743: Warframe, ESPN and a new co-host!

Larry: Hi, it's Larry Hyrb, Xbox's Major Nelson, welcome to the show, the podcast. We're all back. I don't know what's going to happen when I hit this button, but I think... Yeah, there's Jeffery. Oh-
Jeff: There we are.
Larry: ... you did it. Now, I got to tell you Jeff, last week, I had Charlie on the show. She was amazing.
Jeff: She was really good. Why the hell am I here?
Larry: Well-
Jeff: No, she was really awesome.
Larry: ... some people asked that as well. [crosstalk 00:00:26]-
Jeff: Yeah.
Larry: But I've-
Jeff: I saw the comments.
Larry: ... actually got some really exciting news. We are and this-
Jeff: Go on.
Larry: ... Jeffery you know this, but we're kind of expanding the show a little bit. As you know, it's been you and I kind of holding up the corners of the sail to keep this boat afloat for a while, but joining us from, hopefully [crosstalk 00:00:45]-
Jeff: Let's go nautical, okay.
Larry: Are you ready? Hang on to your hats, because your screen's going to start doing some weird stuff. Here we go. Whoa, there we go. You should be seeing Rebecca.
Rebecca: Hi.
Larry: Hold on a second let me bring up your lower third there, as we like to say in the biz. Welcome to the show, Rebecca. It's good to see you.
Rebecca: Hey, that's for having me.
Jeff: Lowe third Larry.
Rebecca: I'm excited to join you guys.
Larry: I don't where the lower third [crosstalk 00:01:03] is, it's here somewhere, but-
Jeff: You get one in episode two. You have to last at least one episode before we put your Twitter up there.
Larry: There it is. There-
Rebecca: Oh, I see.
Jeff: Oh, there it is.
Larry: Anyway, it's great. As I said earlier, Jeff and I have been doing the show for a long time. Rebecca you work on the Minecraft comms team. You work communications for Minecraft community and all the rest of the stuff. Tell us a little bit about what you do over there. I mean, I kind of did, but it's more than that, right?
Rebecca: Yeah. So I get to work with a lot of our different community members in Minecraft. We have a lot of announcements and updates that we send out, and so, I'm part of the team that drives those. I'm also part of our Xbox social good team, so I get to contribute to different cultural moments, things like Black History Month and Earth day, different things that we celebrate within our broader global community too. And it's just a really good intersection between Minecraft and social good, because Minecraft is... I mean, maybe I just really love Minecraft, but we're a team that likes to have that positive impact on the community, and we like to do a lot of different things like the Education Edition and different partnerships. So yeah, I get to be a part of really exciting and really rewarding work. And I'm also a gamer, so I really love working for Xbox and Minecraft. So of my favorite games are Star Wars Battlefront-
Jeff: Yes.
Rebecca: ... both the old one and the one that just came out recently.
Jeff: Yes.
Rebecca: I don't know if you saw the Knights of the Old Republic rumor that's going around, but I also really love, BioShock-
Larry: We talk about rumors here Rebecca, because people think it's going to confirm it. So I mean, that is a rumor, but-
Jeff: He's the thing. You step out of line on this show, Jason Ronald just sweeps you right off. He's here, he sees you in that box in a second. It's happened to be.
Rebecca: Yeah. Okay. Bye.
Larry: No, stop. But anyway, as you were saying.
Rebecca: Yeah. I love BioShock, Halo, Minecraft, mostly shooters and RPGs, so it's been really exciting to work at Xbox. I've been on the team for almost eight years now.
Jeff: Wow.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Larry: Has it been that long?
Rebecca: Thanks for having me.
Larry: Well, it's great.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry: Jeff and I were talking and we were trying to get more people on the show, and you were just a great fit, because you actually helped me out, what was it? Last month with International Women's Day.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Larry: So you were kind of behind the scenes helping me do that, and then, I saw some videos you did. I'm like, "I got to get her on the show. You need to be-
Rebecca: Thank you.
Larry: ... part of the show. We need to get Jeff out of here." No. We need to-
Jeff: Where the hell-
Larry: I know where it's going. I know where it's going.
Jeff: It's fine because Rebecca's work with us forever and we've seen you on MineCon, and really a lot of the-
Rebecca: I live in a tiny apartment in Seattle, there's going to be some noise. I'm sorry.
