What I've Been Listening To: July 12-18, 2009

I had a busy week at work, which forced me into choosing between adventuring and crafting in EverQuest 2 all week. After all, when you only have 60-90 minutes to play each night I can't do both. With the expansion set for a February release date, I'm feeling no pressure to get those last 10 AA points so I chose to work on my crafting. And for me, crafting means ... listening to podcasts! And I had a lot of podcast goodness to listen to over the past week, which is something to say since I didn't get to listen to a new Van Hemlock podcast.

What could fill such a huge hole in my podcast listening schedule? Check out the podcasts below:

First Time Listen

Warp Drive Active #47 (Hosts: Urban Mongral and Winterbeak) - In my ever increasing fascination with Eve Online, I was pleased to see a new Warp Drive Active appear on the Virgin Worlds home page. As happened with The Drone Bay, Urban Mongral and Winterbeak are having to start up the podcast again and are a little out of touch with the news. But I liked the chemistry between the two and if work will allow them to coordinate their schedules (Winterbeak is Canadian while Urban Mongral lives in the U.K.) I'll be interested in listening to their commentary on Eve on future podcasts. Length: 139 minutes.

Old Friends

Shut Up We're Talking #51 (Hosts: Darren and Karen) - In episode 51, Darren and Karen are joined by long-time guest Jon the Ancient Gaming Noob and two first time guests, Andrew from Of Teeth and Claws and Frank from MMORPG.com. In addition to the usual news and "What we're playing" segments, the panel has very good discussions on white collar crime in MMOs (mainly Eve) and a discussion on real money transactions and microtransactions. Length: 78 minutes.

No Prisoners, No Mercy #38 (Hosts: Sister Julie and Sister Fran) - While this episode has the usual news and "Mad As Hell" segments, the highlight of the podcast is not the Aion beta discussion. No, the highlight is the broadcast of the sisters' interview with EA/Mythic and Warhammer Online pitch man Paul Barnett. The interview is broken up into 3 parts with this segment focusing on Warhammer. The sisters basically asked a couple of questions and let Paul take it from there. The world according to Paul is a fascinating listen and I can't wait for the next two installments of No Prisoners, No Mercy. Length: 98 minutes.

Massively Speaking #61 (Host: Shawn Schuster) - Shawn is joined by Spouse Aggro co-host Beau Turkey in a discussion ranging from what they don't like about MMOs to Warhammer Online's new server consolidation, improvements in Age of Conan and emergent gameplay being tried in Heroes of Telara. The pair also spend some time discussing Beau's new project RealmsCast, a Free Realms podcast. Once again, Shawn has put together a very interesting podcast. Length: 61 minutes.

Channel Massive #95 (Hosts: Noah, Jason & Mark) - I started the week listening to episode #95 and failed to take notes about the podcast. However, I do remember that they talked about the People's Republic of China "banning gold farming" and handed out some good advice:

• Never fight a land-war in South-East Asia
• Don't fight a war against the Russians in the winter
• Never bring a knife to a gunfight
• Don't get into a deal with a company as big as Microsoft without a written contract

Brad McQuaid. The gift to continuing podcast goodness on the Channel Massive podcast. Length: 80 minutes.

Channel Massive #96 (Hosts: Noah, Jason & Mark) - The M Team was able to overcome Jason's abandonment of chicken wings to produce an episode that had me crying from laughing so much. The hosts served up appetizers with the news like World of Warcraft's patch 3.2, the Mythic/Bioware reorganization, Google's Chrome OS and introducing Twitter to games before serving up a main course of Blog-O-Steria. This week's special was Twixt, the sad little character created by a sad little professor at Loyola University who exploited a weakness in City of Heroes/Villians PvP play in the name of "research". I liked the M Team's analysis, both for the logic and the comedy. Length: 100 minutes.

PODDED Podcast Season 2, Episode 10 (Hosts: Dillon Arklight and War Childe) - The hosts celebrated episode 10 with a 140 minute broadcast chock full of special content. Interviews with Aegis Militia leader Soratah and Tech 3 expert Paul Darth highlighted a show with lots of news, dev postings, 0.0 space discussion and, of course, stealth bombers. Length: 140 minutes.

The Instance #153 (Hosts: Scott Johnson & Randy Jordan) - The highlights of the podcast for me were the discussion of those parts of the World of Warcraft that are unused, unnecessary and inefficient and the "Ask Buxley" segment concerning murlocs. After listening to that segment, many things became clear.

And despite the short description I gave this episode, I just have to add that if you play World of Warcraft and are not listening to The Instance, there's something wrong with you. Length: 114 minutes.

A Pleasant Surprise

EQ2's-day Broadcast on July 14, 2009 (Hosts: Dellmon and Zanadi) - Dellmon posted last Tuesday's show in record time, possibly to give everyone a chance to participate in the contest to guess which zone Dellmon will get his 200th AA point in. All entries should be emailed to Zanadi at Zanadi@eq2sday.com with the subject "What zone will Del be in". The show itself explored Dellmon and Zanadi's experiences at this year's Fan Faire. Length: 91 minutes.