 Dreaming stream is coming out. I mean Florida man was disappointed. You're from New York. Yeah Yeah, my one of my main goals in life is to not be a fark story. I Think I will I'm capable of never becoming a fark story I want to only be a fark story if it's the right kind true like cuz there is the hero tag That's what I'm saying. You can get the hero tag, but the majority of the tags you can get are not hero. I Don't want to get asinine. I don't want to get obvious. I definitely don't want to get scary or sick Man buys house in HOA murders board of HOA jury acquits that hero That would get the hero tag All right, I think the stream is going everything looks good. We'll just go It's Tuesday, November 20th 2018. I'm rim. I'm Scott and this is geek nights tonight We are hype for packs unplugged. It's coming up and it's the second one ever So one of the things I have to do in the course of my job because I'm like a business manager owner type these days Like a product manager is I got to like go to team dinners like take a bunch of people out to stuff and like hang out with all You know the people who actually build because I don't build anything I just decide what to build and how to build it and when to build it the easy part to it It's surprising how hard that part is sometimes But so I'm at one of these things and I got a team that's pretty cool They're all like really gamer II so we're talking about like game stuff and it's fun And then at one point someone's like one of my one of my like senior engineers who's real good says something like yeah I really love classic console gaming. Uh-huh. Is he gonna say some PlayStation game PlayStation 2? I picked up used a game cube So already like I'm already feeling old like you can see like rims feeling of age escalates rapidly at this point And I got the original Smash Brothers for it Yeah, that was the first one right there couldn't have been one before that Yeah, this conversation just made me feel Incredibly old so on the internet today. So in these in the Nintendo switch subreddit Everyone's of course like Metroid Prime 4. When's it coming? When's it coming? But people have basically been based on no information whatsoever, right? Have basically been in assuming praying begging that Nintendo will re-release all the old Metroid Prime 1 2 3 Which they already did on the Wii there was a Metroid Prime trilogy re-release disc But they're hoping for Metroid Prime re-release HD They really want this for some reason and I'm like you could probably for less than the cost even if they put that out It'll be like 60 bucks for less than the cost of that you could probably go get an old Wii or GameCube and the original discs or that trilogy disc for the Wii Yeah, why the fuck do you need this re-released for the switch? Although I must say again, it is really stupid if I was the CEO of Nintendo Every single game ever published by Nintendo would be in the eShop Or there would be some sort of Netflix subscription and you would just get them all the end Yeah, I feel like because it's like yeah, you could just go get it But that's sort of a pain in the ass. Yeah, the Nintendo survey the problem is Nintendo is incapable of like working In anything other than the Nintendo silo. Yeah is the problem like they have they're set in their ways Nothing will ever fix that. It's just But I'm increasingly like I've gone to board game nights with like my engineers and coworkers And the thing is these people are not that much younger than me like they're in their late 20s And yet the gulf of like knowledge of the history of games among people who are deeply invested in games It's terrifying to me partly because no, we got to when we got to our IT I grew up with the NES and slightly Atari 26 I grew up with Atari 2600 7800 all 16 television and then even into the you know the end of high school There was the n64 and such right and then the PlayStation 2 came out while we were in college. So then Even though I was only in school for you know already in the second third year of our IT People that were only one or two years younger came in and they grew up with PlayStation. They somehow did not see How did they skip? I would or I saw some Atari 2600 How did someone two years younger than me miss ten years plus of games now? That would be fine like I'm not gonna be the old man is like our kids They don't know shit cuz so for someone well I feel that that's wrong for someone who's ten years younger than me I assume that anything older than PlayStation 3. They don't know yep But what bothers me I guess what bothers me isn't so much that like people younger than me don't know the things I know cuz that's expected like that's how the world works time advances what I didn't expect is how rapidly the memory hole Like devours these things because I know a lot about gaming from before the era I played games and yet most people I encounter Literally know nothing about the era before they started gaming even if they are deeply invested in the hobby Well, I think the thing is even people who even just current knowledge, right? There seems to be this huge gap between people who read the internet and People who just do a thing. Well, it's weird There are people who will go to the store. They'll go to GameStop. They'll buy games They'll take them home and play them and they'll play a lot of games and spend all day playing games and never read a single video game website or magazine and thus they know nothing and whereas I grew up reading Video game magazines, which were basically just ads for video games And then video game websites So I knew things as I seek out information about things But the internetty people I meet who are a little younger than us They seek out information about new things, but they have never like looked into the shroud of the past like They were I overheard some co-workers last week Debating what the first Final Fantasy game was because they weren't sure I don't fantasy one They weren't but they weren't sure because like when you know they there can they just Google What was the first Final Fantasy game because that's like what happens to me is I don't spend time like let me go learn about the past I just if I happen to have a question. Yeah, I Google it and slowly over time I remember where to Google to get a thing and also the old one when I remember the actual information I just remember where I saw the info me when I Google something like that the generally There's one of two results either there's an answer and now I know or there isn't a clear answer in which case I just found something amazing that I want to like track down and figure out Did you go set the Final Fantasy people street? Yeah, I I literally like stepped into the conference room I was like, hi, none of you know me the first Final Fantasy was Final Fantasy 1 and it came out on the Nintendo Entertainment system in the Famicom and I walked away before they could react And I just left them in the room Why'd you be like I grew up playing that game? I sold it back to Funko No, no what I actually said the words I said were like, hey, you guys don't know me But what I said was in my professional expertise And I started to just explain to them the history of Final Fantasy and then I left and it was pretty funny But yeah, there is some interesting news So most of you don't seem to follow the world chess championships. No because chess is hella boring I would rather watch many sports that I hate and call boring than watch chess Which I respect chess players more than some of the athletes Fucking curling right and I respect people who play chess more than I respect people who curl I I would rather watch the curling. I'd rather watch curling and I fucking I'd rather watch curling than chess I would rather watch chess than soccer It depends. I so I don't watch the chess live because I don't care that much But I had I do follow chess because I like to look at the results of games and Step back through because you get up this stuff like there's a million chess websites We can look and see like what the fuck happened in this game with commentary I don't I pay attention to the developments in the chess world Slightly about as much as I pay attention to developments in the go world or the counter strike for home Yep, right where it's like ah, there's a there's a thing happening, but like I don't follow it So I'm gonna set the