Diecast 334: Mailbag Binge
Channel: Paul Spooner
Date: 2021-03-01

Listen to all the Diecast episodes with Shamus Young in here: https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?cat=287

Show Notes:
00:00 Moving
03:57 Winamp & Skins
08:36 Mailbag: Whale Hunting
19:18 Mailbag: Cats or dogs?
21:18 Mailbag: Lesser-Known Favorites?
29:28 Mailbag: Starsiege Tribes
31:11 Mailbag: Installed Games
34:41 USB of Mystery
38:33 Mailbag: Modding for Playability
42:52 Mailbag: Remaster Wishlist
47:12 Mailbag: Forgotten Tech
53:56 Mailbag: MMO
59:21 Mailbag: Tetra
1:03:44 Wrapping Up
1:05:02 Outro

(apologies for truncating the questions, you can see the full text at Shamus' site)

Whale Hunting

Dear Diecast,

I hope you're all doing well! I just stumbled upon a 2015 GDC Talk - "Don't Call Them Whales: F2P Spenders and Virtual Value" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7SDByLlCHw. 

It shares some interesting opinions and data. I found a couple of interesting points, and I was wondering if you could discuss some (or all) of them:

1. At around 16:23, right after sharing some interesting data, she tries to equate whales' spending to some traditional hobbies.

2. At around 37:02, she tries to make the case that game demand is inelastic ... That part of the talk was conspicuously light on data... But do you think she's right? 

3. UGH!

Anyway, hope my email wasn't too long (I tried, I really really did!).

Keep Being Awesome,

Lino


Lesser-Known Favorites?

Dear  Diecast!
 
Do you guys have games that were seminal, or influenced your tastes but might be lesser known outside of hardcore fans of certain genres? And what stood out to you about them?

For me personally, those titles were, in no particular order: Jagged Alliance 2, Strike Commander", and "Little Big Adventure"
 
Kind regards from winterly Austria
ColeusRattus


Starsiege Tribes
Dear Diecast,

Shamus has mentioned he likes the movement mechanics in the Spider-Man games, and I was wondering: Shamus, have you ever played an older multiplayer game called Starsiege Tribes? It has a movement mechanic called skiing, where due to the way the physics are programmed, you can gain a lot of momentum by repeatedly jumping while moving down a slope.
Vale,
-Tim

Installed Games
Dear Diecast, 

Hope you're doing well! I like to have very few games installed on my machine. In the past, I tried to have at most three games installed at a time. That way, I could make sure the games I did have were ones I played regularly. For a long time, having any more than three gave me feelings of anxiety, becauseI felt like I was neglecting all these great games I've got on my computer. 

But in recent years, the number of games I have installed has jumped up significantly! Right now, I've got no less than ten (10!) games on my system! So, I wonder - how common is this? How many games do you have installed right now?

Keep Being Awesome, 

Lino


Modding for Playability
Dear Diecast,

Hi Shamus, Paul, and Ross (in particular),

Unity, because it uses Mono as one of its internal scripting engines, exports C# assemblies that prove to be relatively easy to decompile and edit. Tools like dnSpy make this trivial so long as you are comfortable with C#.
...
How often have you come across a game that you wanted to enjoy, but couldn't because there was some small problem with an obvious fix that you otherwise couldn't make because the internals of the game were locked away?
Sincerely,
The Listener Previously, But Let's Also Go With Currently, Known as 'Brad.'


Remaster Wishlist
Hi!

Shamus, you mentioned a wish about remastering Thief Deadly Shadows. I have very good news for you — the mod called Thief DS Gold, which is a part of Sneaky Upgrade, a patch/mod pack for TDS. This is the mod, that stitches together levels in missions (though, not the City districts), with no fog gates.
 
Best regards, DeadlyDark

Forgotten Tech

Dear Diecast,

I hope this finds you well! I love learning about old technology, and I just watched this cool 5-minute documentary about the Halcyon
https://youtu.be/dSMhZuKyGm0

- do you remember seeing ads for it?
- has there ever been a piece of technology you really liked, but which never caught on?
- Was there ever a piece of tech where you thought "This'll never get off the ground!", yet it ended up being extremely popular?
Lino


Dear Diecast,

Never playing MMO game before, I decided to tip my toes into one – Star Wars: The Old Republic. To my suprise, I even liked it fine.
...
So, I was wondering, why so many modern games (I guess mostly cRPGs) are so fond of using those mechanics, when they make sense in MMOs, but not in single players games?...

Darek

PS: Speaking of BioWare, apparently Anthem was cancelled. Any comments on that?


Tetra
Hey Shamus,

you mentioned that you really like Tinker's mod for Minecraft and that's why you're not using 1.16 yet, I was wondering if you've checked out Tetra?
...
It doesn't work too well with tools and implements added by other mods, but it may still be worth checking out.

Vale,

-Tim