 We are streaming Situated, okay It's Tuesday, May 7th 2019. I'm rim. I'm Scott and this is Geek Nights tonight Are you playing to win or are you playing to just play it? So yesterday I was playing some beat saver in VR that game is crazy fun VR rhythm game, right? Yep, the only weird thing about it What do you do you just like swing as you swing the VR sticks to the rhythm? Yeah, you basically have two lights avers and blocks will have arrows on them And they'll be red or blue gotta hit the red ones in the direction of the arrow with your left hand and the blue ones in The direction there with the right hand and they match music Do they put blue ones on the left and sometimes they'll swap and move around and big walls will appear They got a dodge. You just gotta be like Yep, and you're like stepping around you gotta move you gotta move quite a bit It's actually very just you're swinging virtual sticks to the beat. Yeah But what's weird about it is it's super fun, but it feels wrong if you've ever actually fenced because Holding two swords like this. I think the sword is just a metaphor. It's move your hands to the rhythm. Yeah, it is you gotta get a Train yourself into not thinking of them as swords But it has a mode, you know DDR as all that because it's the songs are well crafted like in good DDR Like they the arrows feel right and they do clever stuff like they'll be arrows in a pattern if you recognize Can I just be like yeah, you're just a lightsaber it goes right through the block as it's coming at you I mean, you know, do I have to like get up and move a lot? Can I just be like you'll have to be standing cuz sometimes a big wall will be coming and you have to like stand to the side I just roll my chair. You could There might be one too high to hit some of you got a stab But and they're all over the place But it has a saber mode where you only use one stick that sounds like baby mode Except it's kind of like DDR challenge mode. It has you know, it is like like medium heavy like a similar thing It's the equivalent of a number of hands instead of feet. No, it's actually just like Easy medium hard expert extreme like something like that. But if you put it in saver mode, it's expert only is there song Is there some song that's the equivalent of like the impossible song? Yeah, I found one I found one that was like And I was like nope no Matt Morgan's apparently really good at it But I was I was playing and then Emily was like I imagine when it gets really fast It's similar to like just drumming right only drums all over the place Well, here's an example of clever errors now DDR There's arrow combinations like in our favorite song music where if you don't know like notice the pattern and learn to like do The spin or the torso torso twist. It's really hard same thing. You notice a pattern You're like that pattern is just swing the sword like this Like twirl it like that kind of you'll figure this out So I'm playing and then Emily taps me on the shoulder Which is always terrifying in VR and it's like I got to do my I got to do a thing on my computer And I can't just be here like swinging around swords with a blindfold on so I Get her up to leave and then Emily's is down and then she says whoa what the fuck's wrong with my computer You notice her surface laptop is not sitting there right now She just take it whether to do her so the top of it the surface is a pretty cool device because the top part Is the computer and it you can use it as just all computer all the pro surface Yeah, I don't know if they still make the pro one like that or not Yeah, they have the newest the second newest one I haven't looked at the newest newest it basically it's the laptop I would buy if I had to buy a laptop today actually have a spare AC adapter for a surface just lying around No, you want it? Maybe no, but so the top part is like a pretty good sir like tablet computer like really powerful But if you plug it into the bottom half then it's a laptop with a real add It's got a 1050 bottom bottom part is pretty much just a video card of a video card Like a kind of a new card. It's a 1050, which is not a terrible video. It's not a 10 10 But he didn't exist when the yeah, it's a 1050 why you get a 950 or a 1050 It's a pretty good video card like it'll play overwatch I mean anything will play overwatch it'll render video like better than my previous computer with the 760 I don't know if it's a 1050 doesn't sound right, but if the last one was it is a GPU in there Yeah, it's a real GPU. It's pretty much a GPU a keyboard and some connectors and more battery Yeah, so what it what you we saw was that the whole bottom had just like bowed down Like they're like the bottom was about to like pop off and you couldn't push it back up And I peaked inside the entire battery pack had expanded And because and because now the computer still works is fine the top part Yeah, the top part not the bottom part though plugged into the bottom part. It still worked fine But but the bottom part wasn't doing anything though. It was just operating I imagine if we did anything that invoked to the video card. It would have been a problem So you had to take it to the Microsoft store and they were like yep batteries fucked We will give you an entire new surface for free. That sounds good The new is a newer one or the same one same one, which is still pretty new I'm always surprised at how like I've been to the Apple store for like Apple care stuff They will have like the exact models of things. Yeah, they'll never be like oh Going way back your one-year-old iPhone is well In like and then and not only that but they'll have them in like this non-retail clearly meant for replacing things packaging Yep, so it's like oh, yeah, this whole thing that we don't sell in the store anymore But yours broke we have that exact one in the back. Yeah, here it is But you don't get an extra you don't get all the retail packaging so you don't get extra cables or anything You'd get just the thing that you're replacing you mean well camera really like every time I got to get a camera or something Repair it or I know people who have had to deal with that want to repair it They don't actually don't want to give you a new one They'll fix the one you got because they can't give you the same one you have because they usually don't do that long of a Production around of any particular camera and they don't want to give you the next one up Even if they do they want to repair the one you have they don't want to make anything I'm still waiting for them to fix my lens, but they did find the problem. So they'll fix it Mm-hmm. And so yeah the laptop just expanded the battery in the bottom half of that probably because it has to power a video Lucky didn't start a fire. Yeah, we are really lucky. It didn't start a fire explode Yeah, it was it was like puffed if you've ever seen a naked lithium-ion cell. Yeah, I seen it puffed like that It was that I had little tiny GoPro batteries that puffed. Yep. I had a GoPro battery puff I was skiing and I was videoing and then I saw the GoPro to stop I was like, how come I can't get the back onto this the battery cover onto this old GoPro hero 2 Oh the battery is puffed. Goodbye. I took the big GoPro out of the case This is the old one that had like the case and then you had to open the camera itself separately from the case Now GoPro's just waterproof on their own Mm-hmm, but I open the back and the back just pops off and the battery just goes whoop and I'm like, oh shit Yeah, my new my GoPro. I guess I have a GoPro 5 now. I think the newest one is like 7 or so. Yeah Getting the newest GoPro has not had any problems. Yeah, the new GoPro's are great I feel like newer than 5 the the benefits are only incremental They're all yeah that the newer GoPro's you only need if you're doing like really high FPS Like when I got the two I was like when I replace this and then I was like, oh, yeah I got the five and it's like all right now. I'm really not gonna replace this Yep, I'm in a minute. Definitely a no replacement mode. My iPhone 7 is still going. Yeah, dude Not only is my two-year-old experience like awesome phone still going but I do own another identical phone I'm sure if I want to I can get an iPhone 7 that that is new and unused. Yep So when this phone finally dies, I'm just going to swap my sim into an identical phone that I own that's never been used Because it's the last good Android phone. I'm not I'm not replaced. I'm just trying to keep everything I got as I knew I Android phone they announced today. This seems okay pixel three It's the three a the three a the camera on that thing is bullshit compared to the camera on this phone The three a supposedly has like an amazing camera on it. We'll see I saw mixed review Well, when you when you were talking about that in the discard I looked at some reviews and they were all over the place Anyway, we'll see we'll see in the news If you didn't know there's a game called Uno that's really popular among I guess families And it's actually been coming up a lot recently what hat there was a there's a great Twitter account bootleg stuff that post bootleg Stuff mostly anime bootleg stuff And they posted a picture of a bootleg Pokemon Uno and I replied and I was like, you know That is a bootleg you posted but there is a real Pokemon Uno. There's a real Mario Uno There's a whole bunch of themed Uno's that are whole totally legit and nerdy and awesome Uno's basically monopoly Uno is a better game than monopoly. Yeah, but