stage here the thing that's been happening for the last decade or more is that and we did the funny thing Is the reason I'm bringing this up is that I've been saying this in lectures and Publicly and professionally for like a goddamn decade and I I am being proven right and I'm very happy about this But happens to me all the time. Yeah, and I'm this one is interesting though because math people are backing up my like I Like I didn't know the math and I just made a lot of assumptions about the math and the math is backing me up But basically you know, it's like guessing about peepers and yeah So here's the deal chess Humans are not competitive in chess and haven't been for a long time No, even shitty AIs are better than any human can possibly be at chess Usually when people commentate chess like I was the one chess I did watch a few years ago the last time I paid slightly more attention the Commentators were basically the computer would figure out the move and while they were the best move and while they were waiting for Then they would have the computer generate like other possible moves that would also be good Yeah And like top five moves from the computer and then while the person is still thinking on their turn and then they would use the computer's best moves as You know aid in discussing what move the person was going to make yep So basically humans like cannot compete in chess against even shitty AIs so Human chess as in terms of strategy has diverged a lot from what the AIs do because that space is still going It's AI versus AI and the chess that they play is fucking weird as shit Right, but the a lot of people I think at one. I don't know This is a while ago years ago that I read that this was happening But that people were basically learning from the AI that's part two intentionally trying to play like them as much So humans who are trying to be good at chess are studying what the AIs are doing, but that's your it's many year old news Yeah, so the predicted outcome of this is that like the attractors in chess? Like if you play randomly, what is going to be the result of your actions over time and like skilled players and all this? but chess probably devolves into a draw in long and play and My evidence for that is not the current math because I don't know it like I'm not a mathematician that ship sailed But because as I studied chess to write Geek Nights panels and just my own amusement It seems like most of the rules changes to chess in modern history have been to handle increasingly complex situations that ended draws Like draws are the end result right of chess games The only way to fix this is to change the rules of chess itself so that a draw cannot happen and the problem Because that would be nothing like chess it really looks like Players can force a draw pretty much if they want to which is the end game of checkers Checkers is proven chess. It's not proven seems likely so humans can study AIs But they can basically study what the AIs are doing to be able to take a game where they might lose and Guarantee that they'll draw the game to move on to the next game. I wonder right so so far checkers We've proven is a there's a soft proof. There's not a hard proof. They have not explored every game stage chess looks like it Yes, I wonder is are there any out there any perfect information games? That we've proven like oh, it's a win or a lot or anything like that. So that way there's a bunch Okay, otherwise they'd be like whoa, maybe all games like this Yeah, our draws and we could maybe make a higher level rule So I guess not go. I don't think has a draw state at the end Checkers definitely both players Way too far out. We probably won't live to see the problem with chess is that The end game can get into all these loops where the game will be a draw and there's like all the rules You move your dude back and forth. I move my king back and forth. La la la la So you can tell an elegant provision put in a rule for like oh, she uh, yeah So they did chess has a ton of rules like oh, she to ensure that loops don't happen Where a game that's entering a loop state is a guaranteed draw And I think the only thing human players will be able to do in the future Is if they're losing force of draw So the world chess championships that are going right now have had eight Crazy epic games that have all ended in draws And they can only have four more games that I will bet money will end in draws And after that they're going to go into sudden death Which will probably end in draws. So chess people are probably gonna be mad at me for this and it's probably hella wrong Right, but I want to say it anyway because that's how I do So I'm just going to admit that it's hella wrong to begin with right But usually in my experience my very weak experience playing chess, right? Which doesn't even rise to the level of high because I'm like I'm not even high school chess club level, right? It's lower level than that. It's nerd who knows how to play chess We should play a game of chess against each other. It's been a while. I won. Yeah, you did We should play one now and livestream it the point is is that at my level of I know how to play chess And that's about it Uh, most of the draw stalemate end states involve one player moving their king back and forth So it can't be killed and the other player moving an attacking piece back and forth into a like check You can't kill me check. You can't kill me. All right. That's the thing that I have seen personally the most common State if any now I do know that you probably didn't know all the rules for draws I have no idea what the rules are but that's more complex than you think I'm sure they are but I'm saying is that that's the most common state that I see and that's definitely a draw Right. Yep. And but in that situation It's like well the other player who's doing who's moving me say queen back and forth Also has their king like hiding out in the back somewhere, right? You know, otherwise they would have lost already, right? Why don't we define The rules of chess to be like well, look you're the one who's moving your fucking king back and forth Try not to die And I'm the one who's moving my attacking piece back and forth trying to kill it I see where we're going with this So therefore we're going to define this not as a draw But as I fucking win because you're the one who's hiding and I'm the one who's attacking King back and forth doesn't really happen the way you have experienced it in real chess I'm sure it doesn't I that's why I preface this by saying I'm probably stupid Please correct me people who know more than me, which is anyone who's played at any chess But we could define we could just by definition just change the rules of chess To define some of the stalemate states where the person who is more defensively positioned in the stalemate loses So here's the problem change the rule so that no, it's not a stalemate. Here's the problem because you're on defense Here's the simplest problem with that because I don't want to get it like this I don't want to make the show about this. Yeah, uh, the simplest problem is white already has an advantage If you codify those rules, you probably turn chess into a white wins game I mean checkers is a first player wins game. So no checkers is a force. I mean I'm at tic-tac-toe I said checkers my brain had a picture of tic-tac-toe. That's fine But basically the end result of this is I think the game of chess by the nature of its fundamental rules Is going to be a guaranteed draw game for humans forever Good And I says the boring game that it'll be a guaranteed draw game for the ai's All you people who play chess and are stupid hella smart and I respect you for being fucking awesome at games Come play real games with us and not stupid fucking chess. Well, you know what? You know the go come play some you know what the go people will say and blow the doors off right come join us and go Right, even though you don't go. We'll have a similar problem in the sense that you don't need to play go Come play fucking settlers and kick the shit out of everyone except when the dice go poorly Yeah, come play fucking netrunner come play. Well, you know, this is where we always talk about them Stop playing your boring ass chess the thing about nerd games and we talk about this a lot in our panels Is that come play 1846? If you play trains if you play nerd games