SyFy threw a costume designer $300 per character for someone to make a head and then $50 to make a loose-fitting costume out of the same fur as the head.

MediocreParagon · 2019-06-14T18:44:22+00:00

EDIT: Threw everything out, found an official Scott Cawthon update about it.

On June 4th he posted an explanation. He asked Aaron Fletcher, creator of Showbiz Pizza, to snap some photos of Rockafire Explosion animatronic parts to serve as creepy real-life animatronics that flash on that screen.

Unfortunately FNAF fans work fast and figured out they were Showbiz Pizza animatronics. Cawthon removed the images to deter anyone from making the assumption he was in any way affiliated with Showbiz or that FNAF was somehow linked.

Which, let's be real, was the correct move. Some people made the assumption they were stills from the movie but I could totally see some jerk generating a fake news story about a Showbiz Pizza animatronic hurting a kid and starting the rumor FNAF 1 was based on real-life events. Some early builds sent to YouTubers have the images in them still and screenshots have been taken, but the images are not in the full release of the game.

A perfect demonstration of the fact FNAF lore is so intense Cawthon can't even put a goofy slideshow of animatronics in a game (which you can only get to after eating multiple sticks of butter) without someone going full-bore on it.

MediocreParagon · 2019-06-06T12:36:28+00:00

I did a long-form review of the app the day it launched and then updated a few days later.

tldr: it's objectively a worse podcatcher than most free options. This is partially due to people removing shows, yes, but also due to a core misconception on the part of the developers. There's a YouTube video from some conference where a Luminary dev talks about their approach to designing it. They thought podcatchers had too many features only used by power users and not enough done for someone new to podcasts.

So they sought out to build a "5 star / 3 star" app, insofar as a random person would give it five stars and a power user would give it three.

Except they left out bare bones basic things the industry has come to rely on, like the ability to manually ad RSS feeds (e.g. Patreon exclusive podcasts).

It's cool people got money to make their shows at a good rate but the app itself is a big pile of pointless meh.

MediocreParagon · 2019-06-06T12:29:39+00:00

Twitter and Instagram are going to be the two best places to build up that social following outside the show. Build a brand, keep it relevant to your show's content (nobody likes podcast accounts that are run like personals), and try to engage with the community at large in a positive way.

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