Yes indeed, we finally did it. A podcast. Well, half of us did. Kieron and John got together in John’s squalid bedroom and recorded 45 minutes of the highest quality PC games-based banter you’re ever likely to hear (if you can understand Kieron’s hyper-speed Midlands-twang). They only made one mistake. They recorded it on a toaster.
So, be warned. What we’re linking to here is of utterly abysmal sound quality. No one in their right mind would be willing to put out something that sounds like two broken robots being drowned in a bathtub. Fortunately, there are no right minds here, so you get to hear it. But you’ve been warned. (And it’s all perfectly audible). So NO complaints about sound quality. Not one. We know. We know. We know. Anyone who complains will be put to death.
Below the jump is a running order of the inanity. Plus links to the potential RSS feed. This is all highly experimental at this point, and we’ve no idea whether it will all work. Definitely post if you’re having trouble getting it. BUT NOT ABOUT THE SOUND QUALITY.
Running Order
0:00 Pointless Rambly Embarassed Intro
2:29 John Walker loves that World of Goo.
7:02 Kieron spoils a World of Goo puzzle just to illustrate how amazing it is.
9:12 Kieron Gillen loves that Warhammer Online.
13:25 Kieron realises that he’s ranting, but it doesn’t seem to stop him.
17:00 John finally gets a chance to tell some anecdotes about Warhammer and visiting Mythic.
19:35 And that’s enough about Warhammer. Now, Multiwinia!
21:30 Kieron segues into the joy of Chaos on the Spectrum, before going back into Multiwinia.
23:30 John tries to get Kieron to say something about Subversion, but he doesn’t know nowt. Well, nearly nowt…
25:30 Kieron releases a new and ill-thought out theory: the renaissance of the puzzle game.
29:55 John tells the story about the Audiosurf Moneyhat.
32:25 The PC Gamer podcast, the PC Gamer showdown and slander about the PC Gamer staff.
36:10 The Eurogamer event – and a possible RPS event in London. Involving drinking.
37:20 Insulting readers 1 and 4, but loving 2 and 3. And the joy of the RPS TF2 server and guilds.
39:10 Kieron’s off to see LOTR:Online: Mines of Moria. John’s in Private Eye. And John explains Private Eye.
42:10 Our favourite podcasts.
43:55 John Walker tells a story involving incest and a major industry PR man.
44:40 And we decide to stop.
The RSS feed is here. Although there will obviously be a gap while we figure out how to record it so it doesn’t sound this poor. Direct mp3 download is here. We’ll be on iTunes in a bit – that’s just processing at the moment. Will edit in the link. EDIT: And here’s the link!
So, as well as complaints that it doesn’t work, please post your thoughts and feedback below. BUT NOT ABOUT THE SOUND QUALITY. Let us know if it’s too long, not long enough, too funny for your mind to cope with, that sort of thing.
And while you’re at it, don’t forget the One Life Left podcast, which we love very much.
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The incest story is great.
I love that story so much.
KG
I didn’t think the sound was bad actually. You could hear what people were saying at inoffensive frequencies. Half of the ones you hear they might have fancy mics but they’re set up wrong or they’re mixed wrong or they’re all different and there’s no post and there’s ‘plosives all over and there’s some guy on the phone and its patched in badly and there’s a delay on the line and it’s causing all stilted and clashing conversation and even feedback and oho boy.
Much prefer something that’s at least fairly consistent.
This was cool. Just the two worked fine and you chat well together. Good luck with more guys; that could get crowded if you’re all the same. It’s annoying that you’re not monotonous social reprobates that I could feel slightly superior to after all, but that’s life I suppose.
Wow, your sound quality is as awful as my obese klepto dealer Mum.
I can’t listen to this until later, but this is GREAT news. Thanks for doing this, it’s very much appreciated.
I can’t tell your voices apart. Next time could you please use callsigns or put a comedy voice filter on one or both of you please.
(like my mum)
Sleeper: Your mum is an obese klepto dealer Mum with poor sound quality.