like we play them and you treat them seriously like chess The entire Tournament scene devolves within a year or so and the game is solved and you move on to another game Good come play nfl come be an nfl football coach. I think the future will be The kind like the what as chess is a sport will probably die out in popular like even like chess circles in the long run But I think you're going to see a class of players of games who are the professional board like abstract board gamers That move from game to game to game and when they solve a game To the point that the ais are better than them and they have like draw state or whatever They move on to another game or they do like Triathlons of that's what I try that's what I try to do but I get no respect for it If I just if I play a boring game like chess then I get respect But if I play minority games get no respect. So anyway, if you have nothing better to do the next game is on November 21st I'm going to under never 20 seconds see what happened in that game I practically guarantee games 9 10 11 and 12 are going to be draws and then we're going to go into the Kind of ridiculous and hilarious overtime that chess the overtime should just be the default mode It's basically just speed chess right speed chess should be the only chess because If people are playing so perfectly that they can push a draw given all the time to figure out their moves Just give them like 10 seconds per move fucking deal with it. You miss a move you lose immediately Fuck dude, you know what the end game is going to be like it's basically you get like four minutes total And right if we can't test who can make if we both players are equally good at making decisions given A minute. We'll see who's equally good at making decisions given five seconds. It'll be funny. Here's the tiebreaker You just they go to another table. You got to play go against each other now. Good luck. Have fun I hope you know the rules chess chess boxing. Let's go The chess boxing is literally what was just suggested in the in the chat Chess boxing is a good sport I'm like chess so in some other news before we get into the bigger news about this about these kinds of games We're going to do a whole show on this game probably as soon as we play it some more So key for chess problem if you're not aware and the problem is You didn't talk about this like that's already I don't think so Okay, but really briefly they're unfortunately named decks And they're basically if you get an unfortunately named deck they filtered out all the bad words But there could still theoretically be combinations of normal perfectly normal words that result in bad words now, honestly 99 percent of the ones that I've seen that are designated bad Are in my opinion fucking hilarious. Oh, yeah, and I would pay extra for those decks Because they're not tournament legal What they're doing is if you have a deck that is bad, which you can find out by scanning it into the app Yep, because its name is bad. They will give you two decks. You just return the bad one hell No, I'm keeping my like The erect Wang of the forest or whatever I get playing in tournaments Which I won't then you don't give a shit if your deck is banned or not So if the name is hilarious and not offensive to you Why get the two free decks if you got the one awesome hilarious deck? I want like the the flying bonerman of a rectile Cove or whatever's going to come out I would much rather have that deck than the two you're going to send me with boring names Yep, and I'm sure there'll be a point in the future where unfortunately named decks will be worth above market price to collectors There's already some Stores who are opening the decks like the retailers are buying the game wholesale Opening the decks sort of guessing by looking at the deck list like how you know strong the deck is Competitively and then selling them at like an adjusted price that they just randomly decide Yep, like I think this deck is going to kick some fucking ass I'll try I'll see if I can sell it opened for like 70 bucks instead of the normal cover price If the name was funny enough like yeah, no, they're not doing it based on the name They're doing it based on the card list which faces outwards. Yeah, that I wouldn't care about But if the name were funny enough that alone would be enough for me to pay extra. Yeah, I think uh You know on the one hand it's like well, I guess you can do that But on the other hand it would be kind of awesome to see the publisher just be like well We're not selling any products to your store anymore. Fuck off. Yeah, I I'm I'm ambivalent on that issue Yeah, it's sort of like whatever. Yeah, we'll see what they do because I'm I don't like game retailers or game Publisher but there's some news for the other game that we haven't talked about a lot yet on gig nights artifacts All right, so artifacts if you don't know is valves entry into the card game world is the first new valve game since Dota 2 and as we've said the game looks really fun Like everything about this game looks great. It is also designed by Richard Garfield just like keyforges And it is a competitive collectible card game and it's based on dota But actually that's kind of good because it's sort of like hey, there's like three boards. You're managing It's really complex. It looks like a really fun game It's got a little bit of kernel blotto going on Like I was really hyped to actually play this game until I found out how they were selling the cards We talked about this in geek nights before I'm pretty sure They're going to sell you you can get in on the game for 20 bucks Which gets you like a starter set full of stuff which like old magic when I was a kid Yeah, 20 bucks would get me like a starter deck and a couple boosters Right if you want to buy more cards cost two dollars a pack, which is slightly more than hardstone cards Yep The only other way to get more cards is to play the competitive like drafting mode Right But where you like have to use tickets to play in a draft And then if you do well in the draft you could then somehow earn more free drafts And also more free draft tickets and also some cards Right or you can buy cards on the secondary market because you can sell cards on the steam marketplace Like if you get so many copies of a card you can sell them for money That that already is and then people can buy cards for money specific cards that nonsense What is wrong with you? So basically I as soon as I saw this news about how the game we monetize I said nope not touching it all not even gonna bother playing it Nope, nope, nope because even hardstone is sort of like well you pay a few hundred dollars a year and you have all the hardstone cards Yeah, pretty much It's still a lot of money But it's and it's it's worse than say the netrunner model because the amount of money you have to pay to Guarantee getting all the cards is very artifact looks fun enough I'd pay a hundred bucks a year to just get like all the cards Well, I would pay like if it was if they could just say hey, you're gonna get all the cards I would pay the 20 dollars to get in and if I played it a lot and Kept playing it and got way into it and stop playing all their card games because I was playing artifact all the time Then I would I would pay a monthly fee like 10 15 bucks a month if I just had every artifact card ever And I could play all I wanted Chris rimer points out in the chat Which I was going to say in a little bit. This is basically the bullshit business model of magic the gathering online We all know how well that did well mtg arena Which is a magic online thing has the same business model as hardstone basically only its magic cards and it's a worse game Uh, but yeah, it's like Now what's the news is that basically the thing that I figured out months ago So I didn't bother with artifact the artifact open beta opened up Because it was a closed beta all these people got in and realized oh the only way I can fucking do anything is either spend money to get cards or Get draft tickets, which cost a dollar each because you buy them in packs of five or five bucks Otherwise, I'm just stuck with the same cards I got for my 20 bucks and I never get any other more cards ever I don't get a single extra card without spending money It's like going to an arcade where you put a dollar in the machine and you play and you better win three games Or