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Tunes for toons while raiding
We've talked about listening to music while playing the game before. While the "actual" game music is pretty good (I've gone back and forth between having it on and off during the time I've played, and at this point I'm in an "on" phase, so I can hear all the new Northrend music). But Lazaragh on Jubei'thos wants to know about a specific situation: what do you listen to while raiding?Personally, while I'll often have a podcast or a movie on while playing solo or sometimes running five mans (if I'm feeling particularly awake), I tend to have to focus while raiding, so I usually turn the background noise off and listen to Vent or just the audio queues ingame. Any more than that an I get distracted. But there are all kinds of answers in the thread, from trance to pop to metal (Dragonforce FTW!), and pretty much across every genre that you can think of. What might be most interesting about all of this is that the music apparently has no effect on gameplay, though it'd be interesting to see the raiding performance of people who listen to music while playing against people who don't.Maybe an enterprising raiding group can do an experiment and figure that out. I'd guess it's just personal taste, but it does seem to me that even if you say your attention isn't divided, the music has to be a little distraction. Maybe it's just me. What kind of music do you raid with?
All the World's a Stage: A good roleplayer is a good person first
All the World's a Stage is a source for roleplaying ideas, commentary, and discussions. It is published every Sunday evening.Gamers, and citizens of the Internet in general, are not known for being very sociable people. To me, it's always been a big mystery why John Gabriel's GIF Theory seems so apt for so many of us. It's hard for me to fathom why people enjoy acting rude, crude, or unpleasantly in any situation. I hear them telling me "because it's fun!" but personally I can't imagine getting any kicks out of it.The roleplaying community is one of those few online spaces where things actually seem a bit different, however. Many people are not roleplayers at all, but they join up on RP servers just because roleplayers care about things like grammar and seem to be more polite in general. Since roleplaying is an inherently cooperative activity, people who want to roleplay first have to be willing to communicate nicely with others. There are, of course, players on RP realms with whom real communication seems impossible, but those people usually aren't actually roleplayers to begin with. They get about 10 seconds of attention before most roleplayers start ignoring them completely.To be a good roleplayer, one must first be a good person. The qualities of character that open doors of friendship and cooperation in real life are the same qualities that will help make roleplaying a positive and rewarding experience for you in WoW. Even if one wants to play an evil character, one must do it in such a way that others can tell you're actually a really nice and caring player behind the evil mask. Sometimes it's also handy to remind oneself how not to act like that proverbial Internet Fudgewad. All the World's a Stage is your weekly source of roleplaying tips and helpful ideas that many players can benefit from. Be sure to read on below, follow the 10 commandments of roleplaying, and avoid acting like Mary Sue in order to assure surefire protection from the evil voice of Internet Fudgewaddiness within us all.
Drone Bay podcast starts
Our friend CrazyKinux took our advice and named the podcast he's doing with Crovan (of Bitter Old Noob) and Aldresech "The Drone Bay," and episode #1 is up and available for listening right now. On the show, the three guys discuss what they've been up to in the EVE Online universe lately, as well as the Alliance Tournament, and a big rundown of EVE's economic setup (CK's notes can all be found on his site as well). Oh and they also talk about a non-EVE game, which rhymes with Rabula Tasa.All in all, good show, and definitely seems like it will be a great place to get a weekly podcast fix for EVE Online news. The guys definitely know their stuff, and while audience participation could probably get a little busier (we'll give them a break -- it's their first show), it definitely stays interesting and is perfect for keeping busy during those long mining sessions. Congrats to the guys on starting off running, can't wait to hear more.
The Daily Grind: Watching while playing
Let's be honest. As captivating as some of these games are, you can only kill hundreds of boars before the urge to multitask raises its ugly head. And so while many new players probably take in the game on its own merits, listening to the soundtrack and drinking in every clash and yell, I'd guess that the majority of us need something more than the game we've already played for many, many hours.So today's question: what is it you do while playing? Me, I like catching up on television shows while I play-- while a show like Heroes or Lost demands my full attention, there are plenty of sitcoms and reruns that I like to just let roll in the background while I mine for ore or slaughter orcs. I know lots of other people listen to music while they play, and while I personally have never done it, some bloggers even tell me they blog while playing. I will admit, however, to practicing my ukulele while playing-- sitting in the battleground queue (way back when there were battleground queues) doesn't require me to do much with my hands.So what do you find yourself doing most to divert your attention while playing?
