Stex Toys

Podcasts.. PODcasts…

The very name put me off for years. Not the cast part, which had long been associated with broadcasting, but that first part.. the ‘pod’ It was all so Apple focused, many probably thought the only way you could listen to these downloadable audio bites was on an iPod, and whilst I was well aware of the many and various methods that I could use to enjoy these shows I resisted purely on my dislike of all things fruit based.

Of course the only person I hurt by this was myself. I had cut myself off from the , albeit unknown, joys of downloadable audio content. Something had to give eventually and I believe it all started with Google Reader which I have long used for my RSS subscriptions. At some point I haven’t taken the time to research they added an inline audio player for podcasts, and so I could start to pick up on these programmes without even obtaining any specialist software to do the downloading/streaming for me. It was a small start, but it was enough to get me interested and the usual snowball effect eventually found me paying for an application for my BlackBerry which would download and playback the episodes I had chosen to follow.

However all of this is coincidental. These tools and connections would have been totally overlooked if it wasn’t for one fact: Podcasts are an excellent channel of information. You see things have changed in recent years for all of us. We read far less on printed media than ever before and far more via websites and other forms of screen based media. The problem here is that we are training our brains to skim read most of it due to the huge amount of information available. Anything more than about two screens of text and you are likely to skip on to the next article, or not even start to read it in the first place. The is an excellent read over on The Atlantic entitled ‘Is Google making us stupid’ which I highly recommend reading which ironically is long enough for most people to ignore, but it sums up these thoughts perfectly.

So with text based information becoming a quick read where is one to go for that in depth lengthy discussions on the topics that matter to us most? Well of course you can see where I am going here, else I’ve just raised a very good point in a completely unrelated way! Podcasts have become that ‘unskipable’ form of information for me. I can happily listen to a show for it’s entirely, and most of the shows I listen to are 60 minute plus, without ever feeling like it’s taking too long, or wanting to move on to the next thing. Maybe it helps that my interests lie in the technological arena where the idea of pod casting is far more common place, but over the past few months I’ve managed to find myself some truly great shows which now accompany my every car journey, infrequent work out session or pre sleep chill out.. though that can lead to problems when a topic sparks my mind and I have to get up again to draft up a blog post, which is how this very one all started

So having said all this, what are these unskipable shows that are now enriching my life? Well let me through a few titbits your way.

First up, in the area on video gaming, which is my most avid interest there are a few shows I would like to mention. Top of the choice are The Digital Cowboys A UK based show hosted by Alex and Tony which manages not only to have a solid base format but also brings in some really great guests to give their opinions on the weeks topics and to answer the famous 8 questions.

Secondly a show I found out about via Digital Cowboys, GameHounds which manages to be wonderfully professional and yet totally independent at the same time. The interhost banter is really fun, and they still manage to actually talk about gaming news at the same time.

Finally for gaming, but by no means least Gamers with Jobs is a show I occasionally used to pick up when I only listened via Google Reader, and is actually responsible for pointing me towards Digital Cowboys.. it’s all rather incestuous really I suppose.. or I guess viral to give it a web 2.0 spin.

Outside of gaming I also pick up a few shows that interest me, such as the BBC’s Material World and Friday Night Comedy and recently I’ve even ventured into the world of video based shows such as the excellent CarPool and to return to gaming CO-OP

I can thoroughly recommend any and all of the shows I’ve linked to here, and you’d do well to add them to your listening lineup, or if you are like I was but a few months back and have never even given a podcast a chance, these happy few should soon see you bitten by the listening bug and reimerced into the in depth world.

I was tidying up my Google Docs today and came across a file with an unidentifyable file name. Turned out to be an SQL dump of my old blog from a good time back. Skipping through the content I came across an old article that I spent a little while writing, so I thought I would bring it back to life, out-dated and dusty as it is. Anyway, what follows is provided as it was when written sometime back in 2007..

A Truly Satisfying MMO is an Unattainable Dream

Before I get into this I should make a couple of points clear. The first is that, despite what you might have thought when you first read the subject, I haven’t come here in a deliberate attempt to bash MMOs and start a flame war. I am an avid fan of MMOs and have been for some time. My XFire account will show some of my dedication (http://www.xfire.com/profile/countstex) although I should point out I haven’t been using it all that long, and so much of my MMO play time in unrecorded.
The second point I should bring up is that I was born before 1980, in 1974 to be more precise making me the grand age of one third of a century now. This means I’ve been playing computer games in their various incarnations for a long time. So hopefully I should have enough knowledge to make my points have some sort of credit.

So, to get to it, satisfying MMOs are an unattainable dream? What brings me to this conclusion? Well the germ of the idea formed whilst I was listening to Episode 51 [MOG Podcast], and in particular the talk of the free for all Vanguard server play, not that my thinking is specific to this game; it is a general feeling for all MMOs, in fact it’s probably mainly inspired by my on again off again relationship with my EVE Online subscription.
In order for it to make sense you need to understand how gaming has been for most of its history, and as there may be those who can’t remember the pre-internet days I will explain myself. All of our early gaming moments where had in solo play. Not because we chose to play solo games, but because in the vast majority this is all there was. Sure there where the odd arcade cabinets with two or four player controls, and some of the 16-bit home system had split screen gaming, but largely everything was about you. Think of it as the ‘Only you can save the world!’ idea, which is a common scenario for a whole deluge of games! We all grew up playing games where we were the number one guy (I say guy as female toons in games have always been under-represented) So it is somewhat ingrained into our psyche that we can be number one. Hell a whole genre of games sprung up where we weren’t just number one, we were god! And that is the whole point really, it was all about being the best, these worlds didn’t exist if we weren’t playing them, without us there where nothing.

So how does all this relate to MMOs? Well along they came and we all started playing them, and we all have some great times I’m sure. But we’re always left feeling that something isn’t quite as it should be. And I believe this is the back of our minds telling us something. We’re not the best. We’re not god. And worst of all.. this world goes on quite happily without us! We’ve all felt that pull when you’re not playing.. knowing that things are carrying on, and we’re missing it! In fact to be any good at all, you really have to be a part of a guild of some kind. And that means you’re going to be working with other people, and that means… you’ll never be the one who saves the world.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not on a downer about ‘hell is other people’ ! But this is a whole new way of gaming, and one that we didn’t grow up with. So in the same way that the new Star Wars films never quite hit that old childhood mark, MMOs will never quite leave us satisfied.

This is no reason to not play them of course! And I will continue to do so, and will continue to enjoy them. However I have to be ready to always have a small part of me disappointed by the game. Perhaps this is the part which makes me buy the new Zelda each incarnation. The part that still wants to build cities, and wipe evil from the face of the planet. The part that still wants to be GOD.

For those of you who have stuck with my outpouring of thoughts here, I thank you, and I hope there is enough truth in what I’ve said to make you have a think about it. If however it turns out I’m on my own and been speaking some of the hairiest of bollocks for the past few paragraphs then feel free to take me down.