else meanwhile at least key forge. I can buy a bunch of decks and just play and I'm good to go Yeah, well, it's a card and you get cardboard for your money Yeah, right I guess we'll last you could play key forge forever even 100 years from now I mean your cardboard doesn't disintegrate There is a there is a world where I could praise val for trying to do a different monetization model But the reality is what they picked they picked the worst possible one I don't well they really wanted to use their marketplace. Yeah, but the marketplace is the fucking problem That is the why having a real money marketplace is like the like that is the most harm you can make possible With your monetization model a shitty generic magic clone card game Just like all the rest. Yeah, not even bother trying to make a newer interesting game Makes like Billy and the snake man too. Yeah, just make a game just like our son Just like magic just like all the other card games you put out dudes and they fight Just you know mix it up a tiny amount make it slightly unique And just do the business model of you pay a flat fee and have all the cards And that's the only difference between us and the competition Oh, wow, I just looked up Billy versus the snake man. Okay I guess it's still around. I don't know. All right. Anyway, I'm not going to follow that thread any further because it's time for Was my thing yours was the spin the really good spin prices, right? That's good Things of the day. What do you got? All right, so when I was a kid and I was stuck home from school for whatever reason at 11 a.m Eastern time would be the prices right and I would watch that shit No matter what because it was really great and it had this is right. It's like a fantastic game show lots of old people Commercials but really great show really entertaining worth your hour while you eat lunch still good too in between playing video games Uh, the current host drew carry not as good as bob barker. Apparently it's been 11 fucking years Since Bob Barker has been the host of the show Next you're gonna tell me Craig Kilburn doesn't host the daily show anymore, but uh, still a great show Still really hasn't changed fundamentally all that much since 1970 whatever. Yeah, the only problem is I don't know what anything fucking costs anymore It depends what they put on there But the problem with the price is right is everything is always ms rp's So it's like you're going to say the price you pay at the store That's way under the actual ms rp's they use on the price Or anyway, one of the best parts of the price is right is when they spin the wheel twice of the show To see who gets in the showcase, but I'll showcase showdown But you can also just win money on the fucking wheel. You get a dollar I saw a lot of people get a dollar on this wheel. It's basically like a one out of what? 20 something I always got real excited. It's yeah, it's like it's like a one There's only like 20 something slots on there right 0 5 10 20 30 30 Yeah, it's like 20 one and 20 shot of getting a dollar on there And you know with two spins you can add up to a dollar and win that way also, right? So You got to get imagine this show has been played five times a week For how many decades yep, so the odds are every crazy thing you can think of eventually There's going to be a situation where all the contestants get a dollar Well, this was a special not only did that happen? Obviously everyone got a dollar This was a special Event for the show's anniversary Or drew carers anniversary or whatever some kind of special event where you could win even more money on the wheel And boy did they win even more money on the wheel in some You know crazy luck event Which was again guaranteed to happen because the show's on five days a week with two Wheel spinning events per day with six people spinning That's 30 times people get to play this wheel spinning game every week forever So it's going to happen eventually and it did so there you go. You can see it happen I still we were talking about before the show, but it's funny that it happened during the special extra prize time I just I've wanted my whole life to spin that goddamn. I just wanted to because it looks like it's kind of heavy Right like it has some heft to it But also that it has like, you know, it's a well lubricated wheel that keeps going once you get it going with some inertia I remember as a kid I watched an episode where this big dude pulls it down And it just kept spinning and spinning and spinning and the point is I just I just really I just don't I don't care about winning I don't need to be on the show even though that would be fun also, right? You know, but uh, the only reason I haven't actually haven't been like if this was in new york and not california I probably would have gone to be in the audience plenty of times Oh, hell. Yeah, but I just want to feel what it feels like to spin the wheel You know, just let me have a spin just so I can get a feel for it They should bring the wheel to like a comic con Yeah, I don't care if like you give me money or I'll even give you like a dollar Just let me feel what it feels like to spin the wheel I love the fact that even to this day they basically have Drew Carey using a weird like long stick microphone Well, that's the style exactly that's what I'm saying the show doesn't change but doesn't need to So my thing of the day is uh, it's more of a sciencey thing But a lot of people have green laser pens or green lasers because green lasers are really cool And you know green is the best color. Yeah green is the best color But you all know one don't shine lasers in your eye Not even red ones and two green laser pens are known to be particularly dangerous for a lot Much higher frequency than red and blue. Well, not necessarily blue, but much higher frequency than red so uh A lot of people because independent of this you can buy a lot of stuff on amazon these days and ebay So you can just get well, you could buy like wood burning lasers You could buy just engraving lasers or all kinds of stuff So the problem here in this video does a really good job of explaining it And it's like really detailed and they show examples and everything but here's the deal Green laser pens aren't just dangerous because it's green and because it's higher power They're extra dangerous because the same way he's not ultraviolet Ultraviolet rays are way dangerous because they're high frequency But like low frequency infrared waves aren't gonna hurt you bootleg crapo green lasers Generate the green color in a way that also generates a ton of infrared radiation But infrared is just heat. Yeah, I heard you which will burn the hell out of your eye Oh, yeah, it'll burn. Yeah, but it won't but it won't cancer you like an ultraviolet or gamma ray or something But it'll basically it'll blind you way bad Yeah So even the red laser will blind you way bad if it's well made red lasers and blue lasers tend to not have This additional danger of the infrared laser is higher frequency than the green laser Wouldn't that burn your eye also, but they don't they don't have that infrared the problem Don't point any laser at any human's eye unless they're a nazi in which case hold them down Yeah point lasers at both eyes But the problem basically is that the apparent danger of green lasers is way less than the actual danger Because if you buy a cheap green laser the odds are it generates the laser in a way that also generates tons of Super dangerous infrared radiation And the the lens that would block that radiation is definitely bootleg and counterfeit And this video shows like how to test your green laser pen To see if it's actually outputting a shit ton of infrared radiation Wouldn't you just point it at your hand and if it feels warm it's not not enough Watch the video. It's pretty good. Okay every question you've had is answered by this video Then it's a good video the video is very good goes into great detail I was watching you know if you have questions while you're watching a video and the video then answers the questions That's how I was watching a cooking video today So I was making chila cuiles and I was like and I was like where's the egg and then he's like Oh, I'm gonna fry an egg and I'm like hello. I said in two seconds. I'm like, whoa, he still hasn't gotten any egg in there He's like, I gotta fry egg now So in the meta moment the booklet