Why Aren't All Games Cross-Play?

Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Elder Trolls Gaming podcast. If you are new in joining us today, we are three brothers who get together and talk about gaming. We may also talk tech, TV, movies, and other nerdy gigy stuff too. Today we're going to talk about cross play, cross progression, cross platform, cross generation, cross gaming, cross cross cross. What are these features and why doesn't every game have them and how frustrating it can be for us gamers. But first, I'm Nasty night and I'm taking it easy John, Oh, and I'm Daned Dolf the why's there? We go? So Dan all just got his new internet connection, yeah, which he threw out on his back porch. Yeah, we got it, and we got our hardware in a couple of days ago. He was sitting on the front step. Was like, it's like Christmas. Yeah, But we just kind of did a quick setup this morning, just plugged it in and you have a big wire coming through your window. You're the back video or the back deck door. We just kind of put it underneath for now, just to see how it works or whatever. But we'll figure out a more permanent solution at some point. But the router is upstairs right now, and yet downstairs, I'm still getting two hundred legs down and ten megs up, so we're doing pretty well. That's like two better before, not even Land. But I can't do Land because I can't plug in Ethernet yet until it's down here if we put it down here, which we probably will because this is where the Xbox is, both our computers, et cetera. Yeah, you're gonna want to do that. You're gonna want to do that. Did you have a question? You said something? But yeah, so true, Like I kind of know because I'm being in the industry, right, But like why, Like I he gets two hundreds down right and ten makeup? I know, the. Duplex and the full duplex and the half duplex all that shit. Like how why is he not getting more upload? Why don't they just give everyone upload? It can't be that hard. Because it's bandwidth. It's still bandwidth. But can't you be like I don't want to watch that. Don't you give me more upload? No? Because well they I mean they could do it, but they don't. Well I don't know how granular that. I'm sure they can do it. It's not like it's it's not like a blanket setting, like you could choose to have one user to have more upload. I'm sure they could, but it's still bandwidth that generally most people do not use upload. I'm sure you could. I'm sure you could call up father Elon and be like, Yo, can you just give me a little bit more upload? Maybe cut my download a bit if you need to give me some more upload? Does it have is that specific to IP address? Can they target that or does it have to be like an area like postal click your account? No, if you're getting two hundred megabit down, you can get more upload. That's what I don't understand. Mm hmm. But they throttle the upload because generally no people are downloading, right, No more people are can put that bandwidth towards other clients to have more clients, to have more people. Yeah, that's stupid. I guess everyone's like. So cable Internet does the same thing. All cable companies do that. You just tell them you want more upload, like, yo, give me fifty megabit upload, put me down to one hundred and fifty download or something like just take my pipe and just give me a little bit more upload, give me a bigger straw. Well, yeah, anything that was better than thirty megs down forty max and zero point five up is better. So I don't care. What you should try to do is just drill a hole in your in your glass patio door. Just draw a hole and put the wire through there, like in uh great mass detect shatters. He's like yeah, I'm like there we go just leave it now there's a hole in the glass, Like yeah, massive, massive ful. So I had everyone who's been listening to the show knows how much of my house is a piece of shit. So I had a dream the other day and I think I totally told you guys, but I'll tell the listeners. I had a dream the other day which I woke up laughing my ass off, and there what happened was Alma's been talking about how she wants to widen the driveway because how our driveway is shaped is pretty idiotic. Mm hmmm, because of the previous idiotic owners of this idiotic house. So I had a dream that we were gonna expand the driveway. So we hired a company and the guy comes over with his jackhammer and he starts jackhammering the driveway to break it up. But nothing's happening to the driveway. He's like no, no, no, no, no, And I'm looking at the driveway. I'm like, yo, nothing's happening to the driveway. And then I looked behind me at my house is like shaking and falling apart into a pile problem the bricks. The bricks are just shaking and like popping out and then this fucking fall apart. But the driveway is fine. Yeah, fucking laughed. I woke up. I was trying all the half my ass off because almost a sleeping. Fucking the money pit. Tom Hanks, Oh man, that was so funny. That's your house, Yeah, it is, it truly is. I want to tell you guys, I attended my first Satanic worship last night in what game. Uh. While other people may call it a cirk de solet mmmm hmm, but you went to That's not how you feel about it. These people are Satan worshippers. The skill, the talent to do all this ship that's the only way all these like goat masks and horns and antlers and all this fucking heretics. It's spooky season, man, it's coming. It's creepy as like just like they're flying around lights like the red lights, orange lights, and the music and that these horns and the people in the back like. On the what's all live music? I didn't even know that, like the strings and everything, all the orchestra's all live music. And back there they're all painted black with black horns with like the silhouette. I'm like, geez man, where the Wayne was the Wayne family there? Or did you see them leaving. Thomas Wayne? But it was. It was actually fantastic. It was very very, very very cool. Body of the play from Tombstone. Maybe remember that there's like devil and he's using like a bottle of whiskey in the light for the like the lighting. Oh yes, oh that's cool, that's cool. But yeah, it was. It was very It was very cool. The music was unbelievable and just the sound how they had that set up in a fucking tent like it was an actual like top tent, like like a big top ten big top, big top to the big top. They brought the we went there. But very cool. It's stunk, oh yeah, like in the main like lobbyary where all the snacks and ship were. It smelled like dog feet, you know, that smelled like dog like dog beedles. Yeah, like a cheese paw, you know, yeah, like cheetos. My dogs don't smell my dogs. The pause are like this big. They can't really smell. My dogs do not smell like dogs. They smell like fluffy, free, beautiful. It's too bad it doesn't exactly reflect his smell. Man, But I had a good time last night, very cool, very cool. Just the performances, like that's like I was just watching these they're freaks of nature, these people, Like it's crazy. That's why they call him circus free freak show, circus freaks. But man, they are at the circus. They are talented, like bearded, like absolutely insane, absolutely insane, just like the like the practice they have to do, like how good they have to be. I only saw like one or a couple of mistakes, and like the rest they may have been making mistakes, but I didn't really notice. Holy moly, was. It was really really really fun, really cool cool. Grease the grease member greasepan Oceans, Oceans, that's him. Just a bunch of grease man, just a bunch of grease man. Then the guy had just to go so high up and then when they fall and I don't know, it's really cool, really cool. I No one fell in their spine, no, on their head. No, but you the last time they were in town? Oh really is that what happened? Yeah? Yeah, I remember Eric was there. No, I don't remember that. Yeah, everybody. Eric was at some Circo sole a thing and said one of the people like fell and their fucking hand. It's like the whole thing that just got canceled. Wo wow. Well that's the risk. That's what they signed up for. That is being a grease man. There's a risk being a grease man. But they all worshiped the devil first. Then they put the show on right, and they continue to worship the devil throughout the show, which gives them a devil extra our superpower. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I was up to last night. Interesting, I played two hours of hockey two hours. God, Jonathan, you're going to see the Hobbits tonight, the panel of the Boys four Hobbits all right, Comic Con tonight. Yeah, that's crazy and we're going. That's a big fucking deal for Outawa. Like usually you get like characters that nobody's ever heard of, has been in like one thing in Autawa. Like the cart the cart writer, Yeah, Jean Blue Jean guys. Well yesterday, yesterday Robert Patrick was here. Why do I know Robert Patrick? One thousand? H oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah right. Greg got his autograph that Robert I know Roberts also known as John. I was like, you should have got you should have brought a picture of John Connor and and asked him to sign it. Have you seen this boy? Or like asked to have you've seen this boy? But that's what he I said that before when he was in line. So he got him to say you got him to sign his picture of like two one thousand, It says, have you seen this boy? Greg? Have you seen this boy? You got a picture? I should have got a picture of himself. Greg should have bought a picture of himself. I got him to sign that. Have you seen this boy? Robert Patrick? Nice? That's cool? Yeah, And I guess Rufio was there, the guy who played a lot of the guys keep sending me the links because they were trying to get me to go to the Toronto one. Or John Rays Davies was that is gimy. Those who don't know and a bunch of other people and they're all sending me links. I'm like, man, I can't afford to go there right now. That's just not something I want to spend money on. And like, plus, it's fine listening to people at a panel or whatever. I don't really want to meet anyone that's weird. Don't meet your heroes, Okay, just don't do it. Yeah, However, Real House met Hayden Christensen because like, Anakin is his favorite character of all time, and he said it was He's from Toronto, isn't he. Yeah, And he said, like obviously was a gamble, but he was like willing to do it and it was like one of the most life changing, memorable experiences that he'll probably have. So I think that Matt's lucky. Like I said, I might have said that before, but I'll always say, never meet your heroes, but I'll go listen to a panel or whatever and listen to them talk. Yeah, we're just going to the panel. Interview interview questions, I guess. Yeah, which I've heard. You've probably heard the answer one billion times. Yeah. True. We did listen to the podcast, their podcast for a long time. Yeah. Well, yeah, we'll see. Cool anything else before we head over to the game time. I saw something funny on Instagram that I thought I would tell you guys because I've never seen it before. It was somebody had posted something like screenshots from Pokemon, one of the older games on it looked like game Boy or whatever, and someone named their Pokemon their ball so or oh shit, he did you guys see this? No, And so it's like every time it makes an announcement, it's like, oh shit, he grew to level ten, oh shit he woke up exclamation, or oh shit, he learned sleep powder. And then the best one was the best one was what, oh shit, he is evolving. So I never seen him. I was like, oh, that's genius. If I care, if I didn't care about my characters and stuff and like gameplay, and I never Oh my god, oh shit he used sneak attack. Yeah, some ship. All right, we're gonna head over to game time now, but first a word from our VR sponsors. Hello, everyone, we are thrilled to announce an exciting new partnership with vr rock dot com. Get ready to enhance your VR experience with vr rocks protective lenses, available for both prescription and non prescription users as a fellow VR enthusiast I opted for their blue light canceling lenses. These lens us are designed to protect my PSVR twos stock lenses from scuffs and scratches, while helping to reduce eyestrain caused by prolonged exposure to blue light during extensive VR gaming sessions. 