in terms of there's a monopoly for every conceivable thing that is licensed There's a monopoly for like every damn city every movie franchise. Oh, yeah Yeah, there's a Uno has a similar thing going on but The Uno the official Uno Twitter account tweeted something and I was confused by it because it said it was a rules clarification It said if someone puts down a plus four card, I'm just assuming, you know, Uno works You must draw four and your turn is skipped. Yeah, that's the rule if rim is sitting to my right or left Well depends depends going clockwise and rim plays a plus four I draw four because he attacked me and you skip your turn Fuck you and the next person on the other side of me is now it is now their turn That is correct Uno play the apparently some people just made up rules of Uno Yeah, out of nothing to where rim would play an attack card making me draw say four or two Then I would be able to play another attack card And thus both attack cards would apply to the person to my left. That is bullshit. You made up Well, that is I've got here's the thing I played Uno a lot as a kid with I never did that ever I'd never heard of that the fact that the official Uno account is like you can't put down a plus two to make The next person draw six We know you've tried who has tried that who are these fucking people and the answer is look at the people replying to this account Apparently everyone plays Uno in this ridiculous made-up nonsense way I do love that the Uno account is defending the rules. There's a tweet here Someone responded with a screen shot of the rules and said guys. It's right in the rules I went outside and bought another deck to make sure like Apparently people believe this nonsense rule and here is the genius part This is why I love this Twitter account All these responses are wait What about blah? What about blah? What about blah? And you know account just keeps responding. No No Nope No You cannot that is stacking. Nope. You cannot stack Yes, one person was like can I win by using a wild card and they're like yes Yeah, if you're if you have Uno and your last card is wild You're just gonna win and you play it. You'll win. That's how Uno works You go down to one card you say Uno and then you get empty your hand and you win Yep So apparently people just play Uno with made-up nonsense rules props to whoever runs the Uno account props for being for rules I want to see the monopoly like Uno now. I feel like I want to I don't have it I don't think I have an Uno currently. I've had one in the past Well, cuz if I want to play that kind of game I'm just gonna play like chickel or something. Yeah, but I kind of want to find the bet It's so cheap to buy an Uno. It's about five dollars. I probably have an Uno deck I get my mom just mailed to me I probably have one in somewhere, but I kind of want to find the best themed Uno and buy just that Uno, right? Maybe there's like a Mega Man Uno or something. Oh Mega Man Uno. I don't know There could be anything we could just make an Uno and I could just get it printed Yeah, but you're gonna find a better one. Yeah, well if I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna make a Claude So in some other news Sports our games and we'll talk about this briefly But in the sport of horse racing which is more a sport for the horses than the jockeys, but the jockeys play a role Lot of Things we could talk about I can say about the about horse racing is that they treat the horse as the champion Yeah, like this horse one they don't put too much emphasis the horse did all the work They do interview the jockeys and and and they get money and stuff and they're well All right, the owners are also right, but most of the attention is on the horse They consider the horse to be the winner the horse won the triple crown not the jockey not the owner Like that's why I know the name far lab I have no idea who the hell rode far right the name of the movie is secretariat the name of the movie is not something And regardless of your controversial feelings about exploiting animals in this way at least the animals are getting the fame Not there are worse ways to exploit animals Yes, but if you didn't watch the Kentucky Derby a horse won by a lot and then Someone who did not win issued a challenge because that horse broke a rule that is disqualifying and According to people are experts in horse racing because I'm fucked sure as hell not I know That yes indeed that horse did break a rule and therefore should not have won So even though if that horse didn't break the rule it probably still would have won because it was the fastest horse People said it was the fastest horse before the race But if you're the shortest odds if you're the best hockey team and you keep hitting people in the face with your sticks You're not gonna win the Stanley Cup even if you are in fact the best at hockey But I do actually want to congratulate the sport of horse racing whoever officiates it because you know They have done the right thing the same thing that bicycle racing did right as bicycle racing does a lot of things wrong Well cycling right in that when someone cheated or broke a rule the penalty was losing Yeah, unlike football or when someone cheats or breaks a rule the penalty is like you get a fine You get a suspension you lose some draft picks, but you're still the Super Bowl champions Yeah, the penalty for cheating must be losing Otherwise cheating is just an avenue for pay to win Yep, or in the context of hockey because you get a two-minute penalty for slashing Slashing is part of the game. You can just slash Yeah, if someone's about to score you it's a good idea to like say, you know interfere do some interference or cross-check them or whatever And then hope you win Right, hope if they're gonna score a goal on a breakaway You're better off knocking them over even though they get a penalty shot because well now you got a chance to block that penalty shot Right. If they're gonna score a goal. Okay, you might be able to kill a two-minute power play, right? It's part of the game. Yeah now that part of the game. Maybe you should change a little bit, but Maybe it's yeah, I Mean what if you make a team that's just a bunch of monsters and you have the best penalty killing squad in the league Like you could that could be a strategy. It is a strategy. I know and it shouldn't be why not? So anyway, even better the attorney for maximum security the horse that was disqualified horse that Would have won if it didn't break the rules filed an appeal and the Racing Commission responded denying the appeal saying that Stewards decisions are not subject to appeal. There is no appeal process Oh, well, I mean that's a problem But the thing is even whether it was an appeal process or not as I said everyone who knows about horse racing Seems to be mostly in agreement. Well, this was a correct ruling. Here's what's extra from what I have gathered Maybe someone else gathers differently. Let me know horse racing is one of the earliest sports to use the photo finish meaning Hey cameras exist We're gonna fucking use this to know exactly You know why because fucking money's on the line. Yep That's why all these other sports have gotten away with all kinds of bullshit And as soon as we betting is at least, you know, they legalize sports gambling that will suck But at least they're gonna start that'll force the replay to come into everything so that people who bet don't sue Dude last night in the Bruins game where they eliminated the eliminated the cabbages the CVJs From the playoffs the first goals scored in the game was actually under review in Toronto for a while At least they review it. They were watching that replay over good over. It's over a playoff goal You better be fucking watching that in an elimination game. Yep, and the chat like it was just they disallowed the goal in the end Good job. It was interesting because that goal in the 90s would not have been disallowed. Hell. No, yeah In the 90s, it was only goalie interference if you like punch the goalie out Well, there was the arrow where it was goalie interference If any part of any offensive players body was in the blue paint which was also while the goal was scored Even if it wasn't interfering with the goalie in any way whatsoever And then there was a situation I remember reviewing it every time and disallowing all the goals I remember being at a Red Wings game where Sergei Federov skate was like in the edge of the crease Nowhere near the action. Yep. So the goal was disallowed even though it had nothing to do with the play Yep, so yeah props to horse racing for following their own rules and not bowing to public pressure or all this nonsense And that sucks, but them's the rules In some other news Right So scrabble a game that we're not big fans of because it is a game of mostly Memorization and not a game of any of the other right if you play it with people who haven't memorized the Scrabble dictionary, then it is a good game because it's about positioning and You know sort of creativity with words Yeah, like banana grams right if you replace the letters with Like squares that have four different colors on the sides and there's rules about like matching colors to play things It would also work. Yeah Banana grams forces you to use speed to sort of eliminate the memory problem But in the end pro scrabble ends up being a game of memory How much of the scrabble dictionary have you memorized and then you win? So then my news is actually pretty