book is a space odyssey. We'll read it soon. We've been busy Yep Packs unplugged we'll talk about in a minute because our whole show is about packs unplugged But uh, suffice it to say we will be there live doing two events learn and win portorico And the 40 tabletop games you must play advanced mode So we'll be there doing two pretty good panels. Otherwise, we're just gonna be in tabletop playing games Going to panels doing stuff. It's gonna be a fun time. Yep. Uh, all they're met up. We Got our first pack south panel. I'm gonna do the official announcement like that was fast We had a magfest magfest is before pack south. Uh, yeah, we we're doing between four and six magfest panels too many Yeah, the thing is you gotta play games you can you only have to be on four at most I might be on more without you because I know you tend to not want to be on as many I want to get in and play free games and go to the arcade You will not have to do personally more than four panels. You're good panels off fucking day I got you. So at magfest, we're gonna do a bunch of panels. There's still like the schedule's not live yet Obviously tvd, but we will be there, but it packs out. We are going to be doing at least a brand new panel Uh, not rare game mechanics at least not yet. That's not on the schedule yet That we were probably doing that one at magfest, but a new one we haven't talked about at all Nostalgia versus game design. Okay, you can uh, guess what that one's gonna be about and you're probably wrong We're gonna make a lot of fun of mobas along the way And we're gonna talk about how wind jammers isn't actually that good But anyway, wind jammers out on the switch now. Yeah, so wind jammers too We'll see how wind jammers too ends up being no, it's out. Go buy it. I haven't touched it I think is there is definitely a some wind jammers in the e shop. I haven't bought Yeah So, yeah Packs unplugged we feel deserve some hype because we've talked we've done gig nines for so long over a decade Is it sold out yet? No, no that can you are any days sold out? Nope We have done such a big convention center and we're using way more space than we did last year Yeah, but this is like in a major area here, right? How could you know the east and west are sold out, right? South sort of gets really close to sold out almost Yep, right, but we can we put it in Philly, which for all its awfulness Maybe people, you know realized awful Philly was but You know as a lot of people live in near it and it's like how this is a pack so you can just go Why aren't you going yep? So one we've talked a lot like if you want to find our advice I'm like how to go to a con how to go to pack like we've talked about that shit for 13 plus years But I feel like it's worth it because we haven't done that kind of stuff in a while We feel like we did it. I feel like it's worth it to hype up packs unplugged and to sort of approach it Like it's a new convention and talk about like it in that sense So let's dive right in first packs unplugged is a packs It has all the accoutrement of our regular packs like all of it compared to packs east or packs west The only thing that is not at packs unplugged are video games and video game companies. Yep. It has concert Megaton it's got acquisition incorporated. It has an expo hall It doesn't have concert. I think it does. Uh, so at least it has main events But generally instead of concerts so far the main events have been like at a regular packs in main theater You'll see like acquisitions incorporated or like the c-team like that kind of stuff That'll be the main event during the concert slot at packs unplugged It's got a keynote which this year so last year the keynote at packs unplugged was not very good It was like the CEO of watsi and like it was pretty lame apparently the CEO of watsi is like a marketing guy and he was not the greatest public speaker and Yeah, it was it was disappointing Especially CEO of watsi. Well, again, they went down to the watsi hole But this time it is Jeremy Crawford the lead rules designer Of dnd and the games managing editor So in effect the person who is the boss of dnd at the current time Game wise You know in terms of like, you know the actual Game rules and stuff in the game as opposed to say someone who's managing like, you know Marketing of dnd, right? But so hopefully having an actual game person and not a marketing person to make this much more interesting But I still can't deny I'm disappointed that it's another watsi person and another I mean, you know what I want another dude. Why can't they go? I want like Rainer kinesia Right, that's who should be like cold weather to come and talk about like fucking weird games That should be the first person that should have been the first one, right? But yeah, it's like I wish they would get people from the smaller More indie table-tied community or someone who's like someone who's broadly famous At the very least you think they would have had the uh, what's his name? Who did the the thornwood game for them? Whatever thorn watch game or really we need to get like morden canan But it's like just get anyone who's from the you know the not watsi There's other you know, even another tabletop game company, right? Even a bad one Right, it's like there's a guy who run Rio grand games with that with the cowboy hat. What's his name? Oh, yeah, someone like that just basically someone who can tell a bunch of war stories about the game industry That isn't just like marketing for dnd It's like it'd be so easy, but it's like well, they're just going on the watsi whole a second time So next year you better get a non watsi person. Yep. I would recommend if you're going to packs unplugged I'm still going to this keynote. Yeah, I go to the keynote every packs. I will do this forever It's still the person who's in charge of dnd right now in general while the like a lot of the more recent keynotes haven't been that great The majority of the keynotes I've been to have been great It's just I've been going a lot of taxes Did you see the dnd just came out with a box set that is I assume it's three books Which I assume must be players handbook dm's guide monster manual I assume those are the three books. I don't know about the other choice They would be but for the new it's obviously for whatever the newest edition is fifth edition, right? But they were really nice looking books in a really nice box And I was like man if I played dnd right now Totally by that dude I see I see those books and I just feel like I need to buy them anyway It's a way nice looking box of books also like as much as I don't look it up Look for like dnd as much as I like my dnd rpgs with all my d6's and my bag of d6's Every now and then I have my dice bag out and I see my d8's and my d20's And part of my brain is like rim play some fucking dnd You must if you feel it. It's happening All right, so the next thing it packs some plug that needs hyping is the key forge Which you talked about a little bit, right? But basically they're going all out with this game There's going to be like non-stop tournament events. There's going to be people selling it people demoing it, right? Like they're going all in on this game, which is a game We are obviously somewhat excited for so we will definitely be making at least one stop over in the key forge zone To see what's up probably to just buy the damn game because I order an amazon to keep it delayed So I might cancel that order and just buy it unplugged I doubt I will engage in the tournament scene or serious. No, no by by go over there. I mean literally go Oh, yeah, but I'm going to like the long run like I feel like a bunch of us are going to play a lot of keyforge Casually I learned from my netrunner days. I am not going to competitively play any fantasy flight games game I am only going to just because this one particular game Have us be published by them, but is not designed by anyone there I'm going to buy one copy of it and play it with people. I know according to the rules We know are right Well having played like a little bit like having interacted interacted with the game at packs west I feel it scratches the itch That I has been on the scratch since I stopped playing magic in middle school Yep Like that itch has been itching like I'm not going to pretend I haven't been feeling that itch You should have scratched it with some netrunner. No, the