614: Sea Of Thieves Close Beta and more

Larry: Welcome to show number 614. My name's Larry Herback Xbox Live's Major Nelson. We're rolling here with the end of January, beginning of February 2018. Thank you for joining us. We've got Laura with us. Hi, Laura.
Laura: Hello.
Larry: Hello, how are you doing?
Laura: Good.
Larry: Let me give you a little volume over there.
Laura: Oh, sweet.
Larry: I was playing around with your volume a little bit.
Laura: Crank me up.
Larry: Well, I don't want to do that. You don't want to blow everyone out. Then across from you, the man I have to turn down all the time, Mr. Jeff Rubenstein.
Jeff: I was just going to say that.
Larry: Hello, Jeffrey.
Jeff: Hi, from mute land.
Larry: This is an awkward show.
Laura: Why is that?
Larry: Well, it's a couple things. We're recording this at the end of the week, and in just a few days is the Superb Owl.
Jeff: Yes, you've never seen an Owl like this.
Laura: Oh, the Superb Owl.
Jeff: Never.
Larry: Which is the Eagles versus the Patriots, and for those of you in the United States, you know it's the Super Bowl, big deal. Jeff is a huge Eagles fan.
Jeff: I don't know if you know but there is an indicator that is just very reliable on who's going to win the Super Bowl, and that is Cherry Picked, the Xbox live session that they do where they pick one player from one team versus one player from the other team in Madden on Xbox One.
Larry: Yeah, this has been going on for years.
Jeff: Right, oh my God, since the first Super Bowl in the 60s.
Larry: I think the first one was Lombardi, right?
Jeff: Yeah, I think it was ... whoever, some guy from the Packers, Bart Star was playing Xbox. This happened this week, and I will link out and you can watch LeGarrette Blount, the running back who came over from the Patriots, wised up and came down to Philly, and is playing for the NFC Champion Eagles, and against some guy who's going by Gronk?
Larry: Yes, I don't know, good old Rob Gronkowski. I know him.
Jeff: I know.
Larry: He and I have done some stuff together.
Laura: You went to one of these before, I remember.
Larry: We did an event, Rob and I did a couple of events. One of them was a Halo event, where I flew out to Gillette Stadium, which is right down the street from where my sister lives, so that was a tough one. Rob's a great guy. We just had a grand time. We had fun, that's all I'll say.
Jeff: If you don't know who won, I won't spoil it, but I will link out to it in the show notes. You should watch that.
Laura: Do you have a history of how accurate this predictor has been?
Jeff: No, I have no idea. I was just making this up because the Eagles have to win, that's it. That's it.
Larry: Laura's going with hard data, as any good analytical scientist. She's like, give me the data.
Laura: I want to see.
Jeff: I like the art of making stuff up, and if Laura selective data sets, and you actually want to know the facts.
Larry: Well, that's why you show up in a clown suit and she's in a lab coat.
Jeff: This is a tee shirt, one of my better tee shirts.
Larry: Well, anyway, we're here. We're having a good time. It's great to be back. Were we here last week?
Laura: No.
Larry: No, we weren't.
Jeff: There was no show.
Larry: By the way, a lot of emails have been asking us, also folks asking on Twitter, working on the next video show.
Laura: Oh really?
Larry: Yeah, we don't have a date yet, or else I would have told you guys, but I know that that is a request. I'm headed out to Rare next week to talk Sea of Thieves, which I've been playing. Laura, you've been playing that a little bit.
Laura: I have. We'll talk about it later .... or now, if you want to talk about it now.
Larry: Sure, why don't ... you know what, let's-
Jeff: We're here.
Larry: .. let's go ahead. We're here. We're among friends.
Laura: We've already dove right in. We've already walked the plank on this one.
Larry: Why don't you ... Thank you. Well done, Laura.
Laura: It was the other night-
Larry: Yes. The other evening.
Laura: ... I finally had time to play.
Larry: Yes you're busy.
Laura: I was really excited to play Sea of Thieves and guess who was online? Larry was online.
Larry: It was me.
Laura: Larry was playing Sea of Thieves.
Jeff: Did you two play together?
Laura: No.
Larry: No.
Jeff: I'm representing the fans. The listeners who want you two to play together.
Larry: It actually gets better. So Laura texts me like, "Hey, do you want to play Sea of Thieves?" We were in the middle of an epic sea battle, of which there are many in Sea of Thieves. I finally responded to her like 10 or 15 minutes later.
Laura: So I said, "Can I join your crew? Yaaar."
Larry: She was having a little bit of fun.
Laura: You said, "We're full. Sorry."
Jeff: Always in character this one.
Laura: I know.
Larry: I felt terrible because we were full.
Laura: It was late.
Larry: So you went out on the high seas kind of alone.
Laura: We did.
Larry: You're a strong, young woman.
Laura: Adventurous.
Larry: Adventurous.
Laura: Try out my sea legs on my own and so just hit the random button and then joined a random team.
Larry: So I go into match making frequently. I know you've done it. So you did it this time. So tell us what happened.
