Home
Artists
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register
Partychan Telegram Live Sex ThePornDude
Home Artists Posts Import Register

Cup of Jones - October 14, 2019 (Patreon)

Published:
2019-10-14 16:56:29
Edited:
2019-11-28 11:05:19
Imported:
2021-08
⚑ Flagged

Content

The questions in this episode range from lovely nitpicks about show graphics and YouTube functionality, to long-term ethical quandaries about how much politics should trickle into the overall gaming conversation at EZA. Just another fun grab-bag of business inquiries which faithfully represent all the varied issues we face week to week. We are deep into review season, and each ally has a back-to-back-to-back schedule to prove it. I’m going to take today’s editorial to go into detail on how all these reviews can really derail our typical efforts to produce the regular slate of shows, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aDBAmrsePc

-Brandon


DISCLAIMER: I take questions from the post comments on the previous week’s episode here on Patreon. You can ask a business-related question which I may answer live, or a personal question which I may answer below. If your business question was not answered live, I either replied to it in the comments, or referenced the answer in a recent episode. Feel free to inquire why your question wasn't included, or ask the same question a second time if you think I may have missed it. I will edit your comment/question before reading it live to ensure the show moves as quickly as possible.


PERSONAL QUESTIONS

MORGAN MOHALLA - Would you care to impart you favorite Halloween season rituals? You have mentioned that you love this time of year and it would be great to hear what makes it so special for you.   (Handing out candy, watching scary movies, playing horror games, PSLs, watching the leaves changing colors.) JONES - It’s all about the theme parks in October, in LA. Disneyland, Knott’s Scary Farm, and Universal Studios. It’s too expensive to hit every park every year, but I try to do 1 or 2 if I can. I sadly won’t have the time or budget for it in 2019, but I’m certainly looking forward to taking Milo someday.

ISRAWWR - As a relatively recent dad of twins I've had much less gaming time and have found myself gravitating towards mindless platformers or just grinding in RPGs (the switch has been a godsend with how quick it is to start up and portable). What are you playing when you're with your kid or just tired after a long day? JONES - This week it’s all about Little Town Hero and Cat Quest II. STOKED. At the top of my backlog is The Sinking City, Dragon Quest II, and MUA3, which are also all on Switch. GR Breakpoint and Control are the only PS4 titles I’m really focused on right now.

DANIEL RIBEIRO - I watched the Community Showcase for May 2019 and you're wrong. Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) is amazing! I gave it 8/10 and I'm not religious, so completely unbiased opinion. I also only watched it once, but loved it. JONES - Wait, what did I say? I LOVE that rendition of Jesus Christ Superstar. I watched that a thousand times when we did JCS in high school, and we stole a lot of characterization, staging, and choreography from that production. Ted Neeley is the GOAT. I wonder what point I was (poorly) attempting to make? Also, Elektra sounds absolutely awful. I just realized I never watched it.

Files

Cup of Jones - October 14, 2019

Your weekly batch of business updates and questions.

Comments

Brandon K Gann

Hey Mr. Jones! I’ve been loving the uptick in reviews, and there was something Huber noted in his Shadowkeep review I was curious about. In it, he discussed how there would be an update to a specific mode coming in a month’s time, but it stuck out to me because since the review can be watched/read at anytime in the future, it’s weird to me a time-specific comment is in the review. Apologies if this has been addressed previously, but when writing a review, why use language like “next month” instead of a similar “shortly after publish of this review” on a video that can be viewed many times in the future? Is this a too granular thing in the wording, particularly when most traffic on reviews are in the immediate days to week from when it goes live? Regardless, thanks for always humoring me and have a wonderful rest of your day! Cheers! QUESTION: When writing a review, why use language like “next month” instead of a similar “shortly after publish of this review” on a video that can be viewed many times in the future?

Owen

So I know this is a small company, and so that probably changes how new shows/projects are pitched. But this weeks question about what shows were fought on lead me to wonder... Do you all have a process for pitching a new show/project? Like a certain type of presentation or anything, or does it vary? - In my mind I picture like someone having a power point or something, but I'm wondering how was something like Mysterious Monsters or Box Peek for example pitched to the rest of the Allies?