Larry: Not only did we gain you as a cohost, but you also have a cohost of your own, correct?
Rebecca: Yes. Would you like to meet him?
Larry: Yes. I would like-
Rebecca: That's not him, that's someone else, actually.
Larry: So Jeff, I know you don't have any animals. I used to have dogs, but no-
Jeff: I caught a silverfish. Whoa.
Larry: Oh.
Rebecca: Hi, this is Pumbaa. He's my pug.
Larry: And look at-
Rebecca: He's my best friend.
Larry: How old is Pumbaa?
Rebecca: Pumbaa is nine months old-
Larry: Wow.
Rebecca: ... he was a pandemic puppy, but we're very happy together. It's good.
Larry: He looks... He may or may not-
Jeff: He looks happy.
Larry: The way animals work is just like kids, he may or may not be joining us for the show.
Rebecca: Cooperate, yeah.
Larry: He's welcome to join us. He's welcome not to. Anyways, welcome Rebecca and Pumbaa. Now, there's also another connection, Jeff, that will irritate you to no end, and you know this connection, is Rebecca is also a graduate of Syracuse University, Newhouse, specifically.
Rebecca: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Go orange.
Larry: Two thirds of this show are now Syracuse University.
Jeff: There's a reason I wore this shirt today. My Seattle, Florida shirt, what's going to happen is next week, I'm going to be gone, and Donovan McNabb will be sitting here.
Larry: You never know.
Jeff: He's the only person I can name from Syracuse, but-
Larry: He's great.
Jeff: Mike Tirico has retired, I might get Mike Tirico in here. I mean, if Mike Tirico wants to on the show, please boot me off, because he's amazing.
Larry: Speaking of ESPN, later on the show, I've got an interview with the esports and gaming expert at ESPN. I did that interview, that'll show up later on today. And Jeff, you had a chance to catch with somebody from Warframe, right?
Jeff: Yeah. Megan Everett, who's the senior community manager. Warframe's celebrating its eighth anniversary, and I fired it up, and there's a lot of game there. There's so much game there.
Larry: Yeah. Warframe. Great. Fun. By the way, Rebecca, what are you playing right now? I know you went through some of the stuff you are playing, but if I pull you up here, and you and I are... Do you want to give out your gamertag? Would that be okay?
Rebecca: Yeah. Sure. I'm grumpyramen, which-
Larry: Is that one word or two?
Rebecca: All one word. It reflects my love of noodles and also my sunny disposition. I think I've been offline for a long time. I've marked myself as offline. Don't tell my boss, it's because there have been a couple times I've played games during the middle of the day, and I didn't want anyone to notice. I mean, I guess, it's like I'm-
Jeff: Might as well [crosstalk 00:06:05]-
Rebecca: ... working at the right company for that though, so-
Larry: Yeah, there's-
Jeff: Let's be clear-
Larry: ... no penalty. I mean I told this story on a couple shows ago about how that happens to Phil Spencer. Where he's in a Satya meeting or whatever, and he's playing something on his PC, and apparently, Satya now notices. So I understand your concern.
Rebecca: Yeah. Let's see. Minecraft Dungeons released a Flames of the Nether DLC recently, so I've been rolling through that.
Larry: And you are, [crosstalk 00:06:33].
Rebecca: And then I've also been-
Larry: You're like unsure ramen in that one.
Rebecca: Yeah. And then I've also been-
Larry: People can't see it, but it says you played NBA 2K.
Rebecca: Yeah. I played it a little bit. Some of my friends... I'm not really one for sports games, but one of my best friends works at 2K, and so he's been bugging me to play NBA 2K with him, but it's not really my jam.
Larry: You know this-
Jeff: I know where you're going here.
Larry: Jeff loves it. Jeffery Dean [Kanillionaire 00:07:06]-
Jeff: You can create your own character. Obvious to say, you definitely want Jeffery Dean Kanillionaire in your [crosstalk 00:07:09]-
Rebecca: That's the only really good part. Yeah.
Larry: So anyway-
Rebecca: Creating the character and running around the city, yeah.
Larry: ... you're playing NBA 2K. And of course, you're playing Minecraft. I don't think you and I have played Minecraft.