KG
i distinguish them by thinking ‘johns the posh Englishman, kierons the not so posh Englishman(i’m Scottish and my girlfriends from Sutton so you both sound posher than her)
p.s. listeners not readers :P
My mother’s sound quality is excellent.
The sound quality is lovely.
(Because my mum will appreciate the consequent compliment).
Sombrero Kid, so is Keiron the one with the slight East Midlands twang? Or am I imagining that?
RPS podcast? RPS podcast! RPS PODCAST! RPS PODCAST! Wait, what? A RPS podcast you say? Madness!
Hey, btw, the sound quality is kind of bad.
Dont like podcasts either. Waste of everyone’s time.
@Therlun
Apart from of the people who like them.
No no, it was vital that we all knew Therlun’s opinion on these things!
Well, i liked it.
And i preordered World of Goo as well.
@futage
i’m not sure about his twang it sounded a bit schizo but if i’d guess i’d say east midlands yeah.
i remember john aswell cause he sounds like my friend john who works for EA and is also funny, whose from Devon, therefore John’s from Devon and he know’s why and how they make it so creamy!
@Sombrero Kid
Yeah, Keiron’s twang seemed to vary between quite pronounced and not there at all during the course of the thing. Maybe he just enjoys doing tentative impersonations of someone from the East Midlands.
But anyway, I managed to separate them in the end and enjoyed the thing. I would like more of the arty talk, though. Much more of it.
Well, I had my reservations about this and I’m glad that they were totally unfounded.
More please.
And the audio quality wasn’t that bad at all, if you ask me.
@James G; John Walker
Perhaps the content of this podcast is exceptionally interesting, but that doesnt make it a better medium.
The article asked for thoughts and feedback, I provided those from my point of view.
If you only want content-related comments you have to say so. :P
@Therlun
That’s the most ridiculous argument. You dislike podcasts as a medium? How about recorded speech in general? How do you feel about radio? Do you dislike speech in general? Both dialogue and monologue? How about if it’s realtime? Why do you prefer the written word, assuming the content is the same?
the ‘vocal’ medium is better for somethings i.e. waffling about uninteresting things and is very good to listen to while doing other things like work, whereas i’m much more likely to get into trouble for reading a web page it’s better for pertinent information and explicit detail about interesting things.
so i say they’re both good.
p.s. Electronic Wireless show is a much better name than podcast!
@futage
“Speech” has its uses. My main point is that it not possible that “the content is the same”. If you listen to a text someone reads out it has more information (intonation and accentuation).
That may sound like and advantage, but in some cases isnt.
Written text allows not only to present condensed information, its also is easy to navigate, “scan” and archive.
Podcasts only offer entertainment value, but demand too much work by the creator and too much time by the listener in my opinion.
I’m not saying that there shouldnt be any podcasts or that people are not allowed to enjoy them.
I’m just saying that the effort is wasted on me… and I’m sure the rest of humanity will recognise what a waste podcasts are at some point. ;)
I think that fits in the area of “giving feedback”. :)
Ability to search, skim the boring bits and easy copypasta.
There’s also potential issue of foreign readers having more trouble with understanding the content, be it either due to speakers’ accents, quality of the audio in general, less familiarity with spoken english, lack of automated translators and whatever else.
Atleast you numbered it right!
Ill listen to it later
@Therlun
That’s a fair argument, that first bit.
The rest. Not sure I agree about the time required to do an electronic wireless show – surely it’s the length of the podcast, which isn’t much. Plus a little overhead for organisation. I absolutely disagree that a podcast only offers entertainment – why do you think this is so?
I still don’t get why you’re dismissing the medium. I mean – dismiss an individual podcast, fine. Even dismiss most podcasts if you feel they tend to have the same failings. But dismissing a particular podcast you’ve not heard based on vague ideas about the primacy of text for certain modes of communication (which may or may not relate to the content of the podcast) doesn’t hold up. Surely the content and particular use of speech in this specific podcast matter a lot?
