Here is the naptime chart. You're welcome.

So much talk about Bioware in this Podcat, Must engage tongue holding mode.

But there is one thing that I will say about roll playing Dragon Age 2 and the main reason I didn't like the game.
A lot of roll playing games have the goody two shoes option and the puppy kickingly evil option but those same games have a neutral so the there's some swing room for a character who isn't playing one way or the other. Dragon Age 2 didn't have that in stead it had this out of left field "snarky" option which wouldn't make any sense for the goody two shoes or the puppy kicker. To me it felt like DA 2 was actively discouraging roll playing and pretty much locking you in to what ever the first two or three dialog options you picked where, made even more glaring by characters treating you differently depending on which options you picked.

Everything Hawke did regarding the plot seemed glaringly out of character regardless of which attitude you picked buying a fancy expensive house, dealing with a political mess and getting involved in a...uh, well let's not beat around the bush it was a state sponsored genocide. The good the bad or the snarky wouldn't do all 3 of those things.

Same thing with Mass Effect 3 I roll played the crap out of Commander Shepard down to what she wouldn't ask about from the investigate menu, then in ME3 it's just like: Good Option! Bad Option! And Here I am with all sorts of deeply through out back story and nearly 100 hours of active character development as Shepard then her personality is reduced to that of a light-switch...

I don't care what EA says I don't have faith in Bioware any more.

Good to see this back again.

About the T-shirt, I may buy one, but it would help if I could see the design ahead of time.

Also I look forward to an intervention for Mike at the expo where everyone forces him to eat all the foods he avoids.

I would definitely buy a Space Muffin T-shirt! Now that I'm done with my summer job, maybe I can start sketching up a few panels for a comic book >.> I'm really bad at sketching.

Of course I would swim with otters, I wouldn't have it any otter way. But if it were both Nathan Fillion and the otters, it would just be otter confusion.

Did Susan say that the T-shirt design would be in the comments?

*Double Post*

Another hilarious podcast, great job, guys. Susan's food appreciation noises crack me up.

Great podcat. YES! Would love a spacemuffin's T-shirt, would definitly buy one (maybe two)!

Mike's crazy ways are making him sound more and more like a sitcom character.

On the topic of roleplaying games; I almost always end up being a jack-of-all-trades because I love being self sufficient in games. If my equipment gets damaged, I hate the idea of trekking back to the nearest town/checkpoint to get the local handyman/blacksmith to repair my stuff. If there's magic in the game, I will try and be proficient in all classes because I like to keep my options open (Elder Scrolls games, love choosing between throwing fireballs or turning myself invisible to take down the bandits).
However, I love seeing my character(s) progress, so I usually play a sort of rogue with a heart of gold type guy, almost like a Robin Hood who kills people or an old samurai (because I like swords) who was brought up thinking about honour all the time but after a couple of years sees that sometimes you have to think for yourself, steal to get by. If a poor person needs help, I'll help them because it's the Right thing to do. If a rich person needs help, I'll help because I will be gaining funds/experience to help those poor people. I will always strive to experience all the content a game has to offer and I can usually (internally) justify why my character does things...

... It's hard to articulate how I roleplay.

*Edit*
Can we pretend you guys were writing the pilot/basic plot for the first season of Space Muffins this past week, which is why there was no podcat last week?
Also, Susan... Love your use of the saying "hoist by your own petard" these past couple of podcats. I use that saying and people just look at me funny.

Australian here saying sweet pies all the way!
I'm in for a Space Muffins T-shirt aswell.

The stuff about role playing in a game was actually really interested. I've never really been in to that but I've wanted to give it a go recently and that gave me some good ideas of how to get in the proper mind-frame.

I'd love to report myself as present and accounted for on the space muffin T-shirt. But my wacky foreigner-bucks have all fled me, or will have to go to more important (and boring) ends. :<

Otherwise, I'd so be on board!

I honestly think Bioware could have saved itself a lot of grief by naming Dragon age 2, Dragon Age 2: Hawke's tale or something (I guess the two is necessary so people didn't think it was an expansion like awakening.) It would have said hey guys this isn't a direct sequel its a tangential story. And for the record I liked Dragon Age 2 but I also game like 3 years behind the curve so I knew what I was getting.

Motion controls need some form of physical feed back like the vibration in the controller, just enough of a physical signal to say something was going on.

For a crazy dangerous idea, an electrical shock that is enough to tense all the muscles in your arm if your sword hits something so your arm actually stops moving.

The only time i liked the sword fighting in Skyward Sword was during the training bit with the trees otherwise it added nothing to the game-play and terrified the cat.

Put me down for two shirts. One for me and one for my girlfriend.

Susan Arendt:

Dastardly:

The Escapist Staff:
058: Layoffs at PopCap & Dragon Age 3 Leaks

We also talk about pie, naps and Magic the Gathering drinking games.

Watch Video

I'm sad to always hear the same complaints about motion control. Not because they're not 100% accurate, but because it means we are not learning. We keep making the same damned mistake over and over -- trying to fool the brain by fooling the body.

Our bodies are incredible, super-complex information gathering systems. Each sub-system has redundancies, those redundancies have redundancies, and the little dude behind the controls (the brain) gets a non-stop feed of information from myriad sources. Trying to use a remote to fool the brain would be like trying to break into NORAD by putting a crudely made cardboard cutout in front of one security camera.

And sure, we could use all kinds of top-shelf equipment and clever trickery to fool each of the dozens of security measures individually... but wouldn't it be easier and more effective if you could just bribe someone on the inside?

Traveling back from this over-extended metaphor, we can't fool the brain by trying to imitate what the body does during an activity. Swinging my arm is just not similar enough to swinging a sword for my brain to buy the illusion. We can fool the brain by imitating what the brain would do during this activity... and we do that by removing bodily awareness from the equation.

When I'm trying to use the Kinect, I'm very, very aware of my movement. That's "brain RAM" not being used on the game. But when I'm playing Arkham City on a 360 controller, and I'm neck-deep in a combo chain, I'm not aware of my hands at all -- I'm thinking about my Batman avatar and what he (me) is doing. My brain is being bribed by awesome, so my body is not a factor.

(Also, when talking about Southern pecan pie, you can't pronounce it "peh-CAHN." In the South, they make us all say "PEE-can.")

A pee can is something a trucker uses, darlin'.

I've grown up in Texas since birth and it's always been "cahn" not "can."

Unless you're in East Texas. We don't like to talk about them.

Actually, I have a serious question. A few casts back you guys talked about not meeting famous people you like because the illusion of grandeur they may have could be spoiled. Does this mean I shouldn't talk to you guys at the Expo?? :( :(