interesting. They just added a fuck ton of words to the scrabble 2862 new words including lots of two-letter words that were previously not legal like okay, and you like EW as well as words that are very Modern like genderqueer or the gender-neutral pronoun Zay or words like fleek All right, so I think that's pretty cool that scrabble despite being a meh memory game Is actually willing to a challenge the pros by forcing them to memorize 2,000 more fucking words Here's the thing you might also make itself more accessible to people who are probably not playing with the Scrabble dictionary Handi are gonna put in fleek and then be like argue about it And there's gonna be like a grandma who's like that's not a word and the kid is like it totally is and then look up The word and grandma's wrong and that'll be the best quiggy bow. That's right Is a perfectly Cromulan word quiggy bow my way to a triple-word school A big dumb balding hair hairless ape yeah with a mean tip with a with a fat head in a mean time I forget the quote anyway. Anyway, that was a long time But How much of a change does adding about 3,000 words to a game that already has 276,000 words matter It matters a lot and completely changes the matter of the game Scrabble is now a completely different game I'm gonna read a quote from this article Quote one of the most impactful changes to the game One of the words some of the words they added because it ends with the letter K It used to be that if you put a K down you knew your opponent couldn't play across the top of it It'll be a change of mindset. He said he predicted the inclusion of the word would outrage some fans But and here's the money shot quote. That's the joy of it So the fact that these extra words exist Really changes the strategy of Scrabble. It's not just memorize the words It's consider how each and every one of these words opens up Potential new play strategies that were basically it's basically a new meta for Scrabble Which is news for any nerd game. It's like oh a new meta for magic. Yeah, that happens all the time Yeah, a new meta for hockey. There is a new meta for ice hockey right now. Yeah new meta for overwatch. All right Oh scrabble finally got a new meta. Welcome to nerd world boys. Yeah Welcome to nerd. Oh total aside before we get to the things of the day. I learned something interesting You know how we had an expansion draft and the NHL recently. Yeah There's another kind of draft that hasn't happened in a long time when a team is shut down There's a reverse draft for everyone to steal those players. No team is gonna get shut down So it almost happened to a team in the 70s There are teams that like didn't draft because there were issues Yeah No, there was a team that was so performing so poorly financially that it almost shut down mid-season and there was a plan To have a reverse draft to steal all the players from this team into the rest of the NHL But anyway, it is time for What's my thing a day again? Your thing of the day was oh the water guy. Oh Yeah, did you even send it to me? I did I think Water guy. He's clearing a drain. Oh, yeah, you sent it to me. Here it is. Yeah, I Had not even seen this video. I'm just gonna like it and then I'll let you do yours first There's a lot of people in the chat go away chat people you got better something to do go play Scrabble. Oh I learned I learned about Puerto Rican yachtsie, dude There's a game that's almost identical to yachtsie that's popular in Puerto Rico I feel like I've heard of something about that before because I was teaching one of my co-workers pedals around the rows That's becoming a thing at work now Yeah, no one's heard of it except one old guy. So I get I get to be the pedals around the rose guy You're definitely the pedals around the rose dude pedals around the rose is such a rim fucking thing Okay, I should give you my Like my rock-paper-scissors dice Basically, you let someone pick. They're always weird dice. I have it's like a little thing I bought and you let the person pick any die they want. Yeah, and no matter which die They pick there is a die you can pick that has better odds. Oh, yeah There's a circular name for it There's a type of dice set that is numbers that does the same thing if it's like eight dice in a row And that's just a limited form of that math problem. I learned about it from that three blue one brown channel. Mm-hmm. I Partially understood the math behind it, but not enough to describe it in any Yeah, I'm not even bothering with the bruise and the browns is too much for me Yeah, blues and the browns is like really like it pushes me to the point that I don't fully understand the videos by the end Uh Number file is much more my style number file explains it to me. Yeah, okay It's time for things of the day. What do you got so I'm sure people most people know the word culvert, right? I don't think most people do because when we had up when scojo moved to his new house that was next to that culvert I said whoa, you're next to a culvert and Half our friends were like a what so if you don't know what a culvert is Basically in situations where there's water and it might say flood, right? You don't want a flood I don't know honor road that cars have to drive through right and then go sploosh Yep So what you do a culvert is pretty simple is you basically just put a bunch of fucking pipes under the road So that the water when it comes to the road goes up under the road and out the other side And now your road is dry and the water continues to flow so back up a little bit So when you have roads that don't have rainwater drainage systems on them like old roads rural roads often what you'll have are ditches Rainwater systems are basically just covered ditches like you cover the ditches turn them into pipes And then you put drains in the road Where do those drains go they go down the hill yep go down somewhere right yep So especially if you got like a mountain road, you know You don't want to have like a grill in the mountain road that then you have to put a pipe under you know You get the idea anyway, so this kid I don't know if it's a kid or whatever, but he's talking about riding around with his dad So it must be someone who lives with their dad or it needs it needs a ride from their dad at least anyway, noticed that this drain in a small lake slash large pond kind of place was all clogged up and The culvert wasn't really flowing and the lake level was kind of high And you can see that the drain was like all clogged up with all kinds of garbage Yep, because there's a cage there to prevent the clog from getting into the culvert right because that's a lot harder to clear out Yeah, you didn't get to go in the pipe clearing shit out You don't do that go find any culvert like a big one and you'll see like a big metal cage under the water usually Anyway, he tells his dad hey bring me back there later I want to clear that out so he goes back there with a whole bunch of gear to make himself dry and protected from dangerous bits and Also a camera to post a video on YouTube that you're gonna watch it's a real satisfying video I'm getting it's one of those like real satisfying things or this dude who doesn't seem you know I guess he seems slightly like a weird dude because he's spending his time doing this I mean if you're in the cover also sort of like a unsung hero, right? He goes and he removes all the garbage from the top of this drain and the water starts off flowing That's a good feeling. No, he's good and you could keep just don't stop watching this You might think okay, whatever, but no it keeps going and he's like he comes back later And you can see the water level went down overnight like all multiple inches This video is the definition of wait for it and he shows you like where the water flew like went to that gonna swamp way below the road Down the hill somewhere So my thing of the day F1 if you don't know one thing about F1 cars is that the steering wheels are like 20 to $30,000 pieces of technology Well you're in a Formula One car you're in a really tight space, right? And you've got pedals down by your feet and you maybe got some levers to your side But you can't really move around too much right in a little tiny cockpit Yep, you're also experiencing extreme g-forces and you can't really look around much And well you and you can't you gotta wear this helmet you wedge yourself in there, right? So you got this really expensive really fancy car with all sorts of crazy features, right on it that you need to control And since you don't have a giant dashboard like whatever SUV you're probably driving you've suburban what was All the controls go on the steering wheel mostly Yep And they have to be they have to be usable by someone driving a car at high speed under pressure and they have to do a lot Yeah, they literally cost twenty or thirty thousand dollars to make they're all custom made for the car for the driver Whatever I've seen lots of videos in the past of drivers showing off their steering wheels being like this button does this This button does that right? I remember one with Kimi Reichen and specifically I watched the whole thing Yep, he told every single part of the steering wheel. He explained what the hell it did. So One driver takes an older steering wheel from some years ago back when traction control was still allowed Oh, and he walks you through in detail what every one of the fucking buttons does and it's fascinating especially because a few of them are blanked out and A few of them are