Anonymous

Hi Jones, long time listener, first time poster. This post will be in two parts. Feel free to address just one part as I'm probably doubling up with the second bit (it's Blizzard related). 1 As a non American (I'm Australian), I find I'm often confused by the terms video games companies and media use to refer to release dates. For example: - Most countries don't call Autumn "Fall". - In the Southern Hemisphere the seasons are reversed. - In tropical countries, they only have two seasons, wet and dry. - The dates seasons start vary from country to country. - What does "Holiday" mean when it comes to release schedules? I assume it's a secular way of referring to the Christmas period? Even if that's right, what dates does this include? In Australia we do have a Christmas holiday but it starts around the 21st of December and is mostly in January, I doubt there's many big games released in January. - I had to look up Black Friday sales and I'm still not sure where the name came from. I find it surprising that such US specific terms are used by such a global industry. It was particualrly obvious at E3 this year which is watched all around the world. Given that games companies and games media are eager to reach customers all over the world, do you think this sort of thing might change and become a bit more user friendly for people outside the US? Might this be something Easy Allies could be extra aware of when talking release schedules? This vagulely leads into my second point. 2 Thank you for a reasonably nuanced and honest discussion of the Blizzard/Hong Kong issues last week on the podcast. Here's a thought from me about how you could nuance this, and other issues, even more in the future. It relates to you guys being based in the USA, the world's richest and most powerful nation. I wonder, if a high profile athlete in your country came out in a press conference and supported a protest group that were known for wearing masks and who had been violent on multiple occasions, do you think there would have been such a big uproar when that athlete was disciplined as their has been with the Hearthstone interview? In my mind, maybe, but also maybe not. I wonder if it's been easy to criticise Blizzard because China clearly has a very different culture to America (and Australia) and those differences make us feel good about the freedom we have and critical of the lack of freedom in China. Don't get me wrong, I would very much prefer to live in the USA (or Australia) over China and I am philisophically on the side of the protestors in Hong Kong. I also don't want to defend the way Blizzard handled things and especially the way they communicated. I guess I'm just interested to hear your thoughts on whether there's a risk in an issue like this that the US comes accross as waving their finger at other countries because we're not enough like you but without enough consideration of the problems that big powerful US companies have caused all around the world? I hope this doesn't sound like USA bashing, I appreciate heaps of things about you guys, it's just that nobody's perfect and I've felt the games media has lacked a bit of depth in covering this tricky topic and been a bit inclined to lean on a "China bad, USA good" mentality. Easy Allies definitely had more nuance than that (Ian was particularly aware of this) but I thought I'd throw this thought it as I spent the whole day thinking about your podcast conversation :-) Love and respect. Kirk P.S. Aplogies if this has been covered in the current episode, I haven't had time to listen to it all yet, wanted to get it out of my head ;-)

Anonymous

Hey Jones Any more thoughts or plans for that All Day Magic The Gathering stream that you guys were talking about at one point. Would be a super hype event and with Magic Arena out now it would be easy to teach the rules to those that don't know them.

Anonymous
>>27880530

Hi, Kirk. Regarding the first part of your post, being from Brazil, I also got confused a lot about US terms, however with time you learn to figure it out. It's also something really important if you play a lot of US games and watch a lot of US movies and TV shows, as they mention these things constantly. Same with meters vs yards/feet, 12 hour clock vs 24 hour clock, when school/fiscal year begins and ends, etc. While I agree these terms should be less US centric, E3 itself is in the US, and the biggest market atm is the US, so they're mostly speaking to US customers. Though I have seen and read a lot of japanese centric terms with TGS, being it's in Japan, as well as Gamescom in Germany, where they use European terms. It's one of those things that maybe won't ever change, since each show caters to its local audience more than a global one. And as you've mentioned, there's many geographical and seasonal changes that will never change since it's just how te world works. As for the Holiday Season, it goes from Thanksgiving until the New Year, it consists of: Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year's Eve. But if you want months, it's late November till the beginning of January. Kwanzaa can also be included in that, as it's from December 26th until January 1st, but it's less know than the other four. Black Friday is called that (link to source below): "because the volume of shoppers created traffic accidents and sometimes even violence. Police coined the phrase to describe the mayhem surrounding the congestion of pedestrian and auto traffic in downtown shopping areas." "The name was first recorded in 1966 by Earl Apfelbaum, a dealer in rare stamps. In his ad, he said, 'Black Friday is the name that the Philadelphia Police Department gave to the Friday following Thanksgiving Day. It is not a term of endearment for them. 'Black Friday' officially opens the Christmas shopping season in center city. It usually brings massive traffic jams and over-crowded sidewalks as the downtown stores are mobbed from opening to closing.'" Why Is Black Friday Called Black Friday? https://www.thebalance.com/why-is-it-called-black-friday-3305712 I hope these answers help somewhat, though Jones and Bloodworth being Americans can explain them much better than me. L & R

Anonymous

Hey Jones, No question: just wanted to give you & Amanda a shout out for working on getting your social life back after Milo stole it. My wife and I lucked out by having a couple friends willing to look after our boy for us for free once in a while, but we have a pool of babysitters now that we access a couple of times a week. That mommy/daddy time is so key for keeping sane! L&R