Guardian headphones tattle when the volume gets cranked
Here's one that the carefree kiddos are sure to hate. Hamilton Electronics has unveiled a wired set of headphones dubbed Guardian, which put an interesting twist on limiting the volume that one hears. Rather than including some form of internal volume diminisher, these cans sport red and green LCDs on an earcup which light up depending on how loud you've got the music cranked. As you'd expect, the green LED signifies that the volume within is perfectly acceptable, while nudging that knob to 11 will cue the red light to glow, consequently leading your paranoid mother to remove them from your head entirely. Yeah, you'll have to hand over $39.95 to pick 'em up, but trust us, it's for your own good.[Via I4U News]
PTR Notes: New music in the inns of Azeroth
After a player says he thought he'd heard something he'd never heard before on the PTR, Hortus says that yes, there is new music in inns all over the world of Azeroth.Which seems like a strange addition to make, and an even stranger change to leave out of the patch notes. Personally, I have music turned off maybe 90% of the time-- while grinding, I'm usually listening to my own music or watching a movie, and while raiding, I'm listening to my guildies on Teamspeak. While I like the Warcraft music as much as the next guy, I can only hear it so many times before I'm ready for something else.But I supposed after the next patch comes on, I'll have to flip it back on again and have a listen. You have to wonder why they're spending time implementing new music when there seems like so much else to do, but maybe these are leftovers-- music written for Outland or other new content that Blizzard didn't have anywhere else to put.
DS gets Hearing Training
The march of training games continues into uncharted territory. Now there's a game to improve your hearing and listening skills! DS Chounoryoku tests the frequency range of players' hearing, and asks them to identify tones and spoken words. We can't figure out everything that's going on, but it's all hearing-based, and the art is surprisingly poppy and attractive.There are also musical selections for aural relaxation. All of this from Milestone, who usually develops shooters like Radio Allergy and Karous. Their Chounoryoku homepage has a weird promotional video that doesn't really show the game at all.%Gallery-3488%[Via Famitsu]
Breakfast Topic: A little tune to set the mood
cadoret over on the WoW Livejournal asks for some good music to listen to while capturing the flag in Warsong Gulch. cad wants some "badass, probably techno/house" music, but for some WSG matches, I really feel Benny Hill sets the mood quite well.But seriously, what's good music for anything in Azeroth? Last time we discussed this one, David said he watches TV while playing more than listening to music. and while I do that quite often, I've also been known to squeeze in a podcast or two while grinding away. Truthfully, when I listen to music while playing, it just tends to be whatever I've been listening to lately-- I don't actually choose, say, the Lord of the Rings soundtrack to accompany my epic quests.But what about you? Do you listen to music, or need a certain genre for PvP or grinding? During instances, I tend to keep background noise off-- I figure I owe it to the people I'm with to pay attention. But while grinding on my own, anything goes. What's on your WoW playlist?
Listen to podcasts at high speed
More hours of podcasts in your feed bin than hours in the day? Phil Windley feels your pain. He's even figured out how to speed things up a bit without converting all his podcasts to audiobooks: Right-click the show in iTunes and choose "Show song file." Open the selected song file with Quicktime (right-click again and select Quicktime). Choose "Show A/V Controls." Move the "Playback Speed" slider at the bottom of the window to your preferred speed. His method seems to work pretty well, and most podcasts are remarkably listenable at speeds up to about 1.5x. Much beyond that, though, and you start expecting someone to scream "Alvin!" in the background. Whether it's worth the effort, though, is a different matter. If you routinely listen to many podcasts, the time it takes to modify the files will become an issue in its own right. Sounds to me like a job for Automator.
Chili Pepper listening parties to be held at Apple Stores
It's great to see that when the Peppers (finally) decide to commit to something, they really dive in: iLounge is reporting that on May 2nd at 6:30 pm local time, Apple Stores in the U.S., Canada and UK will hold listening parties for the band's new album, Stadium Arcadium, set to land on May 9th. The stores will play all 28 songs from the new album and will be giving away a limited number of iTunes cards so fans can download the new single, "Dani California" (iTMS link). Let's also not forget that pre-ordering the new album enters you into a contest for a logo-engraved, 60 GB Chili Peppers iPod, and gives you access to a Ticketmaster pre-sale for the band's North American tour.