not legal anymore Like traction control is not allowed in F1 not anymore Yes, you can't have like controls to enable and disable like different types of traction control Somebody walks through like what everything does, but then he does something I've never seen before because usually when you watch these videos The person asks hey, so what's on the back and the answer is always I can't show you the back and they like Studiously like the camera I don't know I don't know why but they never show you the back and they're basically like yeah It's proprietary trade secret. We can't show you the back of the steering wheel I'm like what the fuck could be on there There's just some shifting paddles and like some sort of cylinder where it connects to the the drive shaft connected Yep, so there's what could possibly be back there a gun to shoot the other Hiding, you know, I don't like some performance enhancing drugs. What the hell you hiding back there So I'm half watching this video and I'm playing some overwatch And then it gets to a point like around eight minutes in we was like, okay Now I'm gonna show you the back and I'm like what what the fuck finally and You get to see the back and they talk about it in detail and there's eight paddles back there, but Says something interesting does he tell you why no one else. Let's just see the back No, he says usually we can't show you the back And then he turned but I can show you this one because it's a few years old and I think okay That's still cool. And then he says something fascinating. He says and I removed the top secret stuff So now you see the back and there's eight paddles back there And they're like customizable and like you just get to see like the details of the back And he explains what all the paddles do and like this fancy connector you can even see inside the connector But he did say there is something top secret that they removed before they let us see it What the fuck are they keeping on the back of these wheels? And if every team no team will show you the back so they all know their secret So every team has secret stuff on the back of their wheel. What the fuck is back there? I'm here's the thing the next time possibly be the next time The next time a driver has that hissy fit where they crash and they get out of the car and they throw the steering wheel I want to analyze frame by frame every video angle of that I want to bring the zoomie a zoom zoom fucking lens to an F1 race without the ultra slow-mo camera to zoom in on The back of some steering wheel when a guy gets out of the car because he literally is like Oh, yeah We removed the top secret stuff and he's like dead serious about that Is this just a long-running Frank where there's nothing secret back there and they all agreed to pretend every single formula one team as Since they invented fancy wheels and instead is having normal steering wheels like imagine if everyone who plays competitive Smash brothers all agreed that there's a special controller they use when they're playing it in tournaments and No one's allowed to see the back of it because there's something secret there That's only for pros and if this is an old-ass wheel then like what the fuck? I mean there are people who have purchased old no right F1 cars change every year There are people who purchased old cars and they were not Associated with the teams or the drivers surely they know what's on the back of the wheel Or did they give those people a wheel that they could drive the car with that does not have top secret stuff on it Yeah, so they get less than the original car. They just get like some replacement wheel I have no idea, but I'm like I'm even more invested in what the hell is on the back of those wheels now that I've ever been It's like it's not even valuable information to me. No, I did means nothing to me I just that's the kind of thing where if it wasn't secret I would go I find one YouTube video that explains what the deal is and I'd go oh and then I just remember that Drivers and other employees that formula one teams move from team to team, right? They don't have like no they debrief them do they like listen if you talk about what's on the back of this fucking wheel We will kill your family, right? It's like the driver knows it's on the back and they don't have some sort of no compete They move from team to team all the time. It's like I Don't know. I I want to know I want to know more than anything And once I find out I know what it would happen probably disappointing in lame Yeah, I would go. Oh, okay, cool, and then I would just proceed to never care again In the meta moment the Geek Nights book club book is the painful pages Troy Dennings Plainscape branded novel pages of pain which is one of two books that introduced most people to the deal with the Plainscape setting It's a painful book. I just got to the part. They're in the maze and they're following the thread They I just got to a part where he like cut off some giant finger in the maze Oh, I'm right. I so I'm not at that part yet in the reread, but I remember that part Okay, I remember that part from a kid. What's weird is I didn't remember the fact that the thread existed at all Okay, cuz this move this book just goes like here is a scene that's happening and then Something hard to explain happens now. They're in a different place and a different thing is happening That that seems to just happen. I like how the elf is like what taboo? What do you mean a wall? Who built a wall? We're not in the maze. Mm-hmm. So yeah, we'll be doing this book pretty soon Wow, the paperback. Oh, I'm about halfway done. Yeah, I'm a little bit behind Scott I'm just at the part where they're in the hot part of the maze with the hail and they froze it They turned his foot to stone. I'm past that. Yeah, but I remember I remember some stuff past that Also, he is clearly Theseus It is ham fistedly just telling us hey, here's all these hints. Maybe you can face Theseus They're saying that his fucking Theseus came to the pages of pain Theseus is just in Plainscape Yeah, that is what it is saying Otherwise a bunch of our recent panels are on YouTube. You can just go watch them and Let's go right into it. So the reason we want to do this show is partly because we talk about this a lot Well, this is some idea that I've been espousing for years now I feel like I must have talked about on the show at least once and it applies to a much broader Like, you know, hey, it's it's it's a huge issue that applies to I guess all communities Yep, right and not just gaming, but it is most prominent and recognized in gaming Whereas in other areas is not recognized so much But people are seeing this is the gaming is the area where people are seeing it and simply not Recognizing it and zooming out. Yeah, but I think gaming is where it actually matters more because it doesn't matter more in gaming Which is also why I think people recognize it there because there's an example say Game of Thrones like is had a final season or whatever is happening right now and people are watching that Some of the people watching it are just watching it because yeah medieval fighting and stuff I wonder what happens cool and some people are like trying to analyze the allegory and symbolism and details and figure stuff out and look at the cinematography and like there's all these different communities who are watching Game of Thrones for different reasons Those communities don't actually have to interact and do not actually affect each other in any meaningful way Well, it's like I said, you know in the world we organize, you know, at least in our Western capitalist societies We organize our communities, especially fan communities, but also all communities in general right based on the wrong things Star Wars fans will get together at Star Wars celebration There'll be people there who like making robot R2-D2's that are like perfect replicas and there are people there who like Writing Star Wars fan fiction those people actually have almost nothing in common Whereas if the Star Wars fan fiction writer got together with say a Harry Potter fan fiction writer They would even though the Harry Potter person might not like Star Wars at all and the Star Wars person might like Harry Potter at all Those people have more in common than the Star Wars person does with the R2-D2 robot person because Not more organizing our communities based on what actually makes people like each other and get along right but even look at Organizing people based on brands or properties or here's a great example Look at an anime con we go to an anime con And we want to like do panels and learn stuff about the industry and learn stuff about animation and that kind of thing And some other people go because they want to cosplay as Dragon Ball Z and watch Dragon Ball Z and Neither one of us actually interfere with each other's fun for the most part we can But we also have nothing in common. Well, we have a lot less in common than you would think but Fortnite and games like it overwatch any gaming this problem You have to play the game with other people and all the people who play the game play the game together Yep, so here's the problem where we'll start with the fortnight story because the fortnight story is the linchpin of all this Fortnight is just the latest incident that has brought this to light again Yeah, but it brought us to light and probably the like writ large. Yes because more people play fortnight than anything Yep fortnight like this affected a