Rebecca: We should. I'm pretty good. But then, I've also been playing back through BioShock Infinite, pandemic, a lot of spare time.
Larry: Right, right. And it's so good. It's so good. Jeff what are you playing, lately?
Jeff: Yeah. I was on vacation last week, and like I do when I go some place super nice, is I just bring my Series S and play games indoors. But the window is open-
Rebecca: Somewhere else.
Jeff: ... it's great. Yeah. So I played an ungodly amount of Dragon Quest 11, which I am about it beat. I have a saved game, and tonight or whatever, I'm just going to... that's it, it's the end. And that's like a 100 hour game, so I feel very accomplished. I have not been at the gym in about a year. And I got my second shot.
Larry: You drove by one.
Jeff: Well, I can walk there, but I don't feel safe. And then, MLB, so we-
Larry: Oh, that's right.
Jeff: ... did the interview with Ramone Russell last week. He's awesome.
Larry: By the way, thank you for doing that interview. I mean, Rebecca, I don't know if you saw this, but Jeff was away on holiday with his family, and with MLB now on Xbox, from PlayStation Studios, you had to do the interview, because you've known him for quite sometime, haven't you?
Jeff: I've known him for a long time. I've worked on MLB. I think the last time I had a hand in in some capacity, it was MLB 12 on PS Vita. I should probably grab that box. And they gave me, that year, a really nice Ryan Howard jersey, but here's the thing, Ryan Howard, himself wore it. Ryan Howard, who's like 270 pounds of muscle, and so it looks like-
Larry: Jeff's not.
Jeff: I look like a small child. I look like Dopey. You can't even see my hands out the sleeves, and they're short sleeves. That's how long it is. Yeah, so-
Rebecca: The viewers would never guess, but you're only like 5'2", right? Yeah.
Jeff: So tiny. So tiny. And you're like 6'6", so it's... Don't be fooled. Don't be fooled if we do a show at a future PAX or something, if we're able to do that again. Then people will no, we'll have a dunk contest and I'll stand on your shoulders. So MLB, and it's really good. If you haven't... I don't watch nearly as much baseball as I used to, but I mean, it's on Game Pass, so I fired it up, and I was like, I think I'm going to... This could get me back into baseball, just because it's super interesting and fun, and you can build your own stadium, which to me is the best part.
Larry: I want, first of all, two things from you Jeff. I need you to rebuild the Vette.
Jeff: I am going to rebuild the Vette. And then I'm going to move in like that guy that sent me that book.
Larry: And then, two, usually, we play Madden, should we do something in baseball? A little-
Jeff: That would be great.
Larry: ... Mets v-
Jeff: I'm going to destroy you.
Larry: ... Philly.
Jeff: I'm going to destroy you. Yes.
Rebecca: I'm experienced-
Jeff: Did you [crosstalk 00:10:09]-
Rebecca: ... in sports games, now. I'll come try.
Larry: You know what? Whoever... Well, maybe we'll do that. I don't know, we'll figure this out. But yeah, we should totally... Or we should find a three person game and just do it that way.
Jeff: Yeah. That we can... Dungeons, you were talking about playing during a meeting, there is no game better for playing during a meeting than Dungeons. Because you kind of turn your brain off a little bit. I don't mean that in a bad way, I mean in a great way, you can sort of just like... It's like a left brain, right brain thing, part of your brain focuses on the meeting, and the other part is perfect for Dungeons, where you're just sort of going through and exploring and... That's my go-to meeting game-
Rebecca: You have to work together a little bit, yeah.
Jeff: Yeah. So we've actually had some Minecraft Dungeons team building sounds really over the top, but we just took an hour out-
Larry: I remember.
Rebecca: Team fun, yeah.
Jeff: ... and a team of us played. Yeah. So we should do that. But Larry, this cloud game that you're playing right now, that looked really interesting to me, and I want to play it.
Rebecca: Yeah, what is that.
Jeff: Tell me about it.
Larry: So this is... it's on Game Pass right now, and it is called Rain on Your Parade, and I think grumpyramen would like this. But what it is-
Rebecca: I think so too.
Larry: I don't want to give too much away, but let me go full screen here so you can see it. But essentially you're a cloud, and I've customized my cloud here. He's got a fire hat on and he's got... Anyway, and you have to go through here and you have to rain... It tells you've got... So we have to soak the bride and the groom and soak all the humans, so we'll go, okay.
