PVD @ Game On: Epic Slant Press Edition

Over the weekend, I put in a guest appearance on Game On: Epic Slant Press Edition.  Chris of Game by Night and Ferrel of Epic Slant are now hosting the official podcast of MMORPG.com and were kind enough to have me "back" on their show after two previous appearances on their old show, The Multiverse.  Topics of discussion included:

• Buying all of the cash store things for in game currency in SWTOR (my "what I've been doing" update)
• Camelot Unchained meeting its Kickstarter goal
• Neverwinter's soft launch
• Final Fantasy XIV's forthcoming relaunch (ironically, this game has now been in the news all three times Ferrel and company have had me on their show)
• Ferrel's upcoming card game, Havok & Hijincks

One of the things I like about podcasting with these gentlemen is how it's a reasonably casual conversation about MMO topics of the day.  That said, the new and popular short format (we covered all of that and more in under 35 minutes) does take some mental preparation, and I'm definitely appalled at how many vocal pauses I managed to fit into such a short time. 

A few bonus comments that didn't make it into the show one way or another:

• EA's quarterly earnings call confirmed that SWTOR is below half a million subscribers, which would make it the number three subscription MMO in the west behind WoW and Eve... before you count all the cash store revenue.  Players may or may not like the direction that future development takes, but I don't think there's much question in the short term that they're making money. 
• To clarify a comment I made on the show, I would hope that no one who backed Camelot Unchained is going to be surprised or impatient that the game is going to take two years to launch (which was clearly stated).  The point I was trying to make is how much patience players will need to have if we get to mid-2015 and the game still needs work.  There will be no possibility of delaying the launch because they won't have the money to keep paying their staff.  Meanwhile, thousands of people will have been playing the game in pre-alpha and alpha for over a year, many of them paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars to be allowed to do so. 
  
  If people aren't happy with what they're seeing by the middle of the beta, will they be patient, urge folks to keep the faith, and remain subscribed when the game launches (assuming they haven't already paid for lifetime subscriptions)?  Or will word of mouth take a sharp and unforgiving turn for the worse?  This is not a title that can afford to have its early adopters burned out or disillusioned before the game launches, and they will have to make the project work in an unusually public fashion due to how much access they sold as Kickstarter rewards. 

Hope you enjoy the show!