lot of people who don't think hard all right about games So here's what I've gathered from the story, right? It was hard to figure out which update it was because there is anger about literally every Some sort of patch to fortnight and what the patch did is it changed the game so that when you killed someone They would drop a loot of some kind I don't know if it was the loot they had or additional loot but it would be loot and This was not true before it used to be that you had to do like pub g where you have to go around Collecting loot and then start shooting people with the loot you gathered Yeah, right, but you would kill people they would drop their loot and or maybe new loot I don't know the point is it was such it was enough loot that you could have to start of the game Just start killing people and you didn't have to go and farm for any stuff or search for anything You just start killing people and if you just kept killing people with your good shooting skills You could win the game and that was actually the strategy to win the game because of this patch They made they made it ended up making fortnight more of an e-sport more of a real game Where you could try to win and skill was rewarded and people tried to kill each other in order to win Now the people who play fortnight competitively or wanted to play fortnight competitively We're very happy with this patch because that changes the game too Yes, there is like a very clear path to victory if I am better at killing people because it is a you know One man a million people enter one person remains They can play the game to win and their skill will matter Yep They by killing more people by doing the thing they're supposed to do They will become better at in the context of that instance of the game Doing that thing and eventually it's a snowball and someone will win Yep Most of the players of fortnight hated this because the way most people play fortnight They don't actually try to win. They kind of just like fucking around in fortnight Yep Killing people is like the thing that the serious people do at the end and they don't really care that much Mm-hmm. Yeah people the vast majority of people in general it seems based on you know, I guess Experience I've had right Are not injured there are people who are interested in playing games competitively to win and treat games that way But it seems the most majority people just like playing they just like to play which is perfectly valid Right. It's not like there's a right or wrong way. Well, like when I was a kid I'd play zelda 2 when I was young my kid brain. I didn't try to beat zelda 2. I just played it I don't know what I was doing. I just like wanted around and I mean But even you think about it's like you play with your action figures. You're just playing. It's fun That's what people do play is great, right play is a good thing And even though there are games that are constructs in which there is some sort of victory condition Right, you know, even if people don't even recognize that their decisions don't matter like candyland a lot of adults don't realize Right is oh my god. It packs that we were we were literally arguing with this dude in line Who didn't understand? Yeah, shuffling cards. Yeah, he literally could not fathom the idea that if you shuffle the cards Or if you don't shuffle them or if you shuffle them every turn the outcome's the same in a random game of candy Like it was it was a weird situation. Anyway, uh, the point is I'm still mad about that conversation with that guy I don't know There was no way to get through to him because he didn't have the mental capacity to understand what we were saying Yep Or at least not in the short amount of time we had I think I think he fundamentally did not have a concept of statistics. No, none. What's most people don't yeah Uh, the point is most people just like to play and even if they there happen to be playing something where there is a way to win They right. They don't really care too much about it. They just want to play now for most of gaming history This was also fine because if I'm just playing zelda 2 to win No one else is affected by that who plays zelda 2 Yeah, I mean you would have some occasional situations where you'd go to an arcade And try to play street fighter and you would lose to someone immediately and then have to walk away But you know, you would just wait until there wasn't anyone there If you weren't good enough, right? Because he was going to cost you money to fight against that really good guy You're not going to do it And I always go play the moral combat 2 machine when no one was around because I just wanted to play the single player version Right, you know, so these didn't really and even when multiplayer gaming became a thing, right? It was like golden eye in your house. It was You know, uh Even if you if you had to be really smart to be able to play quake online or right multiplayer gaming wasn't really You know competitive, you know multiplayer gaming wasn't huge and accessible to most people until like way way later Way later back to fortnight when this update happened and he made the game more skill based A thriving competitive community emerged instantly Like the competitive set doubled down on fortnight and loved this update because it made the game serious The fortnight is maybe the first like mega game that is competitive online multiplayer Yeah, right. It's like before that you had minecraft, which was just playing Yep, right There's no competitive minecraft and before that all the games that were online multiplayer even the mobas They were niche core even league of legends is small compared to fortnight Yep, lower like even in the old days when like One like quake two quake one deathmatch was a huge game Among gamers among this tiny subset of human beings who had a computer and a video card Among the world it was almost nova hunting, right? Yep So the vast majority of players hated this update because now anytime late in fortnight people would kill them Yeah, like right away. They couldn't play because they were being murdered and someone else was trying to win There it was an incompatible play group, right? So fortnight Made a new update. They saw the stats that people were like they were losing engagement or whatever However, they measure it and they decided well, we got to remove this patch. It's no good for us making money So they reverted it a2o Undid this competitive change and they pretty much said they will never bring back these changes Right, but meanwhile at a fortnight e-sports event the top fortnight players when interviewed at the end after winning or whatever We're like, yeah, I'm gonna give up fortnight. This is bullshit. It's not a really an e-sport anymore And then they're like, okay the interview guy was like, all right I'm just gonna go past you and ask the next guy the next day. I was like, yeah I'm also gonna say probably not playing this game anymore. It's not really competitive Yep So the even though they're making tons of money playing it and it's the biggest game on earth They were just like, nope. I'm done. I'm gonna read this quote because it actually sums everything up about the update Everybody enjoyed receiving health and shields for eliminations after we introduced the changes to the core modes But there was an unexpected consequence players at large grew more frustrated with fortnight play feeling they had less chance Due to encounters with high skill players with full health and shields ultimately siphon increased engagement for the highest skilled 10 percent While the remaining 90 percent of players were more frustrated and played less Yep So That's because fortnight is so big I would say this is the stat 10 percent of players of any game try to win and the remaining 90 percent sample size is enormous Right, so that's the best we've got the remaining that's the best stats we've ever had on this issue I actually I thought it was going to be more 80 20. I'm actually really surprised I thought it would be even less. I thought it would be like 50 95 So here's the fascinating five 95 that 90 percent What we don't know there are I think two communities in the 90 percent I think group a people who just want to play and they don't want some high skilled jackass killing them The other half are people who want to play competitively but suck And they don't realize they suck Those are you know, basically those are the people the scrubs who complain the most Because those are the people who think they're platinum and overwatch. They're actually silver They won't admit it if you get rid of that top 10 percent of players Those scrubs feel like they're good because half the people they're playing with aren't even trying to win Right. Well, I mean there's there's an old story. They're not good enough to frustrate the people who aren't trying to win Right. The old story about this comes from the magic world, right? Where they talk about what is it johnny timmy and spike or whatever Something like that and I you know the model that they use those three models of of kinds of players I don't think are exactly right. No, but the general they were the first like series attempt to categorize players The general idea though, I think is is close to the mark, right? Yeah, is that they have their idea I'm not remembering it exactly right. I think spike was the kind of player who just wants to win They don't care how they win. They don't care what kind of evil bullshit. They got to do That's me. They'll