Anonymous

Hey Jones Since next gen is upon once again. I want to get your take on cross generation games. I understand that they will always be a thing, and releasing exclusively on a new gen console is a huge gamble for a publisher. But I feel like games tend to be weaker than if they just stuck to one generation. I think it can be detrimental to the point of being a franchise killer. I believe one example of this that would take you on a nostalgia trip is Mercenaries. From what I can gather aiming for the PS2 and the newer PS3/X360 at the same time was hell for development. It just seems like you should aim for one or the other but never both. How do you fill about it? If you were a developer would you be willing to gamble on cross gen?

Anonymous

Hey Jones, Personal Question, looking forward to reading your answer. Boys generally take after their father/uncle. What bad trait do you hope Milo doesn't get from you? What trait do you hope he gets from you? Thanks iboshow

strawhatninja

Jones, have you noticed if people watch certain shows instead of listening or vice versa? For example I always listen to the EZA podcast but I always watch spoiler mode. Why do I do this? I have no idea but it's always something I've done. Maybe I'm just weird.

Anonymous

Hey Jones, More of a personal concern this week rather than a personal question. I finally got round to watching the Joker Spoiler mode the other day after seeing it for myself and although I enjoyed the episode overall, I really felt for Huber. He brought up the "It's all a dream" or alternative take several times throughout the episode and all although this is being seen as a genuine and popular theory among the community it was consistently laughed off and brushed away by both you and Ian. It was clear he had some real excitement about talking through the theory with you guys but it seems like he was never given the chance to dive in deep and explore the plausibility of it at all. I felt this all culminated in Huber looking deflated and (uncharacteristically) dehyped by your joke about Endgame being all a dream for Tony Stark and it was quite painful to watch. He sank into his seat, his mannerisms changed and the quiet and almost exahausted "Whatever" had me feeling quite concerned for him in the last few moments of the episode. I hope I'm wrong and it wasn't taken as seriously as I think but if it was I hope you guys spoke off camera as it does seem like he was hurt by your comment and for not being taken seriously with the theory. Again, I hope I'm wrong about this as I know you do love and respect each other and these little moments can happen among the cloesest and oldest of friends but it might be worth reaching out to him if you haven't already just to get perspective on the situation and to make sure everything is okay. Love and Respect to you all, James

Anonymous

Just finished listening to Frame Trap and after hearing Ben talk about having LANs in his friend's basement I gotta ask. Can the next EZA meetup just be a huge LAN party?

Anonymous
>>27880995

I am guessing this will most likely be on of the future Occasional Board Game shows... again, just a guess.

Anonymous
>>27903251

I listen to or watch podcasts and streams based on who's on and how long they are as well as what they're playing...like I don't mind listening to Trials of Mana because the "Three B's" (Blood, Brad and Ben) do such a good job of reading the text aloud or Mike and Mike because do you really need to see every minute of RE gameplay? But I always watch Weekly Hunts and the group stream because I want to see the game-play and reactions and read chat to see their reactions. And I absolutely have to watch Fiasconauts to see the RPing and expressions of all of the participants. It's a personal thing and not weird at all =)

Anonymous

Mr Jones, With all the recent happenings at Blizzard, where do the Easy Allies business ethics stand. Are you okay with individuals making political statements? Would you grant freedom of expression in a professional capacity, knowing that an individuals expression could be abused or difficult to defend? Are the Allies aligned politically in such a way that this is not a serious issue. Also, there was casual mention of action against Blizzard and their media for their poor handling of the Hearthstone stream. I am a little on the fence about this if it does take place. Yes Blizzard did something egregious, but if you were to look a little closer at other companies with similar practices in appeasing Chinese censors (Disney), you would either need to respond in a similar fashion or be labeled as hypocritical, which nobody wants. I don't think there is an easy solution for this issue but am curious how you would like your company to respond.

Anonymous

Jones, did you notice that the bottom part of your mic isn’t properly attached?

Yui

I know it's far away but do you think there will be any coverage of Animal Crossing beyond the review and maybe Frame Trap discussion? It's been such an anticipated game for you as well as a lot of us in the community, but I'm just not sure what you could do.