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A couple of days prior to when they officially announced it, I just saw like I couldn't. I was not getting any matches, like fifteen minutes waiting for matches. I was like, holy shit, changing up the uh, like the modes still like ten fifteen minutes nothing, Okay, there it is. It's like officially dead. There's absolutely nobody fucking playing this game. I think it's the first time in gaming history I've heard this being done where they just they come out and they're like, okay, well we're just gonna pull it from shelves and ref the four hundred people that bought this game, Like, isn't that crazy? Again? I can't help but feel sad. I just can't help but feel the sadness of the developers. Sad it'll be back, though. Here's what's going to happen. Here's what's going to happen. Have they mentioned anything about what they're going to do, what their plans are, because what they need to do. Here's what they need to do. They need to make their money at least, so they have to. They have to this game, bring it back somehow. If this game costs that much to make and it spent that long, with eight years, they said to make this freaking game, which I can't believe. They're going to make it free to play, put a bunch of micro transactions in there, try to make their money back for a couple of years, and they'll shut it down in two years. That's what's gonna happen. If they don't do that, they're morons. They also have to redesign those skins because they're so bad. Yeah, they'll they have to add more skins and stuff for the micro transactions or whatever. But it's so sad. It's so funny because we were talking about this game being like the model is that they don't want to do. They're probably trying to fight against the microtransaction. There it is, let's make a game where that doesn't happen and you just buy it like Games of Old. No, but when you're cloning a free to play game with a game that costs fifty dollars, you're why, why do you think that that would work because you have an established game. It's an Overwatch clone, that's what it is. Yeah, Overwatch has been out for fucking years, millions of players. Yeah. What I don't understand is how they didn't look at Overwatch and say, why is this like successful? Right? Because it's free and they well, well, because listen, I'm gonna put Blizzard on a pedestal now, even though they don't deserve. Like when they. Release a game, it's usually very like polished, it's researched, it's like psychoanalyzed to make money. Okay, they put designs together on their characters over years and years of like all this kind of stuff, like these characters look this way because this is how kids' brains react and how they're gonna spend money. Okay, Like if you look at the characters and Overwatch, they're fantastic. You think that's what they do, what they research? They just have good character design. There's yeah, but there's a reason why, right, And I think Blizzard in the Blizzard has been in the forefront of creating these kinds of games since dia Blow, like the first and second Diablow. Okay, Like how people would like to spend money, how to make money in a video game, and how people like perceive their all these characters, but like over coming back to it, coming back to like Overwatch and Overwatch too, the character design is like superb. It's just that's the way it is. You've got these hot chicks asses sticking up on high heels, right, and like the majority of their players are boys sixteen years old, eighteen years old, twenty years old. Yeah, they want to see ass, right, they want to see ass hits. Right, that's shooting and shoot things and look at flashy and like colors and all this stuff. Like that's how it is. I'm sorry, Okay, all the other successful free to play games, that's they all monetize that kind of sex appeal as well. Like that new one, uh First Descendants or whatever. You should see the freaking skins in that game. Like, holy well, they know what they need to do is stop trying to make groundbreaking, earth shattering FPS games because they're dying. Yeah, they're done. Like the they're so oversaturated now. Granted, on the other hand, though, yes it's oversaturated. But on the other hand, it's like something's got to come up next, So who's gonna who's gonna do it? You know what I mean? Like something's got to replace Apex some time or another. In the sports leagues, something's got to come out that's better. What's it going to be? Who's going to do it? It's just you're gonna have these ones incrementally in between that'll fall and die, and something's going to break through. It's either that they just start doing the established games though, like Overwatch, Apex, call of Duty. Yeah, but they got there somehow. They had to start somewhere, So it's either they do that or ye. But they started when there was no Battle Royales. They started a genre like Call of Duties. Call of Duty has been out for fucking twenty years, you know what I mean. Like more than that, it's it was there in the beginning, so it's still there. It was. It's established. You can't just create an Overwatch clone and charge forty American dollars. Yeah, they said bad. They started making this when Overwatch was announced. That's when they said they started making this, Like yeah, like what the fuck, it's a bunch of lies. They just lie through their teeth. Yeah, that's that's gotta be a lie just to cover their their asses. When someone says it's an Overwatch player. Oh, no, we started developing this at the same time. Yeah, I don't think so, I don't think. But either way, they still lose when they say that, because it's like, well, why did Overwatch come out first and you guys didn't kind of thing. Yeah, they'll they'll release it on all platforms, free to play they have to, and micro transactions. They'll make some money back and then shut it down. That's what's gonna happen, or that's what they should do. It doesn't matter who did it first, sorry, better, it's who did it first, right is that what they say? Is that what they say? They say it doesn't matter who does it better, who does it first. Yeah, but it's like they didn't learn anything. It's like they looked at their competition and just did like not learn a thing. Yeah, with the game itself. The game itself was fun, like if you get through the character skins, all get people playing it, and you don't do that by playing paying forty dollars on just like what is on PCs five two. Playoffs Now the forty dollars or the fifty dollars. Like I said earlier, we're going to this again. I don't really want to repeat myself, but if they offered more, then I think people would have went in if they showed the game, if they designed their characters better, the skins better, showed the game, offered more. I think the only way they would have got forty bucks is if they had like a campaign. Some kind of story or offline mode or something. Otherwise. You can't charge. You can't charge that. You can't charge it's a free to play game. You can't triple stamp a double stamp. Lloyd, Yeah, Lloyd. So I predict we'll see that maybe in the next pretation from take It Easy, John. Oh, Now, Dandolf, the whys hasn't made one in a while, so we'll take that one. Now, Daniel, you said, oh, what's the next shooter that's going to come out? You know, what's what's the next thing? Well, there might be something on the horizon. I don't be created by created by Valve. It's called deadlock. I don't think so. Okay, Now, I don't think so lot. I don't think for us. No, I don't think so. But I'll tell you why in a second. Let's talk about what deadlock is. Me and Jonathan played a little bit. It's a it's a mobile shooter, so it's like your Do to two or your Legal Legends, but in like a third person shooter perspective, much like Smite, but it's. More like Fortnite. Yeah, it's exactly like yeah, Fortnite, but Mobi but Mobia, Yeah, but Moba shooter. I played like three hours of it, I think, and I just that's like three matches. Yeah, and they were bought matches. Well no, I played one real life match with all real people and then two bought matches and there's still forty five to fifty minutes a match. I don't tuck time for that shit. No. Yeah, here's why I don't think this will be that like good maybe the next genre, the next Yeah. No, it takes too fucking long, first of all, like you said, but second all, there's too much ship in it. There's too much like skills upgrades, skills upgrades, all that crap shooter players. Shoot. If you're a shooter player and you're looking for like a new shooter, like, that's not what you're looking for me as a shooter player, That's not what I want to do. You know. It's too much like that's a League of Legends thing. That's what League of Legends is. Well, they're probably more League of Legends players are not going to fucking leave league to play a shooter, you know what I mean. They're not going to do that. It's shooter players are going to be playing this game, and shooter players, I think, do not want to do all that crap. I think Valve Doda fan boys will definitely. Go play this. It's too much crap, It's too much ship. There times the fun am I doing. I gotta go back to the shop now. Yeah, that was stupid too. Usually in a moment you can hold out of minutes, you can hold on a button, it takes you back right, uh, because you do that, I don't think. I don't think I had to jump back on the tram and ride my way back. I was fine to shop. Fucking stupid. That was absolutely just like traversing around is kind of annoying in the game. The notes take way too long, Like I just buying things and I don't know it's not for me, and I don't I don't know if I speak I don't speak for all shooter players obviously, but well that's your main too. Much though it's too much to do in in a shooter game, you are our shooter representative shooter. We're friends, aren't shooter McGavin. We're friends. That should be your next game, shooter, shooter, shooter McGavin. I started playing Apex yesterday again. I saw you going back into it. I had a big game with a random caustic game that I had to play for challenges. Had fucking like fifteen kills. Nice, still sweet, I jump. I was like, ah, Concord shut