Laura: Yeah. So the first crew I joined was three guys who had lost their fourth. I don't know how, but I randomly showed up in their game.
Larry: They have no idea-
Laura: Super surprised.
Larry: ... How lucky they were that you show up. They have no idea.
Laura: They're like, "Who's this person? Who's this lollipop person?" I'm like, hello. They're like, "Hi." They were nice and so we adventured to an island.
Larry: You had your headset on. They all had their headsets. You guys are rolling full voice.
Jeff: That's the way to play.
Laura: Exactly. Rolling full force. They were trying to, they had already started a mission.
Larry: Sure. So you came in mid mission.
Laura: I came in mid mission and they had just landed on an island and they had their clues and they had found out the first clue, they were still working on the second clue.
Larry: As you solve the first one, the second one will reveal itself on the scroll in a very dramatic fashion.
Laura: Exactly. So, I pulled out the clue. "I know what we should do. We should, we have to find this cave with an overhang and then it said raise a torch. We all have lanterns. We can try raising our lanterns up and jumping around and seeing if that will reveal it." So we're scouring the island looking for this cave.
Larry: They have no idea how lucky these guys were. They have no idea. Do you remember their gamer tags? You should go look on recent players.
Laura: I should look on recent players and say who they were. They were really kind. Unfortunately while we're running around the island looking for the cave someone says, "Hey. Where's our ship?"
Larry: Classic Sea of Thieves moment.
Laura: Where did the ship go? I was like, "I just saw it. It was right over there." So we all run back.
Larry: To the beach.
Laura: To the beach. Sure enough, no ship.
Larry: What happened?
Laura: We don't know.
Larry: There's a couple things that could have happened.
Jeff: This has happened to me a few times. You're wandering on the island and someone just comes in there and lights it up.
Laura: Swoops in and off they go.
Larry: They can basically hijack your ship and they can either sink it or sail it away.
Laura: Unfortunately they let me on, the really bad news about that, they had already made three missions completed and they had three chests in that ship.
Larry: So you got jacked.
Laura: They were gone.
Larry: Jeff is right. We learn that a long time ago. You gotta leave one person on the ship so you can ring the alarm bell.
Laura: If attackers come.
Larry: If attackers come.
Laura: I figured out. I tweeted this as well. We didn't know what to do. We have no ship. We're just stranded on this island. What do we do?
Larry: Options and then scuttle ship.
Laura: No. You can actually go to the menu?
Larry: Yup.
Laura: I didn't know that. Awesome. That's faster. Apparently there is a mermaid that starts swimming to show you where you are.
Larry: Right, when you lose your ship.
Laura: When you're too far away from your ship.
Larry: Believe it's a merman.
Jeff: I think it's a merperson.
Larry: It's tough to say.
Jeff: Not really sure. I don't know that there is binary there.
Larry: Usually you don't have a lot to check them out because you're trying to swim to get out of the water because usually there's a shark on your backside.
Laura: Exactly. So they are swimming in the water with a flair and [crosstalk 00:07:36].
Jeff: There's siren song.
Larry: Siren song, thank you.
Laura: A siren song, which usually you go away from, not towards, but in this case you go towards the merperson and then there's an option once you get to that merperson to return back to your ship. So we did that and it turns out we spawned back at the beginning.
Jeff: When you do that you can't bring your chest. What we discovered when this happened to us.
Larry: Something similar happened to Jeff and I.
Jeff: I can't remember exactly, it might have been we came to an island where there were NPC, skeletons.
Laura: Yes, I got attacked by skeletons.
Jeff: That were launching cannons and we jumped off and I think they sunk the ship.
Laura: The skeletons sunk the ship?
Jeff: Yeah.
Laura: OH no.
Jeff: We went to teleport back and well what ended up happening is we realized, we were streaming actually, people were like you're not going to be able to bring the chest with you, but everyone in the comments-
Larry: Craig Duncan was watching. The head of Rare was watching us.
Jeff: ... we were very incompetent.
Laura: The pressure of that.
Larry: Well we found a bug.
Jeff: We were told, come back, the chest will be there. The chest will be there.
Larry: The chest was there.
Jeff: It was there.
Laura: Oh really?
Jeff: It took us a little while to find it and we were already off.
Laura: Was it on the ship?
Larry: No it was basically suspended underwater, but we couldn't pick it up. It was invisible or like we would swim through it.
Jeff: Indivisible.
Larry: Indivisible.
Jeff: So this happened to me later. I was flying solo and I found a chest and during that time someone came over, they saw me, they saw my ship, they didn't know where I was and they just lit up my ship and took off. So I placed it on a very specific rock that I thought was out of the way, but easy for me to find again and I went to the merperson. I sailed back to the island and the chest was sitting right there.
Laura: Oh really?
Jeff: I was able to bring it back and cash it in.
Laura: Interesting. So if the ship disappears, the chest will appear will the ship had disappeared?
Jeff: I don't know-
Laura: Island?
Jeff: ... if I had kept the chest on the ship then I'm not sure what would have happened.
Larry: Right.
Jeff: What happened is that I had no ship and so I essentially re hid it.
Laura: You put the chest down.