Anonymous

Mr. Jones, I just-- what?! "Weird"?! "Musical theatre nonsense"?! I don't think you realize the level of insight into Phase 4 of Easy Allies that your answers provide. For example, when asked which cat from Cats EZA represented, you answered Skimbleshanks. This tells me that you see Easy Allies as the watchful sentinel keeping an eye on the fast-moving train that is the video games industry. And just last week, you said you'd choose round tables over square. This tells me, rather ironically, that you view Easy Allies as more of a Trina than a Marvin. That perhaps it feel like it's holding to the ground while the ground keeps shifting but ultimately thinks that everything will be all right. Now, I understand that these are very sophisticated psychological techniques we are dealing with here and that not everyone is going to understand what is going on. But I think this could be treated with a little bit more of the respect and seriousness it deserves. Please keep that in mind as I ask the following: OK, so like of all the meat pies listed in the first act finale of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, which would Phase 4 of Easy Allies pick?

Megan Linart

Howdy Jones! with the enigmatic Death Stranding right around the corner im just wondering in your opinion how hard do you think this game is going to be to review in a general sense? Not just in the script process but how much footage you guys show? Or do you think its going to be very more of a straight forward experience? Of course if your reviewing it and cant answer or something just skip :) Meant it more as a prediction.

Anonymous

I'm back! Sorry I haven't brought any hypotheticals in a while, but I'm here to rectify that situation: You wake up tomorrow in Celedon City; marvelling at the idea of living in the world of Pokemon. What do you do? Do you go out and start collecting? Do you use your knowledge of how Pokemon works to dominate the field? Or do you bring your real-world knowledge of the heinous acts of things like dog fighting into your ideals? Do you boycott the concept of Pokemon fighting?

Anonymous

Business: am I crazy, or is there no youtube Playlist for Mysterious Monsters? I tried finding it without luck, had to search the channel to find the episode I had missed.

Anonymous

Hey Jones! Miss asking questions but I'm so behind on podcasts I can't keep up. I'm watching the community showcase and had a question since I sadly can't pledge that high. In the post do you have a rule stating that multimedia posts have a smaller word limit? You seem to be very forgiving but is there a hard cut off where you wouldn't take the submission? Or would you just edit their post down like you do with CoJ questions?

VGJunky

Feedback, Silver Squad - ignore prompts to spend less time on art or extend streams to have more play time. its fine because it's a full playthrough and you guys are gonna go until it's done so it's just extending the life of the series anyway. People are being shortsighted since they think they're getting less game but they're getting more content in the long run. Also don't feel like you need to rush through the art portion unless it starts getting crazy quantities, people are working hard on that stuff for the most part Also, has anybody mentioned that your pokemon encounters are influenced by time of day? Day/night has a different selection iirc so you're limiting yourself to a portion of the roster if you don't change game clock at all

Anonymous

What up Jones, With details of the next hardware generation surreptitiously trickling out to the public, it has me curious if when these new consoles are available to the public, if you or the Allies see any value in publishing any sorts of reviews for the launch hardware. It's something I've seen IGN put out for things like the Switch and Switch Lite most recently. With reviews being one of the important tiers of what EZA produces, a concise video review for things like Stadia, PS5, Apple Arcade etc, could prove fruitful to bringing new eyes to EZA as a whole, especially if these videos were to be published while conversations are hot. Personally, I wouldn't feel right about putting a numerical value to launch hardware, because it would bring ideas and arguments of 'console wars' and what systems are numerically better into question when I feel they should all be celebrated respectfully to a degree. However an informative video explaining the hardware and its pros and cons, regardless of if it has a score at the end, still seems like an interesting type of video I haven't seen explored by EZA. What are your thoughts? L&R, Brian from Happy Gaming

Anonymous

Hey Jones, I loved your candy corn shirt on the podcast this week. Where did you pick it up?

Anonymous

Hi Jones! Not a question, just an FYI: if the Allies are planning on PAX East 2020, panel submissions are now open! https://east-panels.paxsite.com/main/login

EasyAllies
>>28003074

This is one of my YouTube pet peeves. If you just go to the playlists page, it doesn't show all of the playlists, despite defaulting to a category labeled "all playlists." In order to actually see all of our playlists, you have to change the category to "created playlists." You can also find the Mysterious Monsters playlist right on the main channel page at youtube.com/easyallies or on the website easyallies.com -Bloodworth