Rebecca: Oh, I love it.
Larry: And so here I am, and now I'm just going to start raining, causing chaos. So it's kind of like, the concept of the-
Rebecca: The goose game, right?
Larry: Right, where you cause chaos, but you have to rain over certain things, and... Anyways, so I've been playing-
Rebecca: Oh, my gosh.
Jeff: It's like rain-
Rebecca: You said it's on Game Pass.
Larry: It's on Game Pass, so download it-
Rebecca: Nice.
Larry: ... and it is... It's funny, I sent it to my sister, who loves the Untitled Goose Game, she's not a good gamer, and like three hours later, she's like, "This is the greatest game ever." So go check that out. I'm playing... Again, it's available now, it's called, Rain on Your... I haven't gotten to the parade yet. I've gotten a lot of other things, but I have not found the parade. Maybe that's the boss.
Rebecca: Maybe that's the final level.
Larry: Yeah, maybe that's the boss. But be sure to check that out.
Jeff: Soundtrack by Alanis Morissette, maybe. No.
Larry: Yeah, could be.
Jeff: Okay.
Larry: Yeah. So that's the big one that I'm playing. You can see me, I've still got Doom up here. I think I'm at the last level of Doom. Still doing Sea of Thieves. I tried out Fallout 76, I went back into that last weekend, and it was great to go into that. Have you played that one, Rebecca?
Rebecca: No, I haven't.
Larry: Yeah. You should.
Rebecca: I played New Vegas, but it's been a while.
Larry: Yeah. Well, the 76 is the multi-player, it's a living, breathing world, right Jeff?
Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. I'm friends with the community manager, Devann McCarthy-
Rebecca: Just smile and nod.
Jeff: ... she's amazing.
Rebecca: Yes.
Larry: Anyway that's-
Jeff: I don't... It's such a deep game, there's so much to it, that I have to have the time and I still haven't beaten all the Yakuzas yet. Although I did, segue, start Judgment, which is out today-
Larry: Thank you.
Jeff: ... depending upon when you're listening, which is sort of a spin-off, and we're actually going to be interviewing the producer, which I'm very excited about.
Larry: Next week.
Jeff: Next week, but I started playing it, and it's sort of like... My wife gets in there like a K-drama, and she knows within episode one of 16-
Larry: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. There's a lot of people that don't live on the West Coast, you need to explain what a K-drama is.
Jeff: It's a Korean drama. They're all over Netflix. There's a million of them.
Larry: I understand, but some people don't-
Jeff: Vagabond's my favorite, although that's less of a drama and more of an action, but it's still-
Larry: What makes them, I mean-
Jeff: It's a really good-
Larry: ... other than they're produced and so forth in Korea, but there's certain story elements that are similar to them, right?
Rebecca: I can-
Jeff: From the ones my wife sees... Why don't you, since she's actually Korean. I'm just going to take several seats.
Rebecca: Yeah. So I'm Korean American. Yeah, so K-dramas, it just means it's a Korean show. It's produced in Korea, it's Korean actors, Korean language-
Larry: It's got a Korean cast, right.
Rebecca: ... but it could be, there are funny K-dramas, which seems kind of counterintuitive, because it's a drama, but there are funny ones, they are action ones, there's like horror, and then there's the really, really-
Larry: Is it funny like-
Rebecca: ... sappy ones that-
Larry: ... dark humor funny? I mean, I haven't seen any, so I should check them out.
Rebecca: There could be. So there's another one, I think it's still on Netflix, called Strong Girl Bong-soon, which is about this girls who's crazy strong, and it just gets her into all this comedic chaos throughout her life. She has to hide her strength from all the guys she's talking to and things like that. So, yeah, K-Dramas are pretty cool.
Larry: Available on [crosstalk 00:14:33]-
Rebecca: There's a really good zombie horror one, too. Oh, what's it called? I think it's called, Kingdom, yeah. It's really scary, and it's a period one, so everyone's wearing the old traditional clothes, but then they're all fighting zombies. It's kind of a new twist.
Larry: That's cool.