down, I'll jump back and over action. I was like, fuck, yes, so much better? Is that fucking night and day? Crazy? Wow? Yeah? Man, the new season of Apex is sweet because you get to just respawn. It's a revival game. You just jump in and as long as your teammates are still alive, you get to respawd. Is that forever and forever good? I think so? Yeah, I just seen the game. Now is that a different mode or is that the now original mode? It just it's a different mode. It's a new mode. It's a revival. Then there's regular tris and then there's ranked or whatever. Cool. Yeah, it's and you get more kills. It's funner. You're always because I liked. I liked there was another there was another one that did that? Is it war Zone? War Zone has resurgence? Yeah, yeah, I didn't mind. I didn't mind resurgence because I was always in the fucking match, you know. Yeah, resurgence, that's what it is. It's basically resurgence, which is like the main game mode that everyone plays in war Zone now, like the ranked the ranked mode and in war Zone is resurgence. Oh okay, cool. So it's just like always you're always coming back as long as your teammate's still alive. Yeah, that's the only way I'll play those fucking games. I've got others. But does anybody else want to? Uh go? Now? I think I'm done with the Diablo four. Yeah? Did you even try the Gauntlet? Yeah? I tried a couple of times. I don't need to do that. Well, you guys, but like, are looking at a tenth top ten rogue right here on Diablo four. I went to the Gauntlet top ten, but it's probably I've probably topped ten down. What of rogues top ten? One, nine, ten, it's just. A time trial. I don't believe you either. I don't believe you. There as well, I sent a fucking picture. Okay, I sent the picture in the chat with. The dungeon time trial Grind. But that probably I've probably pushed down to like five hundred thousand. It's placed by now because I haven't logged in in three. Or four days. But I was at one point top ten rogue yeah this season. Okay, well there you go. I mean I tried it a couple of times, so I didn't really know what the fuck I was doing. But it's cool. I like it, Like your build ready. You got to get your build ready for like the. Yeah, you have to build for that. And I didn't do that, and I was like, I think I got four hundred or something like that. I was like, and then you got Then you gotta get the map, Like there's certain websites that'll show you the map uncovered and give you a picture to download. Then you can put it into paint and you map out your routes to get optimal points and score. You map them out, and then you put it into action. I just figured I have you know, I can do a T eight hord mode so low, not that I would it takes forever, but beat all the bosses right the Uber bosses. Yeah, I think it beat all the bosses, so like down, yeah, Uber Lil's killed. I have three mythics. I don't need to do anything else else. I don't think. Yeah that's it, man, that's the Diablo season. That's how you that's how you play. And then you usually you usually finish that in a month or so, and then you've got you take two three months off, and then you jump in the next season fucking do it again. Now, this is what is This is what I need them to do when the next when the expansion comes out, they need to give more customizable options. Like if you're continuing to roll new characters every season, you have to have more customizable options for your face, hair, tattoos. You gotta give us a little bit more if we keep rolling new characters for the characters. Yeah, just a model, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, oh yeah. There's not a lot to choose from. That's like I've already I think I've tried them all out, Like every character fucking customization I've tried. So yeah, let's go give us give us some new hair styles. Fuck, give us some new skins, acid titties. Man is bald, he needs more hair options. Let him live vicariously through his character. Give him Overwatch skins and he'll play. Oh yeah, give me some of my widow skins. Tracer. Yeah, Jonathan, you have been playing Star Wars Outlaw. Tell us about that. Well, I am about four hours or so in how about like six or seven? And I I mean, I'm enjoying it enough to keep playing. Some things are a bit wonky, though, I mean like when enemies see you sometimes doesn't make any sense because I'll be like fully hiding behind a box or something and they'll see me and it'll fuck everything up, and I'm like, how did it? How did they see me? Like I'm literally crouched, And then the next time when I retried, I'm in the same spot and they don't see me, so like, what the hell is that? The movement is pretty clunky also, whether it's trying to like mantle over rocks or jump over objects, it's just bad. I got something there. So I was trying to get to this off onto this ledge. Okay, there was a ledge and it was about as high as I I was. Okay, I was like, well, how do I get. To this door? You can't mantle onto everything, So yeah, exactly. So I'm trying to mantle onto this ledge and it's not letting me. I'm like, what the flying fuck? So that there's a little box, a tiny box besides where I hop on this tiny box and then it lets me mantle. But it was like just like ahead ahead size, so you need to have a specific height then, and just some things you can't mantle onto and you just look jump and you're just like oh yeah, yeah, flying in the air and just like like floating on things. Just like it's just really bad. The speeder control is god awful on both controller and mess and keyboard. I just crash it all the time into everything, but you cannotgreade that like handling speed. Uh. I don't know all that. It was just the controls I feel as bad spaceship controls. Also, I read you can't shoot blasters while riding your speeder, but which was a deliberate choice from the developers because they were like, we don't want you to feel like you can just kind of do that and ride in on everything and just shoot from your blaster like they wanted the blast. They wanted the speeder to be more of like a cinematic thing, like when you're getting chased. That's what the focus is is the move twenty four fps. Fuck when I smash into a bantha in the middle of a field and go fucking flying off like nothing else around. But I thought you could like do a pause, not a pause, like a like a bullet time where you press shift while you're on your speeder and it'll I didn't try that, and you can like pin the enemy's heads and then she'll go do doo doo dooop doo. In the mill on the speeder. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you can. I don't know. I just crashed it all the time. Spaceship Controls also was really bad. Yeah, that one space it was so fucking I was. Trying to get through some broken ships or something and so I was like what the fuck. Man, Like I was just like it moves like really fast, and I'm like, well, and then you move your mouse and it's like you can't track anything. It's it was just not good. But the good things, yes, let's get on the good things here. The sound really good, yes, yes, the music sounds sound design and the music is really good. The quests I've enjoyed so far, Like I do like sneaking around though, So I've always liked that kind of play style, you know, be it playing through Oblivion or Skyram or the old thief games. Just sneaking around stealing stuff. I like that. So if you don't like that, there's a lot of that in this game, including multiple quests where you have to start over if you get caught. I was so angry at those. Fuck but I like that choosing to side with factions. I like, I can screw anyone over at any time, and I think that's pretty cool. But yeah, so far as kind of scoundrel style, I'm not sure. I love the character. The main character, Like she's okay, but like she seems like a bit of a nube. I would have I would have preferred maybe somewhere, someone a bit more seasoned, you know, maybe a little. What I think the point is that she's on that journey, and you're taking her through that journey to Yeah. I hope that, Yeah, I hope that it gets like her voice lines and her maybe here general like mannerisms kind of changed. Yeah. Confident, yeah, because there's a lot of like not non confidence, you know what I mean, Like whenever she's replying to things, She's like, oh, yeah, yeah, I meant to do that. I hope that. I hope that she becomes a better character. Yeah, as you as you go on. But yeah, that's so far. I'm having fun with it. I'll keep playing it, that's sure. Yeah. I did rent it. I didn't buy it, though. I rented Ubisoft Plus for twenty dollars. Twenty bucks for the month. We're going to try to beat it before the month's up, hopefully I do. I think it's only like a twenty five hour experience. I thought. I I read main story. Yeah, yeah, the main story, and I haven't even really been playing the main story. I was kind of like just driving around the Speeder stealing stuff. They said, oh, there's something some vault over here, gonna go like grab a key card, and I'm like, oh, okay. So I rolled in and I had to like sneak around and try to get this get into this little building. And then I was like, oh, this isn't even the main story. Oh geez, okay, and then I went to do the main story after that. I've also been playing everything that he's said. I concur doctor, Uh what I was gonna say something else? Oh, so I've been doing a lot of the photo mode in there. Great the game. Looks I find it looks beautiful well from what I can see in the photo mode. Yes, but that is also PC, so yeah, so yeah, Console gamers are in like perhaps also also I'm outlock console. I'm on the Outlaw setting, which is like the max tippity top of the graphic settings that you have to unlock with a with a launch parameter. So if you launched the game with a parameter, it's called there's like a little string of like a little code and unlocks the actual like future proof Max graphic settings which I'm running on, and those shots are from that. It looks unbelievable. It looks unbelievable, runs like shit. It completely it completely demolished. The default settings were fucking horrible, like the DLSS and whatever ship upscaling they have max though ray tracing on the default settings. It was horrible. It was like flash. The textures were all blurry, they were flashing in and out. I'm was like this, what the fuck is this game doing. I had to completely turn off all upscaling and go to NATO resolution for it to look normal. It look like a Nintendo sixty four fucking game. I was like, what the hell is this? Yeah, because what I think? And then it would like slow down and it would crash and I would have to restart it, and then it would look normal again, and then it would just do it again after like a little while, and everything was just blurry, and I shut everything off and I just went native. And so if anybody else is playing this game and your game's crashing, it's the frame generation toggle turn that shit off. If you turn that off, your game will most likely be stable. But like that's what they do, right, So they send you into the game, and it's an Nvidia shill game, right, so they'll just be like, oh, maxol's rate tracing effects, but put everything else, like as long as the rate tracing effects are on max, you know, put the put the