play channel fireball. They don't give a fuck dude when overwatch first Easiest nastiest way to win They're gonna do it when overwatch first introduced deathmatch. I chose bridget because she had this stun ability and In a one just bullshit So in a one-on-one fight like where there's no one else around it's just me and someone else I could 100 of the time kill that other person. Okay, so I just I only played bridget Now they say they nerf that and then I forget which johnny or timmy or whatever johnny I don't know but there was one where it's like they just want to play big stuff Like they just want to summon the classes of sardia. It's a fucking 12 12 bitches And then force of nature eight eight eat it eight a trample and the other kind of player The third one was the kind where it's like, I just want to do this really clever fancy magic Woo combo thing, right? I'm going to cycle through my entire magic deck in one turn because that's really fun I got this really clever thing. I just want to do it, right? And the fundamental problem is that no matter what game you are making no matter what the rules of this game are These players are incompatible even though they're playing the same game Them being in the same community and playing against each other is simply Going to create conflict. It is not yep. Those people shouldn't even be it's like yeah, okay You both play magic But actually you have the guy playing spike magic where he just tries to win has more in common with room playing Bridget and overwatch Then he has with the other person playing magic to just summon the biggest creature Oh, yeah, it looks like uh rudicron our good friend actually posted a link That i'll bring up the Bartle taxonomy of player types. I guess that's what it was called killers achievers socializers and explorers Okay, i've seen this chart before. Yeah, uh, I don't agree necessarily with those four, you know Categories, but the general idea is is correct. Well, they're on an axis of do you want to act versus interact? And are there's also obviously people who are mixes of all the the few Yeah, there's I like winning, but I also like doing stuff, but here's the stat that matters Here's the focus of what we're going to talk about in this panel I think this 9010 number is going to be the most important discussion in the next few years of multiplayer gaming I mean, I've been having the discussion, but no one else seems to want to have it Yeah, but I'm having it with myself. I think there is literally No way to make a game that caters to a competitive community And the remaining 90 percent of gamers No, I think you got to go for one or the other and abandon the other I think overwatch needs to abandon the casual players I think fortnight needs to abandon competitive play. Yeah, I think a lot of these companies that are They're making games. They're trying to be everything to everyone And they all like hearthstone basically just made all the esports people. They've always been angry all the time They've always had something to complain about all the time They keep staying for some reason or another right for but some of them don't a lot of them keep quitting and falling off But you know, they hearthstone people have always gone towards the 90 and not the 10 But I think short of only playing games with individual people who together all agree to play a certain way This is an intractable problem and no game can solve it I think it is mathematically basically impossible to Make a game that just makes everyone happy. I mean look at look at old starcraft Or uh command and conquer when I used to play command and conquer online with a fucking modem There were two kinds of people the people who played seriously to win and the people who made you agree in advance 10 minutes No rush. Yep, because they wanted to build a base first There is literally no For those people, which was also me because I yeah, it's funny that in rts is i'm that guy because I'm bad at rts because i'm bad I'm not any good. So it's like well, I can't compete but it's still fun to build a base Yep, right, which is sort of why the games are fun even for the people who are really good because yeah, they're really good And they build the base in the winning way But building the base is still fun to do in the winning way Yep, I'm just not good enough to do it in the winning way But I still want to be able to have that fun of building the base So I want to play against someone who isn't going to just destroy me in five seconds So let's I'm going to zoom into an overwatch example to really show how impossible this is So in in overwatch, there's a character torbjorn or torb the dwarf guy And one of his main thing is he can make it turn. Is he from warcraft or something? No, he's just a dude Okay, he's just he's a dwarf. I thought all the overwatch characters are from other blizzard shit. No, they're from overwatch Oh, I thought they were like from other blizzards. No, they got their own universe They got their own overwatch universe with nonsense in it No, I thought it was like a warcraft character fights a starcraft character No, it's not that. Oh, you should really play overwatch. You would love the hell out of me Or just not you would really when it's free to play you should play it. I'll just play autochest So here's yeah, I'm I'm starting to fade on autochest Oh, they made a good patch though and he did that patch is night and day night and day. Good god. Anyway So in fortnight in fortnight in overwatch is for competitive play This character's thing is they make a turret, you know, like in all those fps's you put a turret down Like near the flag room All these complicated fps have the concept of a turret. Yep, it shoots on its own so The way the game is if you make the turret really strong It matters more than the player who's playing the character, right? Well, if you think about it, right? So let's say if you're playing an fps and you're good at aiming Right any sort of automatic turret that you just put somewhere if it's better than the best players It will kill everyone and no one can right if it has aimbot power Where it just automatically shoots at anyone and kills them then it's too good Everyone will just use that and there's no point in shooting the gun you're holding But if you make it less good Then the top 10 percent of players then the top 10 percent of players have no use for it because the gun they're holding And they're they're awesome aim skills are better than this worthless turret But that turret is an undefeatable god to the rest of the player base Right if you're bad at aiming and everyone playing the game is bad at aiming But you so you just switched to turret guy if that turret aims better than you do and better than all the other players do That turret is now the best player on the map and it requires no aiming skill to Deploy the turret you just push a fucking button So you can make that turret anywhere between better than zero percent of players at aiming and better than 100 percent of players at game at aiming and there is no place you can put it where it will be where Everyone below that line will always use it and everyone above that line will never use it The mechanic itself is unbalanceable Unless you you the only way to do it would be to Automatically scale the skill of the turret to be in alignment with the skill of the player that deployed it So it gets more complicated, which is impossible. No one's even tried that overwatch is on both pc And on consoles. Yes So they did pick about because there are other factors the character can do other things than just make the turret Obviously, otherwise we really held boring to be that character. Yeah, so torbs actually really fun to play You sit behind the turret and wait Yeah, so torbs really fun to play and is in like the general meta of the game And pretty much in the pc game does work Except it is like too power like if you play with silvers torb is an undefeatable fucking god Like because i'm good at aiming so i can shoot with torb with really good aim while simultaneously using the turret That itself is better than like having an extra player on your team Who's better than most of the other team, but you're also better than most of the other team Yep, so that's really strong, but console players can not if you have a controller You can not fight that turret right most console fps is right Don't lots of games these days allow console players to play against pc players like rocket league or whatever right? Because it doesn't really matter you're using a gamepad to play rocket league in your pc anyway, right? But for fps is Whether they want to keep fighting this fight or not PC keyboard and mouse is vastly superior to gamepad for fps control. It is undebatable Every console fps implements lots of significant But invisible to normal people changes that make the game playable with a gamepad Because aiming with a gamepad is less precise and less good than aiming with a mouse Blizzard was While they they the characters play the same no matter what skill you are if you're ranked like Platinum or you're ranked wood tier the characters all work the same way It's the same game at every level except on the console They had to make the turret way shittier because no console gamer could deal with that turret otherwise There's also lots of auto aim Like not not perfect auto aim, but like aim help right like sort of light snapping and there have been lots of things I've read about that different fps games