Jeff: I put the chest down.
Laura: Teleported back.
Jeff: Exactly. If you're holding it, actually I think what happened that time is we were swimming with it and went to the merperson and it teleported me without it and we went back and it was roughly in that spot.
Larry: It was roughly in that spot, right.
Laura: So pro tip, put your chest down before you teleport.
Larry: Or to make it an even better pro tip, leave somebody on the ship.
Jeff: Don't lose your ship.
Larry: Don't lose your ship in the first place.
Jeff: Ounce of prevention.
Larry: So you saw the beauty and the awesomeness that was Sea of Thieves, which is the closed beta this week. I think it's over by the time the show will be up. Right?
Jeff: It's over this minute.
Laura: It is a gorgeous game I must say. I was appreciating the sunsets and then when it became dark, the skeletons came out. I didn't know skeletons come out at night, but they came out and they found me and I had to run away. I had to run away.
Larry: They will find you.
Laura: Yes they will find me.
Larry: I didn't know, we talked about it being a closed beta was a lot of fun. We played a lot. Jeff and I streamed it a little bit. We had a lot of fun with it. It is beautiful. You get, the storms are real. Seasick is a real issue.
Laura: It's a real thing.
Larry: Do you get seasick?
Laura: Yes I do.
Larry: You do.
Laura: I am really sensitive to motion sickness.
Larry: Wow, okay.
Laura: Fortunately while I was playing I didn't feel motion sick, but anybody who was watching me, they couldn't stand in the room for a minute.
Larry: It was, it can be a little brutal.
Laura: I didn't have any problems with it.
Larry: I am going to go on record as saying when it released in March, we will play Laura. You and I, and Jeff will find a fourth. Maybe we'll get Ian here, but I promise you we will play. We will schedule. You're schedule's busy. Mine's busy. Jeff's busy, but we need to do this.
Laura: We do need to do this.
Jeff: I'm not that busy.
Larry: Sure, hunting monsters and we'll talk about that. What else you playing Laura?
Laura: That is pretty much it. The other thing I, the only other game I played this week was strange enough, jumping back into Dance Central Three.
Larry: Strangely enough. Strange for who? That'd be strange for me, not for you.
Laura: Maybe, but it turns out I actually didn't get into Dance Central Three. I thought I had and completed the story, but I think I was-
Jeff: The story?
Laura: ... Yeah there's a story.
Jeff: Do you have to save the gym? The mobile rec center from the big bad developer?
Laura: There's a joke about that in the story, but I didn't realize there was story so when I back into Dance Central Three I found it and it turns out you are time traveling dance crime agents.
Larry: Time traveling dance crime agents. I do remember this, yes.
Laura: Yes so you go back in time and you're trying to figure out the crisis of that time period. So you'd go back to the seventies and you're trying to discover what the crisis are and you're trying to nail these moves.
Larry: So they're disco. It's the seventies.
Laura: There's a dance battle at the end.
Larry: They're seventies.
Laura: That's what the seventies is. So it's the hustle.
Larry: From the late seventies.
Laura: Spoiler, it was the hustle.
Larry: (singing)
Laura: So they make you discover the hustle.
Jeff: Listening to XM49, 250.
Laura: Then you dance the hustle at the end and then you're done with the seventies and you teleport back to the present. Then you gotta go back to the eighties and then there's a joke about trying to save the local gym.
Jeff: Good.
Laura: So it was in there. It was really fun. I had a lot of fun.
Larry: Good.
Laura: Dancing all the songs I actually didn't get to when I was playing Dance Central. It was fun.
Larry: So that's what you're playing.
Laura: Yeah.
Larry: As we talked a little bit earlier, playing Sea of Thieves now over. I'm headed out to Rare next week, talk about that later in the show. Playing Pub G. They announce, last week they announced four million folks playing Pub G on Xbox, which is a big, big deal.
Laura: Congrats Pub G.
Larry: To celebrate that, anybody that purchased the game by the end of January, they get 30,000 battle points, which is a lot of battle points Laura. So go sign into Pub G and you should look in the upper right hand corner and you should have enough to go on a shopping spree to get yourself a sweet set of kicks, as Jeff says.
Jeff: Or to just shoot your friend in the back.
Larry: No, we're not going to talk about this, are we?
Laura: What?
Jeff: I just happened to bring up when we had played earlier this week.
Larry: Have you seen this?
Laura: No, what happened?
Jeff: Oh my god. So we broadcast on Mixer.
Laura: Oh look, you were streaming.
Jeff: Here's the exact part where Larry stabs me in the back, literally with a gun.
Laura: What happened Larry? Oh no.
Larry: I am not much for precision in that game in terms of in the heat of the moment I will just let it rip. This has happened, actually Laura, consider yourself lucky. Every single I have been playing with recently has been, has fallen to my-
Jeff: Here it comes. Friendly fire.
Laura: Friendly fire.
Larry: ... bullets. So, I apologize.
Laura: It's the heat of the moment. You were trying to save.
Larry: Save him. When in fact, I killed him.
Laura: When in fact the opposite happened.
Larry: In a lot of ways.