upscaling on ultra performance. So it looks like ball sack, you know what I mean. Or it's fucking terrible. So like you go in, I take all that right tracing. You can't turn it off. You can't turn the rate tracing off. In this game. You can turn raytrace life, you can turn it to the shadows. No I turned it off. No, you cannot turn it off unless you go into the config file and you take out the lines of the raate tracing, and then when you go when you boot back into the game with the config file edited, it's like a completely disgusting like it looks. It's like super I think it's super bright, like over exposed like everything. You can't see anything. So like they did this in another game where they forced you because it was an Nvidia like sponsored game or something like that, and they forced you to have rate tracing effects on. There's there's what you're talking about is there's a there's a toggle for this new like Nvidio lighting thing where it will like enhance the ray tracing a little bit. You can turn that off, but you can't turn off the raate tracing effects. You can only turn those down to low. So even if you go in with a pretty good computer like my AMD card, I have to turn that shit to low and I can't even turn it off. You know how much I would get if I could turn all that ship off. Fuck that that bothered me. But the game looks amazing. I'm not getting crazy performance because the ray tracing is forced on, but it gets playable, like sixty seventy. Yeah, sixty seventy frames ultra wide two K resolution, so it looks really really nice. But when I jump on that speederor it fucking goes down like the FPS forty five. But yeah, the level designs are really cool when you go and I went to go get like this piece of gear from a busted up or crashed h Imperial spaceship and like going through the Imperial spaceship. Like the design like it's a mac It was so good. It was like that the first the first quest where you meet that dude in the jar like that. Oh that one too, Yeah that was sweet too. That was like, No, that was out in space where you landed into the where you at. The Imperial base. Yeah yeah, no talking to her real fuel station or something. Yeah, I'm talking about the one that was on the planet that you go. This might be after This might be after that where you go to get a power power source for your ship or something. But man, it was really cool, like the dust falling from like all the wires hanging and very very cool. She's pretty cool, like I said, she's very. Like new Bishnatue, like I'm enjoyed like that. This sound is so cool I just liked the sound the lights when it's the HDR is on and all that on the. Old head looks fantastic. The sound is great on the on my KeyWe ears orchestra lights and my Fio headset amplifier or whatever the fuck this is. I am a headphone amplifier. Sounds great, sounds great. Nice Crisp, Daniel, you got anything while I am distracted by a thought I had when you guys kept talking about the main character being cool and like, are there any character video game characters we can think of that are like losers? And you're like, fuck, I don't want to play this game because this guy is a loser or this we should have a huge EPISO interesting the most loserish characters, Like I don't want to play the main character loser anyway. I just had a thought, that's interesting because that would make me not want to play that I didn't like my main character or something. Yeah, uh yeah, okay, so my game time, well, I loaded up the PS five the other night and just because I was like looking for something to play, but I didn't know what, and I I didn't know what I had in this in the distray on the PS this is weird on the PS five and I was like, clicking all these games is like, you need a disc, you need the disc, you need the disc. And then I clicked Marvel Spider Man and it loaded up, and I was like, but it's not in the and I don't it's not in the distray and I don't remember having that digital, so I don't know what's going on there. But for some reason I was able to just play that on a on a whim. I was like, Okay, fuck, I'll play some Spider Man because I was in the middle of the Black Cat DLC the City that Never Sleeps the first one, yeah, oh, the second one yeah, because I didn't beat the DLC, I could start it, but I don't know. Oh, you didn't play the second one yet, So I'm in the middle of the City that Never Sleeps deal scene. I was just playing that for a bit and it was my first time playing this on the O lead, which was really cool because you know, it's Spider Man at night and ship it looks so good, like all the shadows and all the lights of the buildings at night are Oh man, the second one, the second one's good. Well, you played Morales right. Yeah, I played Miles Okay, the second one. There's a really good corny island like Fairy Sea that would look really good on the Yeah. So I was playing that and I felt like I was fumbling around, like I used to be so good at combat in that game, and then I'm just like what do I do? And I'm just like punching, kicking, But I feel like that's all it really is if you're not using your cadgets and yeah, I mean dodge and perfect dodging, perfect dodges and counters and stuff like that, but I couldn't remember how to do specific ones and against like enemies with shields and stuff. So I was like fumbling around with that. Man. I love the combat in that game, but yeah, it's good. I don't really remember. It's it's such on the borderline of like super easy and like just like like just mashing the buttons that come up on screen. But it's fun because the animations and you're just like, yeah, it's not only. The finishing, the finishers, that's why I like satisfying. Yeah, but I don't really remember what I was doing mid story of this DLC. I think it's that Felicia Harding's son is like in danger and kidnapped or something, and there's some question the son. Yeah what, I don't pretty sure her cat maybe Cat's son. No, black Cat don't got no son. Well, that cat doesn't have a son. There's a kid involved, and there's this question whether or not he's Peter's like kid with her or something. That's the vibe that I was getting a bit. Well, that is the that's kind of one of the points of contention, I think in the story, because Peter's like, at least that's just like the Again, I was jumping right into the story after. But yes, there's this talk of like her son or her kid being kidnapped by one of these weird just I'm reading it now, Okay, so I'm not crazy. And there's the question whether or not Peters because I guess Felicia and he were involved in this world, right banging like trying to find out in the comics as well. Banged many times I read it. I read it many times. I've read that. I read it over and those pages over and over again, Fallacio and now they're stuck together. Anyway, So yeah, I was playing that. It was so cool and I would like to play more, but you know, it's just it's a DLC, so I don't feel a lot of pressure to finish it as long as I beat the game. Uh, definitely still playing some Hogwarts Legacy. There are so many side quests. I was doing the challenges of fighting or beating the side quest where it's like if you finish them, it says X out of whatever, thirty two whatever tier you're on for side quests and relationship quests, and there's fucking so many. It was just like, oh my god. So I started looking around all the villages and like hamlets outside of Hogwarts. Where do I need to go? What needs to get done? So I was doing a lot of that. God, it's so fucking good. It's just so immersive and fun. Fact, Megan beat it. She beat my Sorry, she is now the same level as I am and probably has more hours. So yeah, you know she's been making Well you're just gonna let her do that to you. How does it run on the Switch? Did you even try it? No, I've been watching. It looks pretty good like playing on Switch. Yes, I told you that, Oh my god, looks good. It runs probably around thirty or slightly less or something, But yeah, slight, just kind of doing side quests because I really want to do that and unlock a lot of shit. I don't really care about all those Merlin trials and all that stuff. I was telling Megan, I was like, Eh, they're pretty easy. I do want to get it. Do you all do all those field pages and stuff? Field pages and discovered all the secrets. But side quest is what I started doing a lot of. I wanted to play Moremia, but it's really hard to play during the day when I have time because we don't have blinds and windows, and that game is fucking called the Darkness. I think that's the one reason I'm not jumping back in is because like it's so dark. It's right the game, Yeah, the game is very dark, so it's like, yeah, cause a doom. Well, we finally threw up like just some cardboard to block the wind the light from coming into the window so I could play it now during the day until we put in some blinds at some point soon. But that's pretty much. It was just a couple of games, you know, just having some fun dipping in that for me. Speaking of a doom, a doom. Sh talk about shall we just talk about Rings the Power for a little bit. I've watched all four so I'm in the middle of the third one. Unfortunately it's falling asleep in the middle. The latest thing I watched was. If anybody hasn't watched it, there might be some spoilers here, so just fast forward a bit. Yeah, if any of you care, yeah about watching this show, because apparently everyone just hates it for you know, but we're fans, so we have to watch it. But anyway, the late the last thing I watched was the seal doer at the funeral pire of that kid's mom with the with the black elf. Well, that kid is such a weak character, man at just kill him off already, Roman the fucking goop water. Just kill them off. But I don't know, I'm enjoying this season so far. The first few episodes are cool that I mean, I don't know, we'll start from beginning of it. I just wanted to say that the scene with the sealder and like the spider cave, that was fucking cool. That was very like I love the horror elements of like that, Like the orc falling on him, that was cool. Like this classic spield bird eggs hatching, all the eggs hatching. Yeah that was cool. Oh yes, yeah, yes, yes, I'd like I would like a sell door to be a little bit cooler, like, yeah, be a little Yeah. It's all the male characters in this show are fucking losers and that's what Amazon does and that's what they've been doing. Okay, Like I understand like put strong female characters in. I get that, but you don't have to make all your male characters look like a bunch of buffling boom fucking idiots. Okay, except for the bad guys, you know what I mean? Why do you think al Rond is a Okay, I don't know, he's not like he's like a politician like fucking cares. Yeah, he's a lor master. He's just a politician, but he's why though he is, he is making the right decisions and yes. Yes, and the guy who plays Elron's doing such a fantastic job. But like, yeah, like there's no like strong male character. All the characters are either fucking losers or they're like super evil, like backstabby, like like that human, like the human guy that's now the human I don't know what the hell. There's the Queen Regent right again, Regent nice, strong, powerful female lead. And then there's this sneaky human