NLSC Podcast - Episode #29

[Andrew]

It's our biggest episode ever, Episode #29! Dare we say it, another landmark episode?

Episode #29 (May 16th, 2013)

Hosts: Andrew, Arcane, Leftos, JaoSming, Pdub & Qballer
Special Guest: Da_Czar

It's our biggest panel in our biggest podcast to date, as six of us get together with a special guest for an in-depth discussion on basketball video games. Join Leftos, Arcane, JaoSming, Pdub, Qballer and myself as we're joined by special guest Da_Czar in Episode #29 of the NLSC Podcast! On the show this week:

• We welcome a couple of people back to the Podcast and keep our fingers crossed that everything will work out fine with a larger panel.
• Before we get to the main topic of discussion, we run down a few noteworthy news items, beginning with an exciting new discovery in court modding for NBA 2K.
• Also in the news this week: NBA Live 14 has unofficially been announced, the Kings are staying put and 2K are seeking playtesters in the Bay Area.
• With the news out of the way, we launch into our main discussion: realism in basketball video games compared to what we see on TV.
• We're joined by Da_Czar, President of the Sim Nation, who certainly has a few thoughts on the matter at hand.
• Following a discussion on what constitutes cheese, Czar makes a believer out of arcade enthusiast JaoSming.
• After tossing around ideas for how basketball games can become more realistic, we reflect on the current product and speculate on what the near future holds.

Click here to listen to the show!

We hope you enjoy listening to this week's episode as much as we enjoyed recording it; as always, feel free to give us your thoughts on the show and everything we discussed. A huge thanks once again to Da_Czar for joining us, don't forget to check out SimNation Radio every Friday, follow Czar on Twitter @Da_Czar and read more of his insights on the Sim Citi blog. Also be sure to check out our interview with Czar here.

[Arcane]

Lightstage video

http://www.gametrailers.com/full-episod ... nny-valley

[shadowgrin]

• Following a discussion on what constitutes cheese, Czar makes a believer out of arcade enthusiast JaoSming.

So Jao lost. You suck Jao.

[JaoSming]

description is a lie, I continue to resist.

[Arcane]

Haha we all know this happened Jon

[JaoSming]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9syqRS4utJ8

phpBB [video]

RESIST

[shadowgrin]

The designs on that shirt is

It's like too many stuff are inserted just for the sake of it.

[Arcane]

The designs on that shirt is

It's like too many stuff are inserted just for the sake of it.

It was a shirt taking the piss out of what happened in the podcast

[Arcane]

plus how could I not use this pic

[shadowgrin]

It was a shirt taking the piss out of what happened in the podcast

Even so, it's still a terrible concept shirt.

Would have been better if the mocking design you made is a separate 'logo' instead of being put on a shirt. (I know you're promoting your stuff but still, it's on a shirt design so here we are)

It's not the use of the pic that's terrible. The whole layout of the design on the shirt itself.

[The X]

First podcast I've listened to in its entirety since last Da Czar one. Was good background discussions for my after hours, at home work.

You all had a lot of fun & that shone through. Quality of the podcasts has come along way since their humble beginnings.

And Andrew, your radio voice has improved from initial podcasts Might be a better sound quality thing, not sure.

Only constructive criticism I would give is that first half of podcast seemed more organised but second half seemed to loop back and jump around a bit. I know you were sticking to each criteria, but maybe it's just because a lot of aspects overlap. It seemed like panelists were coming up with thoughts and expressing them after that topic had gone by but still wanting to express. I guess it's understandable given you had a mammoth seven people in it, which isn't ideal. For me, a standard or rotating three is the ideal number. Perhaps you can bring in a guest on certain areas just for that topic, e.g. if standard 3 is Ben, Andrew & Leftos, perhaps if one of topics of podcast is say Association for example, you could bring in a guest speaker who just speaks about that then leaves, before you go onto another topics. Just a thought. You may have already done something like this, but given I've only listened through all of two episodes, I wasn't sure.

Good stuff though.

[Leftos]

There were a couple of factors in play that you have to consider. One, we had people participating from Australia, the US and Greece. So in order for everyone to join, it was early in the morning in Australia, afternoon in the US and quite late at night in Greece. Andrew did his best, at least by my standards, to keep the discussion organized and flowing, and I don't blame him if he lost track maybe once or twice, considering there was 7 of us, which is the number two factor.

I don't think we're looking into making such a huge panel a regular feature. It was quite exciting to make something so good of it the first time we ever tried it, and I'm extremely happy with the result, but the challenges were quite obvious, both in the hours and the number of people, that everyone can agree we'd rather keep our weekly episodes to a panel of 3-4 people, which has worked quite well. It was a very broad subject, a lot of people wanted to have a say in it, and when all was said and done, it came out really well. Going back to our regular weekly features, I'd say the smaller panel is more optimal.

I really feel that approaching such an issue so well, with such a large panel, and getting such a great result on our first try, shows how much we've grown as a team, how much better we are at producing this kind of content, and that the NLSC Podcast is not just your regular 3 guys sitting around having a chat.

Andrew's voice has gotten better, you can notice the difference from Episode 7 to any of the episodes past 10-11, both as far as sound quality goes (his first mic was giving him, and us, quite a number of issues), and because he got rid of his stage fright and got much more comfortable doing this.

I'm glad you took the time to listen to it all considering its length, and I'm very happy you enjoyed it so much. If you ever have some feedback on any of the other episodes, feel free to share, as we'd love to know what we're doing well and what we could improve on.

[Andrew]

It was definitely a fun episode to record, so I'm glad that came through to others listening. We'd definitely be saving larger panels for special occasions and having gotten one episode like that under our belt, hopefully they'll be a little more organised. That said, I thought everything came together quite well this time, though I definitely did lose track a couple of times. Part of that was due to me having the bright idea of trying to change the order up a bit subtopic to subtopic, so that the same person wasn't always going last when everything else had been covered; well-intentioned, but it does invite confusion.

Better settings and a better mike definitely help as far as my voice are concerned, but I'd like to think I've gotten at least a little better since I started, with more practice and experience. I did feel that everyone brought their best in Episode #29 and it was a lot of fun having Czar there. I'm really pleased with how it came out.