Laura: No.
Jeff: I'll link out to that.
Larry: You don't need to. So anyway, playing a lot of Pub G. Overwatch, Four K Overwatch update is out. Jeff, we need to get back into that. I know you played a little bit of that. I played a little bit of that as well. We're doing that. That's kind of what's doing. It's been a lot of that going on.
Laura: Absolutely.
Larry: Jeff, I got into Monster Hunter. I started it. The character creation is overwhelming.
Jeff: Yes it is.
Larry: You got deeper into it than I did.
Jeff: It's true. I'd never played a Monster Hunter game and they've been going on for quite some time. I had been hearing that this was a very accessible version, at least by Monster Hunter standards. So, I jumped in over the weekend. Went through that character creator and cat character creator.
Larry: You make everything a kitty cat.
Jeff: At the beginning.
Laura: You get to be a cat at the beginning?
Jeff: Well you have a cat side kick at all times, but these are cats that run on two feet, cook delicious dishes. By the way, this is my favorite, the best part of the game is when you go to the cook, and he makes you something. Have you seen this animation?
Larry: No. Is it like the Zelda one?
Jeff: Imagine you were being, you're delicious meal was being prepared by a trio of culinary cats. Some fruity felines and it's I can't think of any other words or I would do it. It's just so funny. It is my everything at this point. I'm also allergic to cats. This is the closest I get to really be with them. It's a pretty cool game. It's a game that I can definitely see myself getting sucked into. It demands your time. There's systems upon systems and you immediately start by choosing one of 14 different weapons. I'm like, okay, I don't know which weapon's gonna be good.
Larry: It's complicated.
Jeff: There's a lot to it.
Larry: They're kind of silly comic book oversized.
Jeff: Oh my god, yes.
Larry: I pulled one out. I was like, what. This thing was like four times the size of my-
Jeff: Did you pick a katana?
Larry: Maybe.
Jeff: We all pick the katana first. The katana's 10 feet long. It makes Cloud from Final Fantasy Seven look like he's carrying a pocket knife, or a pocket watch. What I will link out to, if you're interested in the game I will say yes, it's definitely the most accessible of any Monster Hunter that has come out and there is a polygon put together, like a here's what you need to know in the first 10 hours. It's written by eight four. These are folks, they do localization for a lot of Japanese games for America. Some good folks. Actually hung out with them when I was in Japan recently. They wrote a pretty comprehensive guide for Polygon. So if you're thinking of jumping into the game, highly recommend it. I'll link out to it in notes. Having a good time with it.
Larry: I look forward to getting into that, but like I said, I'm headed out. Traveling to Rare next week to go. I've never been to Rare. You've been right?
Laura: Yeah. I've been. You've not been?
Larry: I have never been.
Laura: I thought you had.
Larry: I have never been. I have an open invitation for 10 plus years and I've never had the chance to go.
Laura: Really?
Larry: I know. Now I'm going out there.
Laura: Where did you get your pirate name from?
Larry: When they came here we were doing something. I don't even remember. Admiral Nelson right?
Jeff: Yes.
Larry: What was yours Jeff?
Jeff: Rum Rubenstein.
Larry: That sounds about right.
Jeff: You know me to well.
Larry: What was yours Laura?
Laura: Mine was Seven Lashes Laura.
Jeff: So what we're talking about is years ago-
Larry: Awkward pause.
Jeff: ... we got to. That is interesting.
Laura: We went there and they gave me a pirate name and that was what it was.
Jeff: They let us see the game some time ago in order, before announced to just sort of take a look and share some feedback and stuff like that. For everyone who participated they put together a little pirate poster. They took a picture of you and photoshopped you as a pirate and gave you a pirate name. They're going all out.
Laura: They've been going all out for years.
Larry: I just got a text. It's funny, I'm sitting here and I just got a text from my wife who is actually shopping and she's sending me Laura, pictures of pirate shirts. So she's like, this will be good for your trip to Rare next week.
Jeff: Have fun storming the castle.
Larry: I've got-
Jeff: Wow.
Laura: That's pretty awesome.
Larry: ... So stay tuned.
Laura: I think I want to keep that one.
Larry: Stay tuned. I'll give you more details on what that's all about. It's coming soon. So there you go about that.
Laura: It should be a really fun trip.
Larry: Got a lot of news this week. We talked a little bit about it. Pub G update. We've got an Overwatch update. Jeff you have some more updates to manage and tell us all about and what not.
Jeff: Yeah I do. One update that I thought was pretty interesting and I know a lot of folks were really excited about was to see that Moana characters were coming to Minecraft.
Larry: For those of you who don't know Moana is from ...
Jeff: Polynesia maybe? It's Disney movie.
Larry: It's a Disney movie. Stars Dwayne Johnson.
Jeff: Dwayne the Rock Johnson. Other people as well. You can use him, I think he's characters name Maui. There was like a chicken. I'm just looking, obviously Moana. You can use. I'd imagine might be, there's a pretty high crossover between Moana fans and Minecraft fans. There's even the crab that was voiced by the dude from, what was that New Zealand show? It's going to drive me nuts. Anyway, they've won Oscars. It was a parody.