have done on the console to make the games Playable and if you were to say if you were somehow able to play like the console version with your mouse and keyboard You would be a god because it's helping you so much back away say Oh epic brought back these changes that made the game more competitive But they did edit a ranking system like overwatch does some sort of matchmaking system You only get matched with people who are around your same skill level That still doesn't solve the problem because the matchmaking system has to converge and players will more likely than not encounter Good players At various points any game that has even one good player in it will devolve into that good player fucking murdering everybody That happens in overwatch that happens in every game one person who's imagine you're playing a board game If you're playing seven wonders right with seven people sitting around a table If everyone else is like la la la and one person's trying to win they will win everyone's fun Yep, they will win And you can there is no way to detect that a player is good at the game or not Except with a very powerful matchmaking system, which can be circumvented by a player making a new account It's not even just that the player wins. It's that the way most games are constructed It's that when someone else is playing well Right, even if you don't care about winning you just want to play and have fun Right, it's just playing like let's say I want to play fortnite I just want to build a cool base because that's the thing you can do right? Yep, you build a fucking actually watching gameplay bases is insane I want to explore the map and build a cool base. I don't care if someone kills me, right? Well the way the game is made someone kills me I can't explore anymore and I can't build my cool base They just destroyed my cool base and I lost all my stuff and it's like It's like it prevents me from playing your play is ended or cut short. They're like netrunner decks magic decks, right? Where it's like hey, that's a deck that wins games. You know what it does It makes you discard your entire deck and there's nothing you can do about it It prevents you from It's like I don't care if I lose this game a netrunner I just want to play my cards and then lose it's like nope Their deck is so good you lose before you can play your cards and none of the cards you can play Not only will they not help you win which I can accept They won't actually do any every single card in your deck is now ineffective and useless It's like there's no point in playing any of them. They do nothing. You're just shut down Right and magic like try play here's an example Try playing carcassone with me or scott or our friend anthony in the earliest days of magic in the early 90s There was a card called stasis. Yeah stasis. There was there were stasis decks. I played blue decks You know why because fuck you bring up. Let's read the text of stasis. Oh my god, right? It was like you can only untap if you like, uh Right, you basically can't untap anything right? I forget the exact text each player skips his or her untap phase So you don't get to normally in magic, right? If you don't know the game of magic the gathering for any I'm sure most people do when you use a card that's on the table. You have to tap it that card now Once it's tapped you can't do anything with it until it's untapped But at the start of your turn you get to untap pretty much everything for free and then you can use everything again Right, so basically use all your stuff once per turn or you save it on your turn Don't tap it and use it during your opponent's turn, right? And then at the start of your turn everything resets If someone plays oh, I'm looking at all the different versions of this card because the art I love the art on it Yeah, the art's really good But uh at the beginning of your upkeep sacrifice stasis unless you play pay blue mana Then they update it to during your upkeep pay blue mana or bear they keep changing the second sentence The point is if you play stasis, it just stays there And nobody untaps Anything like no no one can use their cards anymore because they don't get to untap them for free at the start of their turn So the game just locks and you just have to as long as you can keep paying that blue mana to stasis It's not cumulative update right as long as you can keep paying that one from somewhere And of course you have a somewhere because you built your deck around this card to lock your opponent in Then you're they can't untap anything and you play of course when you play a stasis deck You play lots of cards that don't require tapping like creatures that can attack without tapping And spells from your hand that just do a shit ton of damage and sources of mana that don't really need to be tapped Or other cards that let you untap things outside the untap phase and now your opponent no matter what the hell their deck is It doesn't fucking matter, right? They cannot do anything because it almost certainly unless they're playing a stasis deck also All that their cards are they you play them they tap them now They're locked and they can't untap them at no matter what there's no card in their deck that will help them This they might as well just quit immediately. They can't even play and have fun It's not even that they will lose. They cannot play and have fun So to get back to the matchmaking a matchmaking system Only works if all players try hard to win so that their skill can be appropriately determined If even one person is trying hard to win it ruins the fun for 90 of players If one person is playing a stasis deck it ruins the fun for every opponent and even worse If you have a matchmaking system and there's any sort of ranking The scrubs who are at least half of that community that 90% They will be mad that their rank is too low if you show them their rank Yep, and if you hide it from them They will say that the ranking system is bullshit because it's putting them with the wrong players because they keep losing Because they're scrubs and they suck So there's also the problem that At least with online play as opposed to say real world play like in real world play for ranking systems Let's say the tennis ranking system is a world tennis ranking system Right the number one players are people like, you know, roger federer serena williams, right? Or whoever I don't know who's number one now You can look it up if you go to your local tennis club Right and you start playing real tennis you get put on the same exact fucking ranking chart as those people You can just like they'll be like, yeah, you're ranked like a million Right, whatever it is You're on the same chart and the professionals are at the top of the chart And if you keep playing tennis in your local tennis places and maybe bigger places and someone You could like go to like the us open us open is open, right? You're high enough ranked like you can go you can play as opposed to an invitational, right? If you win it's like you'll go way up in rank. It's like a real thing But there's no way for you to fake it. They know who the hell you are You're right there if tiger woods shows up at like my like the high school tournaments To be like you are tiger woods. You're the best golfer. We know who you are And this is easily solved if you're playing among friends like If our group of friends is like, oh, we want to play a light game like we might all agree like, okay Let's just play this game for fun or a rim and scot are not allowed to play in this game right now They recognize that rim and scot are coming to the table or if you're playing in esport in the esports league They know who you are. Oh, it's overwatch league. I see you sitting right there in this land party That's why if a professional player gets caught smurfing they get in trouble because that's free for free online Play smurfing is a serious problem if you're good But now your matchmaking is putting you against people who are also good and you're not winning so much But you care about rank and you care about winning because you're the kind of player who cares about winning That's why you you're caring right? It's why you're up there in the high ranks So you just make a new account even if it costs you money It's rank zero and now you're playing against people who suck and you're winning because now it's more fun for you To play and beat up and bully around people who are way less Good than you because at least you win because you care about winning Right and then when you get to high rank again You make a new crappy account because you can't compete against people really but even if you're not smurfing If if there's a matchmaking system you're on or bound to try your hardest to win And that ruins the game Full stop So I think there's an even worse implication of this if the split is 90 10 then The only money you can make by selling your game Really is to cater to the 90 percent and make sure that 10 percent of competitive players won't play your game Or you need to make the game so to completely segregate them in all ways to To split your player base 90 10 and make sure those 10 never interact with those 90 Yep, which is difficult for a lot of reasons, but I don't think it's difficult I think people just aren't willing to implement scott solutions What scott's overwatch is just it you log in to overwatch and say I want to play. Nope. I have a solution All right, right solution is if you want to play to win Right, there is no ranking on just what