male that's like. Dude, but that looks very like the Jack Black guy. Yeah, fucking come on, like, fucking come on. I don't know. I don't really care about all the Newmnorian politics bullshit. I don't fucking care about that stuff. Like every time they're on screen, I'm like, uh, they're all gonna sink into the ocean anyways. Care spoiler that it's only been written for fucking fifty years. Spoiler alert sinks into the ocean. Uh yeah, I mean yeah, I'm entertained. I like looking at Galadriel. Okay, it looks nice. It looks nice, nice production, good value. I mean, I don't like how it's they're portraying like the Orcs and all this bullshit, like it's okay, okay, maybe shines. I thought orcs just are orcs? Do they just sprout out of the ground. I don't really remember. There's I don't think there's any specific text in Tolkien's works that's like, this is how they're no, because they're they're elves, right, They're just so they'll be I guess they reproduced the same way elves would, which I guess is so they're showing. They're showing like and like babies, my god, Like yeah, like the orcs, why do we have to go to lull Like they want to go to fucking war their orcs. That's what they fucking live for. They live for that. And then the one guy's like, do we really need to go to wall Marsh? What are you talking about? He's talking to he wants to go to and he would listen to his fucking master because that's what they do, honor to his family and like and then they show, of course they have to show in the background a little fucking baby or like some of the Amazon stomp on, Yeah, in the middle of battle, and they're like the mom's like, mom's hold and the dads and that's like so concerned about the fucking baby or yeah, like he wouldn't care also add art, wouldn't they make him look like he cares about Yeah, Yeah, he wouldn't give a funk about them, Like he would be just like like Suron, he would be just looking for more power, conquering. He doesn't care about finding a place for his people. That would never Yeah, and they're like they're humanizing the Orcs, and it's fucking dumb. It is absolutely stupid, sopid. They should be organizing the Orcs. Yeah, like crank it up on the orcs scale, turn it down on the humanity scale. Their orcs, orcs they get slaughtered by like hundreds of thousands of you get slaughtered. That's what they're there for. They're just fodder. Yeah. I just think that it probably it probably had to go that way because if they're extending this ship into like all these episodes of show, it's like they've got to create culture somehow and create uh what's the word, I don't know, a scene, Like they have to create that kind of life and whatever, because then there's uh not that I don't think. The thing about humanizing the Orcs is that you're starting to try to make people sympathize with them when they are the villains of the story, because stupid, they should be seen as anything other than servants of dark forces. That's kind of how why I like Pj's Orcs, because like you see them, they come on screen, you're like, oh, you gotta go. Yeah, And now now when the Orcs come up, like what about their babies, their babies, I want a battle, Yeah, win off. And it's a different actor for a Yeah, well yeah we knew this though. We knew this going in, didn't you. I like, he's doing a good job and it wasn't that jarring, so it didn't really bother me. Yeah. I just liked how weird Benji Stark's face was in the makeup. That's what contributed. Got more character in. The characters, like these high cheek bones and this really weird like show scene. The scene where Sauron was like trying to get them to follow him was fucking sweet. That's where they all just great the series. That was a great start. I was like, oh damn, that was fucking cool. That was really cool. Well, I'll keep watching, and you know, I didn't really have no other choice, really have no choice about to keep watching. It's good. I like it. I like it though there are stupid things that I chuckle at, but all yeah, but but I think the main like the main thing like l Rond being so fantastic like his character and him playing that character so he's so good, but like he's not. I don't know. How'd you like Buddy from Foundation as that super old elf dude. Oh oh the captain, the gay ship captain. Yeah, the ship captain. Yeah, he was captain in Foundation. Oh yeah in Foundation. Yeah. And geared On is a gay elf them. He was always he was so happy and always like he didn't he didn't look elf to me, like, you know, they didn't show his ears because he's older. Yeah, and like the way there's no real old yeah, but the casting of the elder of the other elves, they're very sharp featured, right, yeah, I guess that's. Especially and then you're very sharp angular features. And then this guy comes on screen. He just looks like a like a human looks. Like because he's older. But even old elves are tight skinned, right, there are no wrinkles on from there you are, Peter, Yeah, push his skin back. But my favorite part of the series so far, this season so far is just the relationship exploring the relationship between Kelibrinboor and who will call what then is his name? Anatar because like lord is something that I want to see. He's just playing fiddle man. But that's so cool, another loser male character. That is the coolest part of the show. And the fact that like there's these the question of like these three rings for the elves, being like, oh wait, did Suron make them? You know, oh hang on to can he influence those? Like the big question? That's really cool because they were because Gimley I just read this in the Fellowship, but Gimley questioned that at the Council of Elrond. He's like, when one of these three rings that the elves have is does he not have influence over those? And el Rond is like, no, he didn't fucking touch those and he didn't make them, so like, you know, it's just it's kind of cool in the show, don't they aren't they like kind of hinting at that he does just because he was there like helping, He knows how they were made. I think that's why it's dangerous because he. And that's why he makes the one ring right to connect all these together. Well now yeah, now he's asking calibrin Board to make rings for men men, which is what's going to lead to the nas goal kind of thing, the Kings of Men. So yeah, very very cool. Cool. There's some TV talk for you guys. All right, let's get into this episode topic. But first head over to that merch shore shore. Okay, sure, merch. Merch. That's a new t shirt right there, Lord of the Rings. Uh what is it called when you put a logo on there but it's not actually their logo? What's it called? One of those unofficial. But head over to the merch store support the show if you want. There's a couple of designs up there. I'm thinking of some new ones. Okay, I'm thinking of some new ones. So there might be some new ones, new ones coming out, maybe for Thanksgiving. We'll capitalize on the holidays. We've got to capitalize on the holidays because that's why people go to atsy is the buy ship for the holidays. Got to remember that. So when Christmas comes along with need Christmas shirts? You know Concord shirt. There are dozens of US Concord player. But over there if you want our sports show, uh, the link will be in the description. Now let's get into the main topic. Hell everybody, and welcome to today's topic on this episode of the Other Trolls Gaming podcast, where we're gonna talk about cross play, cross platform, cross progression, cross generation, Uh, cross gaming. What is this? Mumblede goop? Mumbled goop. Every time we go to try to play a game, together. It's like, oh, is it cross play? Nos? The question? That's always the question. So question. Let me tell. Everybody, the listeners, even Daniel or whoever wants to gain some knowledge here, we're gonna go through the mall quickly. So cross play is a feature where you can play with other players on other platforms. Some games offer full cross play support, where you can play with your friends on any platform together. Some games offer semi cross play support. For example, only a few platforms can play with each other, like for instance, Concord PS five and PC players could play together, but no Xbox or well it wasn't even out for Switch, so or Xbox something like that. So or only a few platforms can play together but leave out the other ones and vice versas. So there's full cross play support, and then there's semi cross play support. Okay, we got that. Now cross platform is next. The difference between cross play and cross platform is that cross platform is a game that's available on all or multiple. Platforms, but doesn't necessarily mean it has cross play, which gives you the ability to play with other gamers across these platforms. So cross platform is just saying that this game is available on multiple platform now we got Cross progression is next. Although cross progression does not always include cross play. Cross progression is where you can buy a game on one platform, play save your progress on that platform, then buy it again on another platform, and continue your progress by syncing your save game and playing between the two platforms. You go sit over here at your PC, you sit it down on your Xbox, and you just continue your. Game correct play anywhere. Xbox does this with their Play Anywhere game strategy, where you can play it on game Pass on PC and then continue to play it on game Pass for Xbox with their Ultimate Package, but the game must state that it is cross progression or play anywhere. Okay, all right. The next one, the final one is cross generation. This is the stupidest one. I think. This is a This is a feature where, although not cross platform or cross play with other companies or platforms, this is a feature where people in the same ecosystem can play together across consoles or generations. Just some stupid thing made up by EA. Oh is it there? Do you think so? Sports games? Oh? Yes, yeah, yeah, because like you buy, it's a different game. If you buy NHL twenty four on PS four versus PS five like, you'd think, naturally, it's the same fucking game, you'd be able to play together. But they I think there's some feature that they locked or you have to pay extra to get this cross generation to play with people with the newer consoles. It is so dumb. It's the dumbest shit I've ever seen. But I think it's just something they made up to charge people more. Yeah, exactly, a sales get, like a marketing thing. Yeah, So for instance, does that means yes exactly? So for instance, the game where Xbox one players can play with Xbox Series S and X players, but not PC of r PS five players, that would be considered a cross generation, like jonathanis talking about the PS four people playing with PS five people. Very stupid. You would just think it was there, it's the same game. It yea were It's just a fucking scam. That's a scam. That scam generation is a scam. Now this leads into, like, with all that being said, right, there's got to be some work that comes into making games compatible with other platforms, other devices, other versions, all this shit, right, So what goes into these cross features available in games? Should we just go do a roundtable of questions of like why. What it's there's