It hasn't been the cheeriest week in news and commentary here at PVD, so thanks go out to DDO Producer Glin for offering up a lighter story by declaring July Turbine's Official Unofficial DDO Podcast Month.
When you follow as many games as I do, podcasts play a crucial role in keeping up with the news. Even so, DDO seems to have an unusually robust podcast community for the size of its playerbase. There are any number of possible explanations for this. Perhaps DDO's demographics skew older due to the DND license, and this somehow means that the playerbase is disproportionately capable at podcasting. Perhaps Turbine's support (Glin personally appeared on two podcasts this month, and other Turbine devs have visited both DDO and LOTRO podcasts) helps foster the community. Perhaps Jerry Snook, the host of the 177+ episode DDOCast, is such a DDO institution that he inspires everyone else to offer their own take on the DDO-related podcast.
Whatever the explanation, the result is an array of entertaining and informative podcasts that any developers should be proud to call their own. Even so, it's a bit unusual and refreshing to see a developer acknowledging the full range of the community, including shows like Psycho da Angry Drow and the Rant Squad (home to expletive-laden critiques of Turbine's work) and the DDO Cocktail hour (where every episode is a drinking episode).