Larry: The Flight of the Concords?
Jeff: Flight of the Concords. Yes. Thank you.
Laura: How did you? On the same page.
Jeff: There's not a lot of New Zealand mockumentary sort of fake novelty.
Larry: To be clear, I think that's the only one from New Zealand I would ever know. I was just waiting for him to say enough data for me to go, that's the one.
Jeff: Anyway, that was just announced. Actually, yeah you can just go in there and get after it. It is available now. Another update since we last spoke. The announcement of the Xbox Live Games with gold for February. So by the time you're listening to this, you'll be able to get them. So for Xbox One at the beginning of February will be Shadow Warrior and then February 16th will be Assassins Creed Chronicles India. Through backward compatibility, Split Seconds. Did you ever play this game?
Laura: No.
Jeff: It was a fun game. It was a racing game that a lot of epic moments with cut scenes so you're driving through a factory where things are falling apart all over the place. It was a pretty cool game. Then, keeping that theme going, Crazy Taxi.
Larry: Good old Crazy Taxi.
Jeff: The dreamcast. What a great game that was. Both those were Xbox 360 games, which are available through the magic of backward compatibility and coming this month free for gold members.
Larry: You know we didn't have this show last week so we can take a moment to talk about the updates to game pass. Jeffrey, bit stuff coming. I know you saw this.
Jeff: So huge announcement. Game changing announcement. That is, Xbox game pass members will be able to play our first party releases, such as Sea of Thieves, such as State of Decay, such as Crackdown Three. State Decay I should say. When they come out, day one. So it was already, probably just about the best value in gaming about $10 bucks a month you have access to about 150 games, which you can download. You don't have to stream. For our first party games to be available on that, our new ones, on day one, like it's kind of a no brainer.
Larry: That was all the news. I have all the information up at news.xbox.com or over at my blog at majornelson. You're a game pass subscriber right Laura, or you don't need to be because you got a lot of games, right?
Laura: Probably should be one. 150 games.
Larry: Why not?
Jeff: It's a really good, and they're constantly updating. So, we're coming up like Darksiders Three is going to be coming out pretty soon and so they've recently made the Xbox One remaster of Darksiders, one had already been there, Darksiders Two. So you can play through those two games getting ready for Darksiders Three.
Larry: Are you getting ready?
Jeff: I've never, I've played a little bit of Darksiders One and I really need to go back. They're really well loved and from what I've heard about the games they're kind of like Zeldaesque, old school Zeldaesque and I don't know why I haven't played them.
Another game.
Larry: Yes.
Jeff: There's another beta. So last week it was all about the Sea, and this week, all about the Sea of Thieves beta. Now we are in the middle of the Age of Empire's definitive edition beta.
Larry: I need to download that so I can play it on the plane.
Jeff: So, yeah.
Laura: Good idea.
Jeff: That's for Windows 10. If you haven't gotten into there, at this point, because it's already started, the way to get in would be to pre order the game. Then you can go on there and people are going to be streaming it. You can see all that. If you miss out on that, we're still only less than three weeks away from release to be out. February 20th. So, definitely looking forward to that. That was the first artsy esque game I had ever played.
Larry: A lot of people did that as well.
Jeff: That was '96.
Laura: Think my first was Warcraft.
Jeff: That was good too.
Laura: That was a good game.
Larry: I don't even know what mine was. I'm completely blank. I put myself on the spot here. I gotta get back to you on that one.
Laura: Maybe Command and Conquer?
Larry: Could be.
Jeff: Oh yeah.
Laura: That's really good.
Jeff: I was so into those that both of those.
Laura: Really enjoyed Command and Conquer.
Jeff: You didn't think that's the type of game? That's why I like Halo Wars.
Larry: Okay, that's right. You do like you some Halo Wars.
Jeff: Couple other pieces of news from the idea Xbox side. Announcement of a game that looks really cool that's going to be coming to Xbox One soon is Roguevania called Deadcells. So I've just been seeing a lot. I'm going to link to it. It looks really cool.
Laura: I've played lots of Deadcell.
Jeff: Oh you have?
Laura: It's a-
Jeff: Tell us.
Laura: ... favorite in our house. It is a rogue like, where it's every time you play the world is different, but you accrue gold and you accrue skills that you can keep past your deaths. It's got a fantastic graphics and sort of old school, but still looks really fancy graphics and it's really fun game play.
Larry: I had heard good things.
Laura: Repeatability for sure.
Larry: All right. Fun.
Jeff: That will be coming out soon. Couple of other games that have hit in the last week. Wolverblade, Railway Empire, this seems like something you would be into aside your farming simulator, I think driving trains.
Larry: I played that the other day. I was playing Farming Simulator.
Jeff: Farming Simulator I believe also part of Xbox game pass.
Laura: Which one?
Larry: I don't know what it was. All I know I was out plowing the field and I brought the tractor around and realize I should never plow a field again. It looked like I was under the influence.
Laura: Did you have to hook up the plow to the tractor?
Larry: Yes.
Laura: That's one of the hardest parts.
Larry: Yeah.