netrunner didn't scratch it. All right It didn't I but I played that much much better game probably better game. Yeah It is an objectively better game, but it didn't scratch that itch. I'm still not a hundred percent sure why Hearthstone On the toilet it has to be cardboard or it doesn't scratch it. Okay, you can't scratch yourself with No Can use a little electric So I feel like that we're going to do that a lot also Uh The tournament scene like the general like table top tournament tournament scene at packs unplugged is way better than the table top tournament scene At regular packs is because it is a primary part of packs unplugged Right, so if you regular packs is there are table top tournaments and quite a few they're very substantial But it packs unplugged It's like it's not a part of the table top department. It's its own department the tournament department and it is big time Big jump and also a thing to be aware of There is a small number of events that packs unplugged that you have to sign up for in advance But they are almost entirely either games where you have to do prep in advance like make a character to bring Or make an army of miniatures and bring it Or they are tournaments that need a large number of players Where they cannot organize the tournament at con and they have these like mega tournaments What do they actually call them like the packs championship series or something like that? Yeah, it's like these giant enormous tournaments and in order to I don't know if you have to register for them in advance But you can register for them in advance And that is simply because they can't have all that they have tons and tons of seats for these tournaments And they could not possibly register everyone on you know on site Yep, so this it's it's a good thing like as much as I philosophically am opposed to any pre convention sign ups for anything There are Limited cases of table top where it actually makes perfect sense and I feel like unplugged doing it right So if you want to play like the game where you bring a giant army Check and see if that's something you can sign up for in advance But yeah most tournaments at packs the way it works is you show up The day of you don't can't go a day ahead of time right because most some people have one day badges It won't be fair to them and at 10 a.m When pack starts you go to the sign up area and you put your name on the sheet if it's not full And now you're in that tournament you show up at the time you play in the tournament You try to win if you win you get a packs medal. Congratulations. Some tournaments which uh, Are might be run by non packs. They might be run by vendors or something like that In which case there may be prizes or who knows what or there may be other entry fees But those are not run directly by enforcers the the main tournaments that are on the schedule unless otherwise noted on there Are run by enforcers and they don't cost anything to enter other than signing up on the piece of paper So the omega thon at packs is always like a big deal and it's fun Like if i'm free i will watch omega thon rounds because they're really entertaining Yeah, why not, but the omega thon at packs unplugged They're still like working out exactly what kinds of games They're still like figuring stuff out But i want to point out i wonder if they will use my tumbling dice suggestion tumbling dot a packs custom tumbling dice Would you see tumbling lit if you see tumbling dice in the fodder out of the omega thon You just know that was all me i suggested that one and it was heard by people who are unplugged But what i will say is that it is a full out omega thon just like any other packs It's worth seeing these rounds, but especially the omega thon finale We'll talk about that at the end of our little hype show But round four of the omega thon at packs unplugged On friday is blockus Blockus is a game of goddamn skill Blockus i'm really i might like go watch this round like this i am personally extremely good at blockus I too am extremely good at blockus scott and i have both studied A classic opening moves and opening strategies to blockus I usually beat you at blockus though. When was the last time we played blockus? I can remember the last time i played blockus. Was that a recent packs? I can't remember the last time i lost Oh, so the other problem is four player blockus Joey jojo shabbadou could fuck it up for me Two player blockus is a game of such pure anger But this omega thon is going to be pretty off the hook You had a problem So this i want to talk about some panels i saw on the schedule that look really hype So the first one is ceo panel discusses publishing trends and avoiding mistakes, right the panelists are Uh, steven mccarthur a game lawyer from the mccarthur law firm. That's the guy's job game Game lawyer tim fowers the ceo of fowers games Patrick leader owner crater director i think i've met steven mccarthur Pretty sure i've met him the director of leader games, which is publishes like a root and all that biz Right and scott gaeta. Sorry if i mispronounce your name other scott The president and publisher of renegade game studios, which i've heard of but don't know which games they make But that panel looks hella interesting that is at saturday at 10 a.m. I'll probably be there And while rim talks about something i will scroll down until i see the next awesome panel So what's cool is that a lot of the panels that involve publishers in general i pack sunplug They lean a little more toward the kinds of panels i tend to go to at packs dev because the thing is packs dev is interesting in that uh Most of the people who want to go to pack like who want to engage in the industry stuff like this are tabletop So It's hard for people who are in the tabletop industry to get out to packs dev because it's real expensive A lot of the tabletop industries in the east coast So i'm seeing a lot of these kinds of panels that packs unplugged that i normally would see at a dev Like the ceo panel and i think that'll be really interesting In general i feel like the panels game at unplugged will be more Specialized to the attendance of packs unplugged because there's a lot more overlap between the people who play tabletop games and the people who make and publish them than there is in video games So saturday at one there is a Ffg key forge creating the world's first unique deck game panel But i'm even though i just talked about how hype we were for key forge. I'm kind of met on this panel Maybe i'll go maybe i won't because richard garfield the designer of key forge is not on the panel Probably not it packs on plug either and it's mostly ffg people And also it's probably mostly going to be marketing for their game and maybe not too much good info I don't know maybe i'll watch that one on twitch afterwards if it's on twitch Maybe We'll see that's that's a maybe panel So here's the here's how you handle this like to be in pike hype for packs Especially a lot of people go to packs unplugged because it's kind of infiliate and easy to get to never been to a Packs before here is the absolute best way to decide what panels to go to download the guidebook app on your smartphone or whatever And Thursday or wednesday like before you go to the con or maybe friday morning while you're waiting for the keynote to start Just go through the schedule start on friday scroll all the way down go through saturday go through sunday Click on any panel where the title looks even remotely interesting Oh, here's a panel saturday it's all the good panels on saturday saturday at six executive women in tabletop. They're six women Right heather o'neill elaine chase cat tov and julia. I'm not going to talk about all their jobs Because it's just going to take too long. It's a mouthful Uh, but it's like these are like six ceo's ceo's vp's of global brand strategy for game companies How come none of them is doing the keynote? Why are they on this panel? Instead, I mean well, they should be on this panel and also do the keynote, but hey go to that panel Yeah, very good. So here's one. This is a workshop Uh, it's a master class in the owl bear It is two hours And everyone's going to learn how to paint a fucking amazing owl bear together But if I can't even paint like fucking anything like not even like uh, this master class is intended for painters of all skill levels Okay, your and we'll focus on painting