you click. I want to play none none whatsoever There's no rank. There's no matchmaking. There's no nothing. Okay every game is just play around whatever But in that situation, I would still try to win every game I joined. Well, here's my solution The competitive play Will be much like competitive play in the real world Actual fucking tournament you open up overwatch and it's like, all right Here's an overwatch tournament. It costs five dollars Join it that doesn't sound fun though because I want to just play overwatch But I want to sit down after the show and just jump into a game overwatch If you win you get the five dollars from everyone else who joined that tournament No, I don't want to deal with a tournament I just want to join a game of overwatch where I can try to win. That's all I want to do. Well That's what I want to do in board games. I want to play when I play netrunner It's like when you go to the local netrunner, you know meet up every week You just play a netrunner But then you go to the netrunner tournament and you try to win It's a different setting at the tournament But when I was even though some of the players at the tournament might not be the kind who try to win And end up losing They understand that in the tournament setting this is for serious But Scott like when I was in middle school, this is not just playing around When I was in middle school playing magic, I always tried to win no matter what the context was I swapped X and changed stuff But I always wanted to play to win, but I didn't want to travel to tournaments all the time So every game I played I just tried to win and I won a lot My other idea which is similar is to have a mode that's like serious mode That's what it overwatch does. You can you can say quick play or you can say Serious mode has to be right You play you know, you click competitive mode, but that's not I'm talking serious mode Like you put huge gates around it to make sure that anyone who goes in what kind of gates can you use Pay money to get in What to each game May each game or just to get in period huge fines for misbehaving in there or not trying to win or So Scott, you know what happened then we're smurfing all the people who are pretty good But not good enough to be like pro enough to do that They would just play in the fun mode, but also try to win in the fun mode Because yeah, but they're not good enough to make the people who suck upset. Uh, yes, they are There's the problem It's not a matter of them being that good if anyone in overwatch or in like fortnight Even if even if that 10 of high skill players quit if anyone tries hard to win Even if they're not that good They will harm the fun of the other players and the final aspect of this you can't ban people trying hard All you can do is reduce the impact of skill on the outcome of the game Which is what overwatched what I keep saying overwatch. That's what fortnight did They got rid of that 10 percent not by doing anything prescriptive like you're talking about They just removed the thing that made the game skill base and here is the final aspect of these of these ideas, right? No, because I I think there's a I have a final final aspect. You have an even more final aspect Yes, this is the final aspect. I have to offer final final a a final dot pse. Anyway, this is the final idea Scott has Okay, if you look at magic the gathering, I think we can turn this into a panel We had a lot more to say Magic the gathering has many game modes Right, that's the solution that they've come up with is different modes Scott overwatch did this They have the arcade and they have competitive mode I got that like this four-headed ogre whatever the fuck it is giant, right? I used to play magic I used to play the star we have planes walker bullshit. They got standard They got legacy. They'd always modern all these fucking modes, right? Now some of those modes are competitive mode. They got the cheapo mode. You don't pay a lot of money They got so many variable ways to play the same game. Yep, right So if you take my previous ideas of tournaments pay separated pro mode, right? What I would do is I would make the game that is not competitive and unranked Would not even be a competitive game. It would be like minecraft It would literally be like if you play fortnight in in the non pro mode. There is no killing people So scott over what really just playing around Overwatch does this overwatch does this so they have the quick play in the competitive Which is like the normal game mode just like serious or not serious isn't even winning and losing Uh-huh. So Then there is the arcade and like in the arcade one of the standard things in the arcade is mr. Heroes What it is is who what character you are is random You can't pick and every time you die Random character again, but is there winning there is but Everyone tries hard to win because it's fun to try hard to win in that context But no one takes it that seriously because it's fucking random characters You might get four mercies the fuck you're gonna do You're just gonna lose and everyone has a good time because no one takes it that seriously But trying to win does not harm the fun of the other players even if they're not trying to win That that like that's a decent way to go like I think there is some area to explore That's I mean part of the mode of the not winning is also handicapping, right? It's like if you're so good, we're not going to do matchmaking to keep right We're just going to make your aim is going to be all over the fucking place because it's so good, right? But you know if you're saying, you know to use the overwatch example Why not have an oh if you're not playing overwatch matchmaking? There's no ranking. There's no winning. There's no losing You just run around and shoot people. Yeah, no one wants to play it They want the structure of the game they even for tonight They want to just run around and have fun, but they also want someone to get the chicken dinner They still want there to be a win They just don't care that much if they win My final thought is much more on the game industry if this is the 90 10 split But if I if you fortnight, right? You could have a fortnight where if you're playing you open up fortnight and click play you play fortnight If you click play competitive, then it's the kind where when people die then stuff spawns out of them, right? That patches on or off, but then it's just two different games. Yes, exactly But there's the problem. Those are two fundamentally different games. Yes The problem with that is that it takes a lot let it's not to make those two different games takes a lot less resources Here's the problem. Here's the problem with that. I'll get to my final point You I if you make a game That caters to the high skill 10 percent you only make money from a professional esports system Yep If you make a game that Prevents the 10 percent from wanting to play your game Then you make money from selling the game to the remaining 90 percent of people If you make a game that's aimed at the 10 percent the skill base people And you want to have a version of that game for the 90 percent That won't work because if fortnight if there's competitive fortnight and the rest of fortnight The competitive fortnight will not have a serious audience because the audience wants to see the same game they play The fortnight people don't watch overwatch. They're not going to watch competitive fortnight I've heard this argument before and I don't buy it. I don't think we well Here's the I've heard this argument because the people right I've heard it from soccer people who say look soccer is so great when you play soccer as little kids You're playing the exact same soccer that adults are playing. That's why we can't add instant replay That's why we can't do all the stuff. I would say all those changes All those I've meanwhile meanwhile kids right who play basketball have lower nets smaller courts kids playing little league Have t-ball, right softball people are playing lots of games that are pale Invitations of the real game But they have not lost any interest for the real competitive game that they will never ever ever play in their whole lives I'm however, I would argue that the patch for fortnight is more Structurally fundamentally changing to the meta of fortnight how it looks how it acts how it plays Then every change we've wanted from soccer combined would be to soccer I'm just saying little kids playing ice hockey where they can't hit each other and they're using half the ice Have not lost any interest in real fucking ice hockey. Yeah, it doesn't matter You can play baby fortnight and get plenty of enjoyment watching big boy fortnight I am pretty confident that the people who want to watch fortnight would rather watch the casual mode And I don't think you can watch a streamer do it. You don't have to watch the e-sports Yes, you can watch a streamer play fortnight. I'm saying epic would make No worthwhile money even bothering engaging with that high skill 10 percent There is no reason to do it if I were the product manager at epic I would literally just say we will not we don't care about the competitors doing fine without any e-sports. Yes All right, I think we can definitely turn this into a panel because I got more to yell about but I'm hungry And this show's already gone on long. So we're just going to stop right here I want to yell more about non-gaming Things that have the same problem. I think we're going to make a packs panel out of this