Laura: To get the plow hooked up and then adding the front weight so that it doesn't.
Larry: You know a little too much information. You know a little too much about this.
Laura: You know I like the farming simulator games.
Larry: That's cause I think you've done most of this in real life. That's the strange part. You are but a farmer. Farmer's daughter.
Laura: My family does have a ranch with some tractors.
Larry: I want to go down there and just drive around.
Laura: My father will be happy to teach you how to drive the tractor. He'll give you a task like, go pull down that tree.
Larry: On the way. I'm sorry Jeff. We got sidetracked with tractor talk.
Jeff: Another game that came out last week, which people, this one I'll admit flew completely under my radar. People are already talking about it as a potential game of the year candidate. An early one. Celeste. So this is a really challenging platformer. In the vein of a super meat boy or something like that where it's from the people who made Towerfall, which was very well loved when it came out a few years ago. [inaudible 00:25:48]
Anyway, so this game is, it's available. It's a relative inexpensive title that is an Idea Xbox title that people are talking about it. I wouldn't judge it by the screens, which make it look like, I mean it is a platform. I've seen some videos, it looks like incredibly challenging. Like, you sort of bend your mind. You come into a screen and it's like, how could I ever do that, and then you watch someone do that and it's like, oh that's how you do it. I think it will see some amazing runs at summer games [inaudible 00:26:17] on this one. Anyway, getting a ton of buzz. So keep an eye out for Celeste.
Laura: Cool.
Jeff: That's pretty much it. Oh, EA Sports UFC Three is also now available for Xbox One.
Larry: All right. Delightful.
Laura: That's a lot of news.
Larry: Lot of news.
Laura: A lot of news.
Larry: I wish you had joined us on our stream when we ran Sea of Thieves.
Laura: That would have been fun. Just couldn't make it work.
Larry: That's fine. We just, Jeff and I had quite the time on the high seas.
Laura: Did you just do the two player version?
Larry: Yeah, we just did the two player, the two player ship.
Laura: Yes there is a two player ship, which is more nimble.
Larry: There's a one and two player ship, which is the same ship and then there's the four player.
Laura: I didn't do the single player ship.
Larry: The four player ship is just massive.
Laura: It's really big.
Larry: It's a boat.
Laura: Did you guys do the single player? Have you tried that out yet?
Larry: Yeah.
Laura: Okay.
Larry: I've gone on a few missions and it feels lighter and what not.
Laura: Is there a cannon on the single?
Larry: Yeah, there's one on each side.
Jeff: There's one on each side. You're not gonna really want to use. Unless you're fighting another ship of equal size, you're better off just running and hiding. It's great for moving quickly and I went on a number of solo missions. I went to try it out on Windows 10 because it was a game that you seamlessly can play from one to the other. You know it worked out great and I just was running around in the solo ship and cashed in a few treasures and leveled up my faction standing.
Larry: When's that coming out Jeff?
Jeff: Coming out March 20th.
Larry: March 20th.
Jeff: One month after Age of Empires.
Larry: Little, month and a half or so. Little under a month and half, two months away.
Laura: Awesome.
Jeff: Getting real excited.
Larry: All right. We're cooking along on this show. We don't have any special guests this week. You, you listener are our special guest because we can devote more time to you. All right, Name the Game. We're going to give folks another week to win that.
Laura: That's right.
Larry: So here's the Name the Game sound from the last time, but we're going to give you another chance. Very few people got it right.
Laura: It was a hard one this time. We'll give you another try. Here we go.
Larry: All right, that was Name the Game from a couple weeks ago. We're giving you guys another chance. We like to do that one, only a few people get right.
Laura: That's right. So if you already answered, don't worry about. We got your entry.
Larry: You're still in.
Laura: If you didn't get a chance to answer.
Larry: Now's your chance. You get a second chance.
Laura: Second chance.
Larry: There's very few second chances in life Laura.
Laura: That's true.
Larry: We're giving you one. We're giving you one. So there you go.
Laura: You think you know what game the sounds are from, give me an email, [email protected] and CC [email protected].
Larry: That's all you gotta do.
Laura: Pretty easy.
Larry: Don't mention it on Twitter because that doesn't count as an entry.
Laura: That's correct.
Larry: You can say hello to us on Twitter, but it doesn't count as an entry.
Laura: That's right. You have to send us an email. The email.
Larry: Are you around next week? I'm not around next week.
Laura: You're going to UK.
Jeff: You gone the whole week?
Larry: I'm leaving on Tuesday, land there Wednesday.
Jeff: You're gone the whole week.
Larry: Yeah, I'm there the whole week.
Laura: It takes at least a day.
Larry: It's a schlep.
Jeff: You going to take in a soccer match?
Larry: I can't do that without you. I can't do that without you.
Jeff: You're doing to be in a soccer rich area.
Larry: Very much so.
Jeff: A lot of teams around there.
Larry: I would love, if I'm there, I'm flying back on Saturday so I'm missing the football day.
Jeff: Might be some Friday night matches. I'll do some research for you.