feathers and fur Oh, shit. This is going to go all the way to dry brushing and inking I kind of want to go to how long is it two hours? You think you can get me to paint an amazing owl bear in two hours You will paint. I think you know what's going to happen. You're going to paint it's going to paint a bear Like uh, it's going to look like that was that famous one where the jesus looks all messed up You were going to paint the best possible owl bear you could paint That is what will happen. Maybe I should go to this to cost money. Uh, no I think there's going to be so last year you have to register for it on friday at 9 a.m Because it's going to fill up obviously it's owl bear panel But that's the kind of shit that happens in packs unplugged that cannot happen at any other pack So in every packs I've ever been to that I can remember reaper miniatures has had a little paint and take booth Right. Well, you basically walk up and for free They gave you a mini there's like two choices like wizard and some space marine And you take one and you go and they just sit down and there's like a few paints and you paint it And I painted space marine finally was it I think it was packed south. I did this space marine I finally did it last year packed south. Yeah, I think so The problem is we go to so many packs is they literally all together It was it was packed south last year after all the years. I wanted to do it I finally did it and that made me so hype. I was like, oh man I totally want to like, you know, not play any minis miniature games like war hammer But like by a tiny amount of paint and a tiny amount of minis and paint a few when I'm bored So I bought the most basic starter set that's got like a skeleton in it because skeletons skeletons are real fun to paint It's all about inking like inking is what makes a skeleton look good and I have yet to open Mostly because I it's not that I haven't had a free weekend It's that I haven't I have to find like some sort of material to cover my very expensive tiny table So I don't get paint on it So but basically the way to handle this like I said look through the schedule Click on every panel where the title looks even like minimally interesting and read the description Look at the people and if you and think to yourself answer this one question If I had nothing better to do would I go see this the answer is yes Just add it to your scheduling guidebook. And then when you're at the con Don't worry about going to all those panels like you're gonna have your short list of like the three things You don't really want to go see but feel otherwise just like like everything at them all to your schedule Anytime you're bored just look at your guidebook and see hey What panel is on like next that I said I might want to go to And if you're bored and it's there just go to it That is like the best way to maximize your packs because anytime you get downtime You've got like a guaranteed backup thing to go do speaking of thorn watch guy, which I remembered his name mike selenker Right, uh, and I said he should do the keynote, but here he is doing a panel sunday at one called This sounds like a panel. I would do this is a puzzle. This is a game He's gonna talk about what's a puzzle and what's a game what the difference is I have I have not only have I seen him give basically that talk at packs dev multiple times like a talk like it Like he's he's good talks. They're good panels, but too I had a long conversation where he drunkenly explained this in detail to me It'll be a good panel. I'm sure I will be yeah, because we uh Think about this a lot of these panels are the kinds of things that you'll hear us arguing about in panels Just people smarter than us who are deeper in the industry Will argue about it with more information than we have Also, I just want to point out, you know, if you are the kind of person which is a lot of people Who really want to play some rpgs? Usually a lot of people are like, hey, I want to play d&d, but I never played a d&d before right Pack some plugged is probably the place for you to go It's going to be a lot more accessible than one of those tiny rpg cons in the you know, like that's You know, usually like uber con or something if that still exists Uh, and it's probably gonna be a lot less crowded than trying to play d&d at like a pack's east Yeah, this is basically if you look at the schedule, there's like d&d adventures league Pathfinder society all this stuff is basically happening Constantly even other rpgs that are lesser known that you might be more interested in All over the vuggins. I see some star wars rpg If you want to get your rpg on the danger room lark by mystic realms, whatever the hell that is sound Maybe it's based on the x-men danger room. I don't know. I just want to point out I don't know. I've never heard of it Sunday morning. If you want to win a packs tournament guys There is a 16 player single elimination connect four tournament Oh, connect four is a solid fucking game If you go you can you can start right now go online and learn how to be perfect at connect four It won't take you very long practice it a few times against your friends Yep practice by playing it online against an ai learn the backups Learn the the guaranteed strat and learn the backup strat if you're the wrong player Right, and then basically you will probably face in the final someone else who did the same thing Yep, and then it'll come down to do you go first or second? Yep But anyway, that's that's an easy easy win of a packs medal. Yep But this this is a good schedule like there's good stuff in here I also want to point out again Also, if none of those rpgs are interesting to you or maybe they're not at a good time on your schedule RPGs games on demand is going to be there What this is if you don't know what they're at many packs is as well as other conventions is a little booth or an area You go there with your friends or maybe you meet up with some strangers there. Who knows and There's rpgs there. There are gms just waiting for players And as soon as I did this one year at packs west I gm'd like three or four rpgs in the games on demand area And you just wait you when I was a gm. I just went there. I waited I put up these little cards and it was like a menu Players came up. They looked at the menu and they're like they wanted to play an rpg right then there and now As soon as there were enough people I brought them over to a table. I ran a one-shot rpg session I set them on their way and even though I thought only maybe one and a half of those sessions was good I got excellent feedback in all the sessions So if you want to play rpg Tell them you pack something plugged you can't you cannot miss this is your chance all those of you're like Oh man, I never get to play rpg. I watch rpg on twitch. I watch acquisitions incorporated But I got no friends Yeah, I can't I have friends but I can't get them together because they're all All the people who are obsessed with the c-team are here in the same building with you You can go to packs unplugged for three days And if you really want to you could probably play two or three rpg a day If you really dedicated all your time to that and nothing else and that is not a bad way to spend the packs Unplugged yep So in terms of two like lfg like all packs is have like a looking for game area and tabletop Packs unplugged has a fucking looking for game area Like if you want to no matter what weird like Train game nonsense you want to play if you lfg had unplugged You are practically guaranteed to find other people who will play this game with you And even if those people are That guy it's packs. So they're not allowed to be that guy Yep, you can always get some enforcers and be like, yo, we got a that guy over here And they'll get taken care of you can be rest assured the worst you'll have to deal with Is slightly awkward. Yeah, and let me tell you he wants to play shaggy but won't be bad because it's packs unplugged It's the tabletop focused one the enforcers at packs unplugged But even more so than other packs is are on top of that guy Like they are they're a crack team to make sure that guy doesn't that guy all over you Uh, let's see. There's a kids room in a family room like sunday is a kids day Like you can bring your kid if they're under 12 for free on sunday Oh, baby And there is a big area because packs is are family