agreements, there's licensing, there's policies for cross play. This is for cross play. Whenever one platform has to do everything for everything. When when one except for a cross generation scam, so. Over one if one platform has to interface with another company's platform, right, this company could be like, Wow, the only way we'll allow or approve your licensing or approve your whatever, right is like if you do this and show that your players or the Xbox players are playing on Xbox, you have to be able to show that on the other platforms like that. I think that's one of the criteria. Well, yeah, there's going to be a lot of like red tape and shit that they have. It's just policies, and yeah, there's going to be you know, content releasing content across different regions, you have different laws, regulations you have to follow. So I guess when you're doing this, you have to make the game kind of follow all of these different things, which I'm sure can be tedious. For example, Xbox and Windows together, that's easy for Microsoft to do because they they tie it in with their agreements and all that. They all already have all that. That's why you'll see like Windows and Xbox together because it's all Microsoft, like Microsoft Gaming in the Xbox Store and all that. But it's also policy. You know, they can have policy mismatches that they have to go through and iron out. When you want to make something cross platform before releasing, there could be conditions set by the owner like Sony or Xbox on like you said, cross platform content that they need to follow a set of conditions. It's likely more political and kind of policy stuff. That's the reason why not everything is cross play rather than like a technical limitations because it's easy to not easy, but the devs can do it. If you remember, I have this back in twenty eighteen, so that's when Sony announced it would allow cross platform play on PS four. In twenty eighteen, they for select third party content quote unquote, and they started with Fortnite. That was the first cross platform game, I guess. So Sony stated that the decision to allow cross platform play was a major policy change, and their goal remains to take a more open stance with cross platform support. So it was first and foremost Sony's decision to kind of lift that barrier. It was just them saying, okay, we'll do it. It's not like, yeah, you know, it was some technical feat that had to be overcome to connect, like fucking Sony to Microsoft. It's not what it was. It's just it's just policy, and it could be tons of different things like privacy. If you have an account on this, you have an account on that platform, this platform, the privacy policies have to align the games. These games where you have to have an in game account, you know what I mean, to do cross progression or cross platform, they have their own policy responsibilities and that kind of thing, you know what I mean. So it's probably more complicated than you think when you're dealing with the laws and you're dealing with laws and Privacy Act and all that stuff. So these also have to align as well. So I feel that cross progression is probably the hardest one in terms of the barriers, which is likely why it's the one feature we probably see the least of right across cross progression, it's pretty rare from what I've seen. You have to, like when you have cross progression, think about that you have to host more data because there's more users. There's users across all platforms. You've got to host all that data. You've got to cross more. Yeah, you've got to create your own like platform off the like off the platform like Sony's platform. You have to separate that because Sony will give you Sony will give you x amount of stuff, right, but they're not going to be like, Okay, use our shit to connect. You host your own You host and pay for the des will host and pay for your own cloud. If you remember when we had Snake Factory on, we talked about cloud access cost per request. It costs more to have you know, people across four platforms connecting to your game than people on one platform. So you have to have the hosting, you have to have a file structure that's accessible and kind of use it by all the different devices because they're all uploading the saves and sinking saves and everything. So it all has to mesh. And it's just more work for the developers. That's all it is. It's that's what it comes down to. Work reason. They don't want to pay for resource. So you're going to find if anything is cross progression, it's going to be like Triple A Studios like Ubisoft with you know. The City Project Red, what's the cyber. Bread kind of shit, yeah, because they have it. That's right. I forgot about that for now. It's sweet. What's sweet about the CD project red one is I could mod fucking items into my save file and it will still transfer that saved byle to my PS five and I'll have like cotanas and clothes and money. Like if I go onto my PC Cyberpunk, I'll be like insert one zillion dollars right, and I'll save my game and then when I go to play it on PS five, I'll have a zillion dollars. Yeah, it's eddies. Okay, you're fucking gone eddies. Eddiesunk? Sure, but yes, so cross progression. We'll see more from big budget Triple A studios. We're not going to see anything from indie developers anytime soon now. For that, I imagine a lot of games from indie developers are coming with cross play out of the gate, believe it or not. I think that's because it also it's also engine dependent, so it might be easier to implement a cross play feature using a more robust engine. And there's like a couple of plugins that they use and they it's easier to get the ball rolling there. And then they just weighed on the publisher or the platform owner like Microsoft to sign off on the the. Agreements and the licensing. Let's let's take well, tem Ten I believe was cross play right out of the gate because it's an MMO, right, So the games, if it's a multiple math, it's like a multiple what is it multi massively multiplayer online er PG mullet mullet player mullets players. Whenever you're launching that kind of game, you're gonna need or want cross play. It won't matter the cost of that, right because the more players you get into this world, the more players tell their friends about that world, and they come in no matter the platform. So like depending on the game, like a fighting game, I don't think cross play is going to be at the top of their list. You know, for an Xbox player to gainst to play against the PS PlayStation player, that's probably not gonna be at the top of their list. So they probably are not gonna spend that kind of money to get people fighting against each other, right, But like the big games out there, Let's Fortnite, Apex, Legends, Call of Duty, Rocket League, Destiny to these massive mass online platform games, massive huge money in there. Obviously they have the money and well at the time resources to implement that so that more people would come in. Now, remember when Sony was like the stickler in the mud, the stick in the mud, and wouldn't allow this for anybody else other than Fortnite. I remember Rocket League. The guys at Rocket League had to fight teeth tooth and nail against Sony to get them to allow because they're like, cross plays ready to go, we have it implemented in the game, we're just waiting for Sony to allow it. And they had to fight against Sony for like I think it was like a year or something, and they finally allowed it. Yeah, which brings me to my next point. So Sony's push against cross play with other cross play platforms. I got a couple of quotes here from Forbes, some Forbes articles, Forbes, Forbes Gaming, whatever the hell it is. Forbes is like a news firm. I thought it was a financial publication. YEA, while they're a magazine, they probably cover a bunch of shit. So so like whatever we think, yeah, whenever we think PlayStation they make it public knowledge. That money is like the top of their you know, companies will kind of hide that they're just doing it for the money, Sony. Sony's like, what's the bottom line? No? Right, that's like, that's what I get from Sony. So when people would come up to Sony and be like, oh, we need the licensing for these cross play features, YadA, YadA, YadA, right quote unquote, here's one guy says, as you may know, or as you know, many companies are exploring this idea, and not a single one can explain how cross console play improves our PlayStation business. So they would make people try to pitch on why it would be a good idea for Sony to allow these cross play features in their games? Right? How is that good for our business if we'll allow our users to play against other platforms. As we've seen more and more over the last few years, it isn't about the gamers anymore, and the gamers experience. They don't give a fuck about the gamer experience. They just care about the bottom line. That's and I get that a lot from Sony, though, is what I was saying earlier, Like that's well, that's how I get a lot from Sony. A lot of companies will try to hide that and be like eh and kind of dance around the Bush. But like Sony, that's like what they stand for. They can't do that forever now, like they're coming along now. Obviously since twenty eighteen they allowed crosslay. But like when it comes to cross play, most online games now are choosing the gamer's side for that. But it just depends on like it depends on the management on both sides, the management of the platform. So like you said, Sony's allowing people to do it, oh, why should we allow you? But also on the developer side, what resources they have to allocate the resources to making you know, setting up cross progression, setting up all this stuff, hiring someone to go through all the policies, making sure they match everything, you know what I mean. Yeah, So here's another quote. Sony's public rationale of being skeptical of cross play was stated to be about the risks of exposing Sony players to non PSN markets, but it really it seems to have just been about trying to throw around their big sales numbers and leads. So like why open the gates to play with your friends on Xbox when these users will be like, oh, there's two of us, there's two p there's two of us PlayStation users and one of you, x Why don't just sell your Xbox and get a PlayStation then we can pay. They want players to buy PlayStations and get into the ecosystem. Right over the time, I think Sony has just been like they know they're losing that battle, right then. They're knowing because then they'd be like, oh, I've got a bunch of Xbox players here. There always seem to be Xbox Xbox cross play with PC now and with switch users, right, that seems to be like the thing Sony is like the one platform that's kind of either left out or they'll make their little deals and leave the Xbox guy out, right, but it but now, since PC gaming and Xbox gaming are like so co like together all the time, the PlayStation users are pretty much the ones that are being left out. Oh yeah, like why we buy our PlayStations just to play their fucking first party titles that we can't get on Xbox or PCs. Exactly? Yeah, but yeah. The the kind of like the tragedy of cross play not still being easy to facilitate is that, like, you know, there's a vast array