Larry: Anyway, I was going to say if you guys want to do a show or stream you're welcome to, Laura, Jeff as I look at you both.
Jeff: Without you? You're the straw that stirs the drink.
Larry: No I'm not. I'm merely, I'm the bubbles in your soda.
Jeff: It wouldn't be soda without the bubbles. Flat.
Laura: Still water.
Larry: Every part of what we have here. You are all part of the ingredients.
Jeff: Are you saying you might want to stream from the UK?
Larry: I would love to, I just don't think I'll have time because my schedule there is pretty, pretty, pretty packed.
Laura: I can imagine it is packed.
Jeff: Also we don't have Sea of Thieves so I don't know what we would stream. Hey, Rare, mind if we load up Overwatch or Pub G?
Larry: Not cool. Although I could just stream from my, I've got the Mixer app. Mixer create on my phone.
Jeff: I'm sure you'll do it.
Larry: I can just go bam to a few million people.
Jeff: You know what you did back when Periscope was new.
Larry: Yes.
Jeff: Getting used to living in a live world. I remember you just went through the prices of all the things.
Larry: When I played the price is right on the mini bar.
Jeff: What was funny, that was the number one thing on Periscope at that moment. It was crazy how many people were watching that.
Larry: I should do that again. You never saw that Laura.
Laura: No I didn't see it
Larry: You know when you travel, when you travel in most hotels they have a mini bar and the stuff is so ridiculously expensive. I did the price is right using, how much is this snickers bar? Oh it's $1, $2, no it's $7.99. It's ridiculous prices.
Jeff: I think it's called something else over there.
Larry: What the mini bar?
Jeff: No, snickers.
Larry: I don't know. Maybe I'll do that when I'm over there. It's a good idea.
Laura: Sounds fun.
Larry: So anyway, so if you guys want to do something next week but we've got to wrap up the show in a little bit because Laura's got to run to a meeting. I've got to run. Jeff has to-
Jeff: I just sit here until next week. Twiddling my thumbs. Waiting for the next show.
Larry: You want to talk about some technology though. We haven't talked.
Jeff: We haven't talked about tech in awhile.
Larry: We haven't. So what do you want to talk about?
Jeff: I got the best Christmas present that I didn't expect.
Larry: Did you hear about this Laura?
Laura: No.
Larry: This is Jeff.
Jeff: I got, actually I got two. So I got back from a long trip, we were in Japan and I got back on New Years Eve, give or take. I was given a gift. I was like, what is this? Some close friends got me an Ember.
Laura: What is that?
Jeff: An Ember is a coffee cup that keeps your coffee warm. First I was like, this is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. You have to, first I had to update the firmware on my coffee cup, which is some real Black Mirror stuff right there.
Laura: Firmware. On a coffee cup.
Jeff: I've seen everything now. On a Saturday morning when I have coffee, a lot of times what I do is I spend the morning, usually playing Overwatch in the house.
Larry: With his daughter.
Jeff: I only have a chance to sip when I die, not that often and I have six seconds. That cup will last an hour, normally by the time I've played three or four matches that coffee's cold. Well, no more.
Larry: No more.
Jeff: Stays at crisp-
Larry: This first world problem has been solved.
Jeff: ... 130 degrees and you can adjust. Has an app.
Laura: It's too hot.
Jeff: No it's the right temperature.
Laura: There's an app for the coffee cup?
Jeff: Yeah.
Larry: You can change the LED color.
Jeff: Believe me, I came in saying this is the most ridiculous extra type of gift ever, but for the coffee person who thinks they have everything, this is a thing. It's a great gift. Nobody needs this, but as a bizarre quality of life thing, I'm wasting a lot less coffee these days.
Laura: Awesome. How long does the battery last?
Jeff: Probably about 90 minutes.
Larry: I think it's about an hour. Depends on what your temperature is.
Jeff: So just like the night before I'll go ahead and put it on. The charger is a saucer, which is a really nice touch.
Laura: So it's not a plug in.
Jeff: You plug the saucer into the wall.
Larry: Then you drop it. We'll put a link in the show notes.
Jeff: I'll put it. You know what, I love it.
Larry: Ironically I don't drink coffee. I drink espresso, which is a very different type of drink. It's a much more classier type of drink.
Jeff: Except you drink it like a shot. It's gone in 10 seconds.
Larry: That's true. So anyway, my wife drinks coffee. So I actually bought her one of these unbeknownst that Jeff had one. So when he was tweeting it out I sent him a photo. She loves it too.
Laura: You knew all about it.
Larry: I was like wow, that's weird.
Laura: So they're LED lights on the cup?
Larry: Yeah, there's a little one on the bottom.
Jeff: You can change the color of it. Mine's purple. It looks like this.
Larry: Did you get the travel one or the white ceramic one?
Jeff: The white ceramic one. Wait, I didn't know they had a travel one.
Larry: Yeah, they have a travel one.
Jeff: I might need that.
Larry: It's got a dial on the bottom. Dial up the, you didn't know they had a travel one?
Jeff: No. I don't know these things.
Laura: Now you can put that on your birthday list. Need it as another gift. Travel version.
Jeff: Look at that. Man you just cost me money.
