I got to sit in on the first episode of a new VW show. That was kinda cool. Witty Ranter is going for a ‘Shut Up We’re Talking, with Swearing’ vibe. It was, as always, fun sitting with a bunch of fun guys and shooting the shit.

Here’s the description of the show:

In his inaugural debut to the VirginWorlds Collective, Adam gets Brenden from AnotherHere, Michael Edwards, a MMO game developer, Michael Zenke from Massively.com and Jonathan from The Online Gamer’s Anthology together for a discussion.  Topics include “Crafting in MMO’s:  It really need to die.  No, we mean it!”, and “Is there anything in 2008 for us to look forward to?”… Oh yeah, and true to form, we get a Zenke Rant…  Aww yeah.  This show does contain explicit language.  Viewer Discretion Advised. 

I gotta say, though, and I apologize to my fellow co-hosts for this: I’m not sure I really felt the topics this time around. While I personally don’t get into crafting, I don’t really understand the point of ‘it has to die’. What did crafting ever do to you? Then in the discussion of this year, there was a lot of cynical jadery flung around. I’m looking forward to WAR and Conan quite a bit - 2008 has a lot to offer.

I had a great time, and I don’t want to belittle the opinions of others at all. I just want to clarify: I’m not sure we said a whole lot in the hour we chatted. It’s still fun, just the same. Check it out. :)

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Michael Zenke of MMOGNation, 1UP, Massively.com and, of course, Slashdot.org (/.) who makes some of the best points of any podcast guest co-host I’ve ever heard, will finally get a microphone that has some level of hardware compression and will now be understandable when he gets excited about something instead of sounding like a buzzer that’s about to explode. The world will rejoice and at last there will be peace in the Middle East.

Ouch. :)

Your point is well seen, Mark. I need a new harddrive, and I think I’m going to go looking for a new headset when I pick it up.

Also. For serious, go check out his real predictions at the end of the post. They’re really, really good. Darren asked me in the last SUWT if I thought anyones were particularly bad or good: I think Marks are almost great.

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I am apologetic for my now-frequent wanderings into the podcasting genre, if they bug you. Just the same, I feel obliged to note that I’m in the most recent episode of Shut Up We’re Talking (episode 17). We mutter about the whole recent cheating discussion, as well as preview stuff for 2008. Plus there’s a Back to the Future quote at the start. Always awesome.

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I did another one of those increasingly-regular guest stints on a podcast last week; Brent invited me onto Virgin Worlds for a hootnany about the year in review/2008 look-ahead. Darren and Shawn (also of the VW collective) were also on-hand, and it ended up being some mighty cogent discussion.

Podcast 98, the final podcast of 2007 features Brent, Darren from Shut Up We’re Talking and Common Sense Gamer, Shawn from GuildCast, TabulaCast and OMG Real Life and Michael from MMOGNation. Join these familiar voices as they talk about the highs and lows of 2007, the game mechanics they want to see killed, the trends in MMO gaming and a listing of the MMO industry heroes of 2007. Have a happy new year!

My new PC also arrived today so I’m once again actually playing the games I’ve been talking about the past month and half. Good times.

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I’m a guest on the most recent Joystiq roundtable, talking about the Blizzard merger.

To make sense of the deal, and its ramifications, we’ve assembled an all star panel. Seated at the roundtable are James Brightman, Lead Business Editor for Game Daily BIZ; Simon Carless, Editorial Director of the CMP Game Group (think Game Developer Magazine and Gamasutra.com); and lastly the alphabetically prejudiced Michael Zenke … Topics discussed include Blizzard’s independence, Activision’s gains, Sierra’s status, the possibility of console games from Blizz, the possibility of MMOs from Activision, and whether or not EA needs some new drawers, so give it a listen.

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I’ve cleverly integrated myself into the podosphere as a guest commentator. All the fun of podcasting with almost none of the work. Shhh … don’t tell anyone. :)

I sat in on the Gamers With Jobs Conference Call again (they asked me back!) this past weekend, to act as an ‘expert’ in the Mass Effects.

Again, thank you to Kmart for the hookup.

This week Michael Zenke joins us with full, spoiler-free impressions of Mass Effect. Dousing the hype a bit, Michael fills us in on what’s not so hot, what’s good and what’s great about Bioware’s latest. He also offers hot tips for new players! We even have a special visit from Karla to talk about Assassin’s Creed and Mario Galaxy coop. Let us friend you up.

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So, in one of the latest editions of the Virgin Worlds ‘cast Brent mentioned a new Warhammer Online podcast that he found really awesome after just one episode. Being a WAR fancier myself, I decided to check it out, and went on over to the website for Warhamma. Then I downloaded it on iTunes. Over the last week of gym-going I’ve listened to all three ‘casts, and I can now confirm that my friend Brent is *not* crazy here: Warhamma is really quite good.

I’m not going to say I was hooked from episode one … Ted still clearly had some fine details to get right. But the presentation was there, and his voice is really easy to listen to. By episode two, the slight audio hitching had been taken care of, and by episode three he had a really nice product on offer. I would like to heartily add my voice to Brent’s recommendation that you listen to Warhamma the podcast. My biggest hurrah about the podcast? It’s short! The average episode so far is about twenty minutes. Ted knows that the best thing to do is say your piece and then shut the hell up. Brilliant.

I even actually learned some stuff since Ted takes time to read through forums and junk, stuff I just don’t have the time/resources to do. In episode two he breaks down some revelations from a recent developer chat, and in episode three he describes the information from a recent beta update post to the Warhammer Herald, as well as an E For All interview. Hell, I’d read the Warhammer Herald stuff and I still learned something.

Episode four just went up today, so you even have fresh content to consume!

Just … Ted … buddy … one thing. You are never allowed to try to imitate an English accent ever again. It sort of veered drunkenly from Australian to … maybe Czech? I dunno. Anyway, don’t do that again. Please. Ever. And that really is Paul Barnett’s blog. If you want to hear what the funny English man actually sounds like, I can help with that.

Edit: Ted! Ted, Ted, Ted! Sorry Ted! :)

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