of gamers in this generation playing on all different platforms, right, so, but the problem is all these gamers have friends that have different platforms because you know, and and but who do we want to play online with friends? Right, So and friends aren't going to like coordinate what consoles to buy or buy the same one just so they can fucking play games nowadays. But we used to have to do that back in the day. Yeah, yeah, I remember the guys. You used to always try to get that. I think people still do that, like maybe, but you're not all buying them at the same time. That's the thing, yes, exactly, like what it's hard to do. Back in high school, all my guys, all my buddies were like all the guys were on Xbox and like trying and convinced me to get an Xbox when I wanted to PlayStation three. And the bottom line is people are selfishly driven. They're just gonna get whatever the fucking console they want to get because that's what's speaking to them. That's why I bought a PS three, That's why I bought a PS four, That's why I bought a PS five. But then I got Xbox whatever because I was able to so over time, I got all of them so that I had the opportunity to do this. But that's like what it takes these days is you have to have all the fucking consoles. But then it's like when a new game comes out that prioritizes these this like online multiplayer experience that's huge. In an ideal world, you should be able to play those online with the people you want to play them with. And it just sucks that, like, we just can't do this yet, even in twenty twenty four. But instead, you know, you've already bought a copy on one platform and your best butt or brother bought it on another, and then they got to go and like return the one copy if they want to play with you or if they have the other platform even you know, I mean not everyone has that luxury. So it just kind of sucks because then you're stuck playing with strangers or alone even right, story of my life. Yeah, I don't know. It's just like it's a shame because with all this tech and stuff, like online games is just what people are doing these days. You know. It's it's like I'm I'm saying that first person shooters are dying, yes, but like you know, maybe so is the world of first person single player I don't think it's true. That's true. I think that's like three games on first person shooter online games and there's lots and lots of players playing them. Yeah yeah, But I'm just saying it means like if you create other new games on the same model, it's not going to work. Like I just think that people are uninterested in new first person shooters online ones. Anyway, What the fuck do I know. I'm just I'm just saying. But but also single player games are maybe dying too, I don't know, because like online is this huge thing now. Everybody's got most of the time fast internet unless you live here. Well, so like, well that's going to be the main bay. Is they have to smart co op doing this quicker. I think they have to start going through these jumping through these hoops and cutting all this red tape a lot. Quicker online co op single player games is sweet like that should We're seeing more of that too, And to have that cross platform would be even better. Like having a cross platform online co op that you can do the story mode on different platforms would be huge. But well, like go back to Powell World for instance, right, even them releasing on game pass, getting the cross plat or the cross platform between game. Pass and Steam. Yeah, was or is? I don't even know if it's still I think it's. No, I don't. I don't think it's even there yet. To get it, they couldn't do it. It's you're you're playing on a PC, but there's one app has to be cross platform with another app on the same fucking device, right, Same with Epic Games and Steam. So when Chivalry Too came out, I bought it on on Epic Games because it got released there first for a time is exclusive, and then Gillis bought it on Steam and we couldn't play together. M No, fucking frustrating. Is that's so stupid? Was it like a version could be like a version? Exactly? Yes? So that's what I was getting at. Next, is with all that other shit, to have your cross platform and all that stuff cohesive, everyone's got to be the same version, same build, same features, same everything. Everything's got to be the same. Okay. The only thing that doesn't need to be the same as like graphics settings, right, like your resolution or or whatever, But like everything else has to be identical updates, patches, everything, And that probably is quite a big deal. Whenever you're dealing with seven fucking platforms. So, like, take these Genschen Impact games, right, they're all class, they're all cross platform, they're all cross play, cross progression, cross everything. These Catching Impact you can play it on your phone, your iPhone, your Android phone, your tablets, your shitty laptops, your gaming PCs, your ps fives. Everything everywhere. Thing. That's their thing. But the thing is, it's not the technical requirements to do cross platform that are it's what's stopping it in most cases. It's just that's like costs money and it costs resources too. That's not technical requirement, that's resource requirement. It's not like the devs can't fucking do it. It's just the fact that the game they don't want to put the money into doing that because they can just not spend that money doing that and make more money. That's maybe. And if the game takes off patches down the road, right, yeah, I mean it's Internet, it's Internet protocol. They connect together. Everyone uses the same fucking thing. It's a standard. It's called tcp IP. They connect to the fucking each other. Okay, it's easy. Originally I thought, maybe, oh, you have different ways that programs interact with each other. Maybe if they're programmed in different languages, let's say, but that's called like a wrapper or an interface. But that's not the case here, because the game engine dictates what language the game is written in. Either way, and if the game is made in Unity or Unreal, it's made in the same language on multiple It doesn't matter what platform it's on. It's the engine that was used, so that's not what that's not an issue. It just compiles it for different hardware and different operating system whatever. So the language doesn't matter because the game is the same on both platforms. It's just because they're different platforms. There needs to be some kind of something in between them that connects them, a layer between them, and that's the thing that would take the resources to get working. That's all it is. It's just they need to spend time and money doing it, and that's it. But again, that would. Be which leaves me to this reddit post I found Wahoo Zimmerman. Wahoo zier Man says I led a team that implemented cross play for a Triple A title fairly recently. The big thing is that none of the first party store fronts support interfacing with each other and they all have certification requirements related to how interactions on their platform have to work. For example, if I have a friend playing on Xbox and I am and I'm playing on PS four, my friends list must show the player is playing on Xbox and must display that player separately from other players. Okay, so you. Have to develop requirements as a requirement. So you have to develop your own account system, friends list, matchmaking, et cetera. All of that has to talk with a first party systems, which all have different APIs and support different features. Basically, what you are already play, what you are already paying the first party store free storefront's fees in the first place, You've got to do yourself anyway and separately if you want to implement cross play. This in turn comes with additional server hosting and infrastructure fees for maintaining your database and handling the traffic coming through your account system. In all, it took a team of In all, it only took a team of four programmers, most of them seniors, about three or four months of development work to support cross play on a dedicated server between multiple PC storefronts and Xbox. So the cost is not trivial and the resulting gain doesn't actually result in many additional purchases for most types of titles, So it doesn't. The juice it is worth the squeeze. It costs money, and they do it based on whether they think the juice is worth the squeeze, and that is it. Yep, it's just the juice. It's just matching policy and they're all the bullshit that happens at the I don't know what you call it, like a political layer. It is this a political Yeah, that's a new layer, new layer on the on the what's it called the ISOE models model the political layers. Yeah, but yeah, that's all it is. It's not like a technical it's politics. Super hard to do because they can do it. It's like a yeah, I guess that's because it's policies of individual companies and what they envision for their future and their current resource pool and what they're capable of doing or you know, and their belief system like oh we don't we don't want to do that because we have an agenda, so that would be a conflict of interest and blah blah blah. Right, So yeah, I guess that is politics. So what will it take for this to be a non issue anymore. It will take their policies to change from Sony from I don't know who has the Sony's probably got the most bullshit. That's what I'm gonna assume. I'm gonna assume. So we're gonna assume Sony has the most crap in the way of making things cross platform, because it seems like Xbox can just do it between Xbox and Windows. But they have at Xbox Launcher on Windows, and that's why it's so easy to do. They just do it because you have Xbox and you have Xbox for Windows or Windows Gaming, whatever it is. I did read another article where this guy was trying to get licensing from Xbox, but they just don't reply to them. They don't reply, and they don't tell them what he needs to do, or when they do reply, it's like months and months and then they're like, oh, send them in. It was like, oh, you have to have this done. And then he's like oh, and. Then he like gets it done and he sends another email or calls like and they don't return his call and it's like months pass. Right, That's all it is, so just politics. It's politics and bullshit now, so that's what's stopping cross cross play best progression politics. Very cool, very cool. So I remember when Destiny Too was about to go cross platform do you remember this? So there you were all like segregated on all your platforms, so like no one was playing cross play together at all. And then they had some sort of epiphany where they thought, oh, we could probably make more money if all these players were playing together. Right, So they actually had a GDC summit, like a whole slideshow presentation how they worked on. Cross platform or a cross play. Very cool. It was very long. I didn't watch it all. I actually took the transcription, copied that, I pasted it into chat GBT and I said, give me a summary, and he summarized what and how Destiny Too got cross play working here. So there's a couple of points. I'm just gonna go through them real quick. The motivation. The primary goal was to create a unified Destiny Too universe, or players on all platforms could