Anonymous

Hi, Jones. First, I sincerely apologize for spoiling Elektra for you. I thought that you had watched it before because I've heard you mentioning watching many movies multiple times and it was released 14 years ago. I hate spoilers. I'm very sorry for that. Second, can you please tell me which superheroes movies you've never watched before? Because I would hate spoiling anything else for you or anyone else. While I try very hard to not go into spoilers in these reviews, sometimes I mention something specific to show how great or terrible a scene or the overall quality of a movie is. Also, out of curiosity, have you read the Watchmen comics? Including the Before and After series as well. With that out of the way, it's time to cover the devil's bounty hunter, Ghost Rider: Ghost Rider (2007) - 2/10 - I didn't plan on watching either the Ghost Rider or the Punisher movies, however as I went through the other movies and there were some really horrible ones, I decided to take these on and see how well they compare with the others. Also, it's been a very long time since I saw Eva Mendes in any form, so that helped convince me as well. Unfortunately, the acting is very bad in this movie for almost everyone, except for Brett Cullen and Matt Long's acting, which are great and good respectively. The special effects are good and the motorcycle riding has a few cool shots. The rest though is very bad. Very few action sequences and the few it has are boring ones, bad dialogue, the characters are very one-dimensional, there's no character development, the story is dumb and there's no real motive for most of the characters' actions, there's a lot of subplots that have no conclusion - like the police force is involved for most of the movie and then they all just disappear completely, as if they never participated in the movie at all. There's no conclusion either, the police just never show up again and no explanation is given as to why. The villains are all pathetic and extremely dumb. They make the most asnine decisions you could possibly imagine, even though they will die because of it. The romance subplot is very badly executed and ends up a big waste of time with no payoff. The only reason this isn't a 1 out of 10 is because some moments with the Ghost Rider and motorcycle, like the two Ghost Riders riding together and the scene with Ghost Rider and a lot of the police force are really cool. Still a very, very bad movie. Ghost Rider - Spirit of Vengeance (2011) - 1/10 - They dropped most of the actors from the first movie, changed the actor that portrayed the devil, completely changed the scenes and the events that led Johnny Blaze to sign the contract with the devil for no reason. They also changed the name of the devil from Mephistopheles to Roarke (hahahahahahaha), from a good name with meaning behind it to the most bland name name ever. They changed Johnny Blaze's bike - one of the few good things from the first movie, some of the camera shots look horrible, they try to add shaking to some scenes and it's really bad, and the first action scene is very bad. All of that in the first 9 minutes... Everybody's acting is bad, Idris Elba even has a ridiculous French accent. But the award for worst performance ever goes to Nicolas Cage, the way he tries to portray Ghost Rider's struggle within him is beyond stupid with affectations that make him look like he's insane, but not the type of insane that the movie is trying to convey, more like insane he's even trying that hard and that awful. The scene with him and Nadia interrogating a criminal is genuinely the worst scene I have ever seen in a movie or TV show in my entire life. I hated this scene when I first watched it 8 years ago and while it isn't as bad as I remembered, it's still that awful. The forced and unnatural relationship with the kid is horrible, it's also badly executed and badly acted from both actors. The action scene with Ghost Rider on a crane was cool, but the other action scenes are bad. However, the whole plot of this movie revolves around the fact that the devil wants a kid, yet he hires a bunch of amateur criminals to kidnap the kid and he himself travels by train. Does that sound like any depiction of the devil you ever heard or would fear? This whole movie is messed up beyond any redeeming quality. The guy who gets the power to decay stuff, ends up decaying almost anything he touches whether he intends to or not, yet why didn't the vehicle he stole - which most of his body was touching - didn't decay!?! Also, he couldn't decay plastic for some reason, yet completely decayed a paramedic and his entire clothes, which included many elements made of plastic... ?????? Let that sink in for a moment. This is a very, very awful movie. Interesting fact - more like damning, the writer of Blade: Trinity also wrote this movie's story. Now it all makes sense. L & R

Anonymous

Will you be scoring today’s Rise of Skywalker trailer? And will you be purchasing tickets tonight?

Anonymous

Hey jones, dont know if this made it in time but, with how close this year’s bets scores are from the podcast, do you guys have any thoughts about doing a bets award show near the end of the year, you guys could have awards like best bet, worst bet, best better, most consistent, and even have don host as a third party. I think it would be cool as bets will probably come down to the wire for the first time.

Brandon K Gann
>>28023862

While I wish you could've replied to my question directly IF your opening paragraph is either a direct response or majority based on my Silver Squad question to add time (not take away art), I wanted to address this as it did pertain to said question. Regardless, while I wouldn't go out of my way to respond to any comment, I decided to do so when Mr. Jones used my name, and even then, what pushed me over the edge to type this is when I read the above and realized Mr. Jones edited out your "people are being shortsighted..." statement. I agree it's more content, and excellent may I add, I'm just concerned (and as he pointed out in his answer) it's becoming more and more, and I believe it deserves a stream all its own. Either way, just wanted to say I read the shortsighted bit and wanted to express my disappointment IF IF IF this in response to myself and if so, I wish you would've responded to me directly, but because it wasn't, I feel your opening comment as passive aggressive against me, and wanted to reach out. If you've read this, thank you for your time. L&R