friendly if you're a family that says fuck casually Like that's how packs is like it's family friendly But it has to be that's like cool dad that lets the kids say fuck But when they're not in school there is a specifically family friendly room So I think there was a dad who had like it let his kid that they were listening to geek nights in the car And he was like he's like, yeah, I just got to tell my kid not to say words that you're saying and I'm like I don't think you've learned the lesson of geek nights You should have a cool kid who says fuck like he's from new york But the kid who's smart enough to not say fuck in front of his middle school teacher or to say fuck you middle school teacher Yep Just a fucking word But there is a family room that has miniature painting and games and is the like the fuck free zone So like packs unplugged is more family and kid friendly than a general packs That is like worth noting. It's kind of a it's a cool thing. I'm glad they do it Uh the pin like all the packed stuff like the pin trading is just just there Table top is so big. There's like, oh, so if you haven't been to a packs recently There's a new thing in tabletop called first look Packs are started at last packs unplugged But it has reappeared at every packs all year and it's gonna be at every packs forever First look the deal if you don't know is it's not like regular tabletop where there's like an area where everyone plays carcazone At an area where you play whatever It's an area where there are games already set up with the rules sitting there And enforcers who have tried to spend as much time as they could learning the rules so that they could teach anyone who walks Up so you can go into this area see a game that is not out yet or not out in america We had expert enforcers go to s in bgg con and all these other board game events that are conveniently scheduled right before packs Unplugged to collect the newest and hottest board games that are unavailable still in the united states or hard to obtain Bring them here to teach them to you so you can have the first look at them It's really great and amazing to just sit down at some brand new game and have an enforcer Expertly teach you and a bunch of other people how to play it and then be available to answer questions While you play it and when you're done playing it walk away from the table And the game is set up for the next group of people The only thing I can tell you though is that the first look area at packs unplugged As hard as there's a line is very crowded because a lot of people so the real secret You got to go to the first look area at pack south and literally any other packs But pack south it is the least crowded. Yeah pack south is like the secret packs Unplugged you'll get the same exact first look area and the same exact table type library That was at packs unplugged But they'll be fucking like almost no one else playing games there But the same enforcers learning and teaching the same games the same everything And now you can play those games just to your heart's content without having to wait Whereas it packs unplugged you'd be like oh man. I really want to play that that meeple circus That was in first look last year, right? Yep And meanwhile someone's playing it so you walk away and come back someone else's playing it You walk away come and someone else's playing it It packs unplugged it's packed south It's just sitting there waiting for you to come and enjoy the circus And one last thing that's interesting about packs unplugged is that you know Mike and Jerry are both like around at other packs is kind of equally and they hide and whatever But if you're packs unplugged is kind of like the Jerry attacks Like Mike will be doing like his thorn watch stuff and Jerry's just like wandering around all the time like playing games with people He's more accessible than he is at other packs So if your jam is to like be adjacent to that dude while you play a game like unplugged the one to go to if you care about that sort of thing And last and least If you are a fan of us already You don't need to go to our 40 tabletop games You must play panel because one it's going to be on youtube and two it's 80 percent the same as the one That's already on youtube We're doing it it packs unplugged because one it's going to be live streaming Because that kind of panel like gaming comms that aren't packs don't really have good panels And tabletop gaming comms that aren't packs Really don't have the concept of panels by and large So we're doing this for people who aren't you But It's probably worth going to our learning when portorico if you don't know how to play portorico Because we're literally going to be in the room for a couple hours like helping you all play portorico Like not just the panel even if you just watch it on youtube It's not the same if you're in the room You can like ask us what to do in a situation right there And we'll be like Pick the captain because it'll totally fuck over that guy and this guy is not going to beat you Etc like that kind of stuff will happen And uh if you see us like you know what other packs is people like oh, hey, I want to play oh Yeah, this packs the bug just really soon. We should probably work on that paradrico panel I'm going to finish it this like over Thanksgiving because I'm not going I'm not doing shit for Thanksgiving I'm staying home Okay, so I'm going to like finish the panel on Thursday. You don't want to go to New Jersey I could yo do you want to I could do that? I don't know that's I don't know I'll see if it's uh if it's possible see if it's possible Emily. We're going to like a film screening But that's in the morning. So it wouldn't really impact us. We have no plans This is uh, this is my like don't go anywhere for the holidays here. So I'm just I'm making no plans I'm just relaxing the thing is if you go to New Jersey We take the train there and then I don't know if a car will be big enough to put Everyone in to take us to yeah the the destination might just have to get me to Q gardens and I'll deal with the E I don't know. I can work from home on Friday. I'm working on Friday to save vacation day. So Oh, I am uh going back. Oh, it's another thing. You have to get home somehow. Yeah I'm because I'm just going to go back to Connecticut because I'm not working. I'm right Yeah, we'll figure it out worst case. We'll just stay home. I'll finish the panel I had to figure out because I have like the three player strategies I had to do a little bit of work to figure out the right advice for five player Puerto Rico I mean, I'm just mostly going to focus on the advice that's good no matter how many players you have But like for example, use the captain when everyone else has to dump all their barrels in the ocean But here's an example like three player Puerto Rico never buy a fucking warehouse Like what a waste of goddamn doubloons five player Puerto Rico That small warehouse is real good. Yep small warehouse plus war the main the main strategy is you want to take after Take as few actions as possible, right? Like if I have to go mayor and then a bunch of nothing happens and then I have to go All right. Now I'll do build it, right? It's like, you know, if I well, I guess we build her then mayor It's like it was for the galaxy you want everyone you want to line it up So everyone else is taking the actions you need in the order you need so that on your turn You're like you're getting turns ahead of other people. Yep. Like grace for the galaxy You can't just be going craft x2 craft x2 You want to go x2 x2 x2 and trick some other schmuck into going craft craft craft Yep So, yeah, this is be a fun panel This is going to be real like not everything's going to make it to youtube from that one If you're a fan of geek nights, like seriously go to our Puerto Rico and skip our 40 tabletop games Go to packs unplugged. Yeah packs unplugged like go and Unlike other packs is we're literally just going to be in tabletop like the entire time except for the whole Prevention is yeah, but we're going to be in like tabletop free play the whole time except for the keynote The q&a the omegathon finale and maybe a couple of panels We're just going to be in like tabletop free play playing fucking games. It's going to be amazing All right, I think we're good. We're done. I think the blab seal is down. Oh shit. I want to watch this game