- Blizzard's controversial expansion plan and whether Cataclysm can hold the subscribers long enough for Blizzard's slow expansion cycle.
- FFXIV getting ready for the big day when they actually start making money.
- The latest MMO's going F2P.
- Round table discussion of the future of the subscription model.
A few random tidbits about being a blogger who makes the occasional guest appearance on a recorded-live audio podcast:
- Chris of Game By Night is a teacher by day, and some of the questions he asked last time out fit that mold. We spent 15 minutes exploring topics raised by the games we were playing that week, and I fielded questions like, "So, Green, tell us about what you do at PVD. This is your time to showcase your work for our listeners who aren't so familiar with it."
Chris wasn't able to make it this time, which left Ferrel, author of the Raider's Compendium, calling the shots. The games we were playing this week segment took 75 seconds combined between the three of us, and I got thrown questions like "Green, what do you think of the FFXIV free to play conversion?" I don't actually play FFXIV, but I made this work and we chain pulled the next topic. Draw your own conclusions.
- I'm used to writing out all my thoughts and then reorganizing or deleting as necessary. By virtue of having a live conversation, there's no opportunity to reorganize, clarify, or insert that extra thought you had a few minutes later when the conversation has already moved on. As a result, it's really hard for me to have an honest opinion of how I did on the show - when I listen to it right now, I'm highly critical of what I could have said more concisely (I think I did terribly on this front this time out), or the arguments that I'm not as convinced were worth presenting at all after hearing the guys' comments.
Maybe in a year when the memory of actually having the conversation is less fresh, I'll have a different view - I definitely thought the show from last year was much better than I remembered it when I re-listened it to prepare for this week. - I did talk for what feels like 10 minutes straight about DCUO. This wasn't necessarily out of line since DCUO was one of the three news stories of the week and I was the only one who had actually played it. I also talked for probably a bit more than the other guys (Dr. Klassi was pretty quiet) during the discussion. Again, it was my suggested topic, and I don't know what exactly the right balance is. Ah well, practice makes perfect I suppose.