Larry: It's expensive. It's like twice as expensive as the regular one.
Jeff: Nobody needs this.
Larry: Ember.
Laura: Awesome.
Larry: Ember. I don't need one of those.
Jeff: I'll put a link to it. It's just really bizarre, but kind of great.
Larry: Do you have anything you want to talk about in the technology side Laura.
Laura: I'm trying to think if I've gotten anything. I don't think I have.
Larry: The last thing I got, the Razor phone. I've been playing around with the Razor phone. Razor sent me a couple of their new keyboards. One of them's crazy pink.
Laura: Cool.
Jeff: Did they send you any of the diva stuff they make? The headset.
Larry: No.
Jeff: They have a whole diva line. Diva from Overwatch.
Larry: Overwatch. I know your daughter's a big Diva fan.
Jeff: Diva costs me a lot of money every month. Whether it be Loot boxes, in shirts or whatever.
Larry: In merchandise or otherwise. So yeah, I haven't really done anything. I'm working on some more home networking stuff that I'm always futzing.
Laura: You're always messing with that.
Larry: I'm always futzing. Is that the proper term?
Jeff: That's a big Yiddish there. Hold on, mazel tov.
Larry: Look, I'm always futzing.
Jeff: You're just futzing.
Larry: I need to stop futzing. I've got a few more things that I'm working on. The Amazon Show. Have you seen, that's the Amazon Alexa with the screen. So when we play Jeopardy now, you now have the question right in front of you.
Laura: So you can read the question.
Larry: Right, in addition to her telling you. So it does make it easier.
Laura: Did you know that if you're on Prime you can play the previous days of Jeopardy.
Larry: Yes, yes.
Laura: Which makes things much easier.
Larry: And you get extra questions. I will say this, with the Show I'm convinced that the questions are actually harder than if you don't, I think it's a different set of questions because they're asking, we got like four out of 12. Right?
Laura: I play [crosstalk 00:36:25] they were much harder.
Larry: If you have Alexa than you need to add this.
Jeff: They have one also, we did this an Escape Room that you can do. It plays out like an old school text adventure where you're literally like-
Laura: On Alexa?
Jeff: ... On Alexa. Look forward and you see. You have to escape from one, I think you have to escape from an office that you're locked into. Another one you wake up in a car that has been somehow boarded up and you have to escape from it. It's kind of fun.
Larry: Jeff and I, remember I was telling you about the escape room we did?
Laura: Yes.
Larry: Jeff was with me.
Laura: Oh you were in the escape room?
Larry: I was telling Laura about it because she would totally dig this. We did one here in Seattle, Jeff and I and our teams last week.
Laura: I would love to do that.
Jeff: They were really elaborate. One you had escape from prison basically and you're in individual cells with steel bars.
Laura: Oh my goodness.
Jeff: Kind of nuts.
Larry: With that one I don't want to give too much away. I don't know if I told you this Laura but, yeah I think I did. With that one Jeff, when we did it we got locked in different cells. There were four cells, two in each and one part of the cell is, one part of the puzzle, the beginning's you have to find the key, which is this long rod, remember? You have to push it into the hole to unlock the secret door. Well, unbeknownst to me when we got loaded up into our cells, my cellmate who will remain nameless, they had a water glass or a water bottle and they put it over the hole. So we could not find it until all of the sudden we moved it, oh here it is. It was lot of fun.
Jeff: That's why they don't allow bottled water.
Laura: In jails.
Jeff: In jail.
Larry: Now you know. The more you know. Puzzle rooms. So that's about it. I'm working on a few more projects. I got so much technology that I gotta look at. Hoping to get my hands on the new surface. I don't have the new surface book yet. A bunch of you called that out when we did the stream last.
Jeff: The surface book two
Larry: Surface book two.
Jeff: Which has a pretty nice graphics card in there. You can run some games on that.
Larry: Sea of Thieves when I'm on the way.
Laura: Yes. Just go talk to the surface team.
Larry: Hopefully we'll get a hold of that and a few others things. Anyway, we're going to wrap the show up. We wanted to get together and give you a show. It's the highlight of my week to hang out in a small windowless room with Laura and Jeff. So, hopefully it's the highlight of yours as well. Jeffery. What are you doing?
Jeff: I'm looking at the travel thing.
Larry: You're looking at the over under on the game this weekend, aren't you?
Jeff: I'm also looking at, there's also some interesting soccer stuff trending. This is the last day of the transfer window Larry. It's important. I'm looking at this travel mug you just cost me money.
Larry: There you go. Word of mouth. We won't see you next week because I'm headed to Rare and Jeff and Laura can barely get here when I'm doing the show. They're not going to get here by themselves. We'll work on a video show for you in the future. Lot of good stuff planned for this year. So, find us on social. You can find Jeffery at ...
Jeff: @jeffrubenstein.
Larry: That's also the complaint desk. You can find Laura.
Laura: I am @lauralollipop.
Larry: That's the suggestion desk. I'm Larry. Xbox Live's Major Nelson. You can find me @majornelson. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye everybody.
Laura: Bye bye.