interact seamlessly, continuing the cross save system that they had previously before, so you could cross stave between a PlayStation four or five kind of thing. The challenges Bungee had to modify their Tiger Engine developed during the Halo era, which posed significant technical challenges. So they weren't using a big box Unreal or Unity. They're using a custom engine that didn't have these features like built in ready to go. They had to modify their own engine to get these cross platform play ironed out. Cross cross platform play involved building new systems from scratch, including networking, player identities like Bungie names. Uh, social social features. Like how to how to have friends friend lists? Have to have all that game like Rocket League does. Yes, is that it's an in game account. That's the only way to centralize kind of everything. Yeah, and that takes time. Yeah, I'm sure that took fucking forever. They had to integrate various platform APIs with Sorry, integration with various platform APIs was complex due to certifications and technical requirements from first party plup first party platforms like Sony and Microsoft. That was the challenge is the key systems were networking. Significant changes were made to handle cross platform communication, player identity. Bungee introduced their Bungie names. I remember that you had to go make a Bungee Name account and then you had to like do like this conversion process and it took like a couple of days and they would send you an email saying, Okay, your. Account has been migrated. Right. It was like having it was like doing a migration at your at your office, but like on a gaming. It's kind of cool how this stuff kind of has happened incrementally, very slowly over time that now we look back and like, oh, that's what they were doing this whole time. Kind of yeah. Uh and the friends in matchmaking. Like I said, before third party integrations. To save time, Bungee used third party solutions for voice chat and text moderation, but developed their own text chat system. So they hired companies or hired apps to plug in to just have that kind of stuff done, and then they phased the roll out, so cross Play was gradually released, starting with internal testing followed by beta versions for the players. This allowed Bungee to incrementally build, test, refine the FREND systems and all the experience before releasing it fully in twenty twenty one. I remember all that. I remember it was quite like it took like two months, two or three months as a player just to finally like migrate all the accounts, make sure everything was working fine. I played a few of the betas all that kind of stuff. Very very cool on the insights on that. There it is. Yeah, well I think that obviously cross play is the biggest hurdle that they have to cross see what I did there, Yeah, cross gaming, But I think that there are some other cool things. I mean, like a couple of notes I have that I can close with. But like I don't know cross platform that the question is whether or not it's an issue or whatever. I've never really had an issue with cross platform or anything like that, only because I have most of the consoles available and so it's not really an issue for me. If something comes out that's not for everything else, I'll just buy it for whatever. You know. Sometimes the title is PC exclusive. I'm okay with that because of the road I chose. I'm not a PC gamer and there are so many games these days anyway where I can keep busy and find something else. Most PC exclusives aren't a killer app to me, So I'm not going to like become a PC gamer because of this one game that comes out or anything like that. So whatever, I don't give a shit, doesn't affect me. Cross Progression is a cool feature, but do you guys, just like one last question, do you find do you guys find it like really useful to most gamers? Like most just like generic gamers who aren't like hardcore have every single thing like does it really matter? I think it would be more. It's more important on free to play games obviously, because you're not buying two different compries more than a copy of buying right multiple uh, like the skin multiple times? You know, So that's the target for cross progression. Because I was going to say other than other than that, the only experience I had was my accidental Assassin's Creed Valhala thing. Right, do you guys remember when I bought it for one X first? Yeah, and then eventually PS five came out and I was like, oh, it'd be cool to try it on next Gen, so I bought it for that, then decided my PS five I was going to just keep for Sony exclusives. So I think I got I sold my PS five copy or something, but I kept my Xbox one. And then they came out with the Series X update and I was like, oh shit, I'll played on Series X now. But all of this, while being able to just continue my safe well was really cool, very cool, but I was kind of like an accident. Beyond that, I just don't think I have a use for it because I'm not playing free to play. It's from big games, like you said, the big the big companies will will do it, like Bungee is doing it, like yeah, Destiny, but it's also been out for a long time, Destiny, so that could be another reason why they did that. Like people have been changing. People have been changing for they're up in platforms. It's been out for years. Like, we should make cross progression so that there can you know, if they buy the game on a different platform, they can play their save. While they can play, they can continue. And that helps make more money, right because then people won't buy it on other platforms. Yeah, you know, so like if they. If they open that gate, then people will buy it on multiple platforms. Like I did to sum up, I guess those final thoughts are cross plays the biggest hurdle. They got to get that solved if the ever, No, the hurdle is policy policy is within bureaucracy. With our episode scope, though the cross play is is the thing that needs the most work over time. But cross progression only useful mostly for free to play online games. There you go, there you have it. But I don't see them changing policies no anytime soon to make it easier for gamers to. Play with each other. You know, I just don't see that happening because they can't make any money on that. They don't care about the experience anymore. They just care about the investors in the bottom line. And you know, and that's that's which way the world is going perspective. That's the next time we will perspect time we buy. Come next time we buy a game. Right, Usually this happens with. Like the lower like single double A games, where we buy them like, oh, this would be great with cross play, right, so we could play each other. And that always happens with those like smaller budget games. We're like, ah, fuck, it's only five and PC, right. We know why now? We know why now because the publishers or the investors are stuck in the old days of the late nineties, in the early two thousand and it was just about making your money, and they're not adapting with the way gamers are playing games these days. This is the way it's moving and they're changing. Then it wasn't like this in gaming in because you couldn't well, you couldn't do it in the business. That's what I'm saying is they're stuck on the business end of it. They're still stuck in the past like that because they're not thinking about the gamer experience, which is what it's about these days. Philly Cheese steak, Spencer, he's all for, He's a that's his mask. Spill Fencer, Spill Fencer, spill Fencer. Yeah. I think one of the FNNG you guys called, I think it was Will. I think it's Will one day, and I fucking laughed so hard on one other episodes. I don't remember which it was, but but anyway, that's my take because I think that these guys are stuck in the past and they're not going to change because they're just thinking about the money. But they need to adapt because we're not playing games like we used to anymore. You know, CEOs aren't gamers. A bunch of old fucking farts at a board meeting being like this is what I think. I think policy should be more lenient towards smaller studio because when people buy these smaller studio games, they're gonna buy them on different platforms and incentive for people to play with their friends and like kind of boost that indie game or studio. A lot of people won't buy it because they can't play with their friends on the platform of their choosing right. So if they kind of loosen some kind of policy or the restrictions for smaller studios, I think that would be a nice first step to get people playing with each other and helping indie studios get the money instead of having them just to sign their soul to Sony and Sony saying well, you're only on PlayStation, you know, and you can only play with fucking switch players for some reason. So that's what I think it needs to happen. Will it? But I don't know, But I think cross play is the future. Everyone has their own. There were already kind of solidified in our Like I'm a PC Microsoft guy. I'm not huge on PlayStation, you know, I'll stick to my PC more than anything, but to be able to play with PlayStation friends is huge. It's very nice to have. And now that we've got even more apps coming out, like Amazon Games has a game launcher, You'bisoft's game launcher, you got Microsoft game Pass game launcher, Steam, Epic Store, all this shit. That's more platforms that need to be cross or cross play within each other, even on the same device. So the policy is only going to change. That's going to come from the top down, right, And why would they change it if it's not going to do anything for them. It's got to come from the top. So maybe once the younger, the gamer, the generation girls older gets you know, in those positions, they'll make the change because they care about. Maybe it don't make the change it's been changing because like, but it just. Cost money to make the change too. Do you know how much policy people make? Like someone to write a policy, like a revamp. A policy, got a lawyer, stamper guy. Yeah, Like they make a lot of money, pay them a lot, but it's going to cost a lot to change. Only in the last year or so has Sony been actively porting their games to PC now, right, Like Ghost of Sushima, God of War, the Horizon games, like they're opening that. It's like, oh, there's another platform there, we can make money, Like why aren't we putting our games there? So now they're cross platform on many games, and the games that are coming out now they need to Now they're going to start doing. They're starting to do their cross play, like with Concord Rest in Peace, you know, but like. But you know, I think that it's getting so young. It's getting there, but Concord. But yeah, that's all I gotta say about that. Same. I think we're done with this. It's just policy, folks. So listeners, watchers, what do you think do we do? We hit the nail on the head here is this what's stopping cross play? You know, if you've worked on a cross play implementation, let us know. Tell us how it went. What was the biggest hurdle, you know, let us know. All righty, that's it for this week's episode. We want to thank everyone for taking the time to listen and or watch. 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