@tmp
They’re problems with speech vs. text rather than with podcasts in particular. Which of course means they extend to podcasts but they’re not specific to that medium. I’m sure you don’t want to replace all spoken communication with textual communication? So I’m also sure that you’ll accept that spoken communication has its uses and unique abilities in terms of the communication of information. And given that no one is suggesting that the textual communications on this site be replaced with spoken ones, what’s the problem?
@ futage
exactamudo! offer a choice and each man to his own, although i recommend you have a listen cause it really is very good, but don’t make time for it which i think is most peoples main mistake with this kind of thing rather listen while you’re working or washing the dishes/cleaning the house! you can’t read while you do those things and that for me is the point!
Futage,
My statement was perhaps a bit ambiguous.
Podcasts of course dont ONLY provide entertainment, but entertainment is the only thing where they have an advantage over other kinds of media.
An advantage that from my experience very rarely justifies the work and time involved.
Your sound quality was my mum ¬_¬
In other related news, it’s nice to hear voices discuss this kind of thing and help shatter the illusion you are some kind of hivemind of omnipotent games journalistic power, and are just people who like talking about games a lot. And yes, I went away from it going “World of Goo then…”
This is correct, after all the question i was answering was “why do you prefer text [over audio] given the content is the same”.
Is the transcript of this podcast available somewhere on the site? Because if it isn’t, it does in fact replace to some extent the textual communication. Very limited (at the moment) extent of course so it’s a limited problem, but nevertheless it might be seen as one.
Um, the podcast isn’t instead of anything else. People really do like to complain, don’t they?
Perhaps some people like to discuss… stuff.
Whats wrong about a mannered discussion about podcasts?
@John Walker
That’s Outrageous, how could you possibly comment on such a thing as people complaining! Never heard of freedom of speach! yada yada lada tada your mum.
People really don’t know what they want, do they?
That’s it. We’re turning off the website.
I have a complaint about RPS being turned off…
Love that shot of Costello being a big old nerd.
That’s fine, so long as you podcast about it.
The website is still up. Keep to your fucking promises.
Nice job guys. I usually detest podcasts but you guys sounded very natural.
tmp – I really genuinely wasn’t expecting people to tell us off for having made one at all, as if it were an affront to them.
Did you use that free (crappy) mic that came with PCG a few years ago?
And yeah, my mum was free and came with PCG a few years ago (just thought I’d beat you to it).
Good idea though, please keep it up.
P.
I guess it kinda spiralled there because some people aren’t big on the audio thing (due to mentioned reasons) but they’d like to read the equivalent of this podcast… so then they comment to such effect, then others respond with “what’s so better about text”, get response, respond with “ah but you aren’t losing anything” and so on.
For the record, and just personal view here… i don’t really have time to spend 45 mins listening to audio recording in hope for some interesting/funny bits, but i’d like to skim text version of it as it’s usually much faster. So not being able to do it does feel –quite irrationally of course– like missing out on some potentially good stuff. Transcripts are quite a work though and menial at that, so it’s just something to live with.
Droopy: I’m glad someone got it.
tmp: It’s one reason why we’ve ran the verdicts – it’s podcast like, but in the format of text. We’re certainly planning on continuing them.
AND WEST MIDLANDS, YOU BASTS.
KG
YES brothas, RPS..keep it going
@tmp
man, if you don’t like audio, don’t listen to it! There are a shitload of people that have long commutes to work and other reasons why audio works so well. RPS doing a podcast is the best thing to happen in recent times. The PC needs more podcasts, there’s a void. If you want to read text, just read the daily text here at RPS, as if you don’t have enough to read already.
Simon Byron died a hero of Greece.
I liked the audio quality. Reminded me of when I was five and used to spout random drivel into a Fisher Price My First Tape Recorder.
Hilariously, it used to be about the games we had on our Amstrad 128k. “Jet Set Willy”, I would muse, “is a poorly titled game because I have not seen a single Willy. Or Jet”.
this makes me some kind of Pioneer. But of what?
I enjoyed it, that is all.
Mr_Day, you must find these tapes and release them to the world.