Jeff: Yeah. So my wife is too scared to watch that one. But within the first few minutes, because there's so many to go through, there's more than you can possibly ever watch. Each one's like 16 episodes or something like that, and so, she'll know in the first 10 minutes, if she's going to be into that. And she just started a new one, and I started Judgment, which is like... I mean, there's a lot of elements between Yakuza games, and it's sort of over the top drama and melodrama, but then also sometimes so action and some humor and all this. And it was like episode one of Judgment for me, and I'm completely sucked in with it. And so it's out today, if you like the Yakuza games, you need to do it. This one's not on Game Pass, but I'm telling you, go support these games, because I want to see more of them on Xbox. And not a final review, but the first two chapters, so good.
Larry: You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll run the gamut of emotions.
Jeff: So good. So good.
Larry: All right, so we talked about what we're playing. Anything else you guys were playing? Or should we kind of move on? I know we've got some news to hit on before we get to the interviews, Jeff and Rebecca's going to do some... Do you have any... Well, we've got some Minecraft news. We'll have Rebecca give additional layer of that, how's that sound?
Rebecca: Yeah. It sounds great.
Larry: Jeffery, you got the news up there.
Jeff: I got the news up. I got the news up.
Larry: Oh, let's roll.
Jeff: Yeah. So this is something we've been talking about for a little bit, which is that Cloud gaming, which is currently available on Android devices is going to be coming to Windows 10, PC, and Apple phones and devices, iOS devices, like your iPad, and well, there's a limited beta that is beginning now for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members. If you're in XGPU, keep an eye out on your mail, you may get invited. I work here, so I've been testing it out, but actually as a Game Pass subscriber, received an email inviting me in, and I would say, keep an eye out, it may be coming to you. Well, if you're not on Game Pass, then you're not going to be able to try it out, but, yet-
Larry: No.
Jeff: ... another incentive. But over 100 games are available.
Larry: What are some of the highlights of this by the way?
Jeff: Yeah. So the invites are going out to 22 supported countries. There's about a 100 games available, over a 10 games through Cloud, a lot of times you will see that a game is available on console, PC, or Cloud, so you want to look for ones that are available for Cloud. There's also touch controls that are... So I would say, personally, I feel like the best way to play, if you're on a phone, on the iOS, there's something called the Backbone, which is really cool-
Larry: Oh, I think I have one.
Jeff: ... it's sort of almost... Yeah. So it kind of turns your iPhone into a Switch. Our host is gone, he's just gone. So this is where we talk about him [crosstalk 00:17:38]=
Rebecca: It's okay. What should we do now? Yeah.
Jeff: What is he wearing? I mean, come on. I mean, he started looking in the back room for cans.
Rebecca: What's in his background? That's what I really want to look at. Yeah.
Jeff: Yes. So many remote controls and headsets. Anyways, as we were talking about, he... There it is, Backbone. You didn't miss anything.
Rebecca: That's pretty cool.
Jeff: It's works really well for iOS devices. Then there's the Razer Kishi for Android devices, and so I have that for my Samsung phone, and that's also great. But you can also, of course, connect a controller through Bluetooth. Anyway, if any of those options are not for you, more than 50 games can use touch controls, which is really cool. And I think from a convenience factor, you decided, oh, I'm on a bus or something like that, I just want to fire it up, you can do that. Actually, Dungeons is a great game-
Larry: yes.
Jeff: ... to be playing on mobile with the touch... it was one of the very first games to have touch controls-
Rebecca: Yep.
Jeff: ... because it just works. So anyway, the action item here for you is sign up for Game Pass, if you haven't already, Ultimate, and then, keep an eye on your inbox, and then try it out and let us know what you think.
Larry: Yeah. You talked about the touch controls, Jeff, I use those and we've talked about Minecraft, and it's really great to see the developers, how they do the touch controls, because it's interesting, certainly, with as controller, you have your ABXY, and they've kind of put them in that layout on your screen. But they also, plus it up, because you don't have to go, oh, A is sword or B is... they'll actually have a little graphic or little emoji there that shows you what it is, so it's really helpful. I know that Minecraft has that, right, Rebecca?
Rebecca: Yes. Yeah. Minecraft Dungeons.
Larry: So seriously, check it out. If you're in the X-Cloud beta, you can just go to xbox.com/play, and away you go.
Jeff: All right. So the Xbox team, the hardware team, they're never done, it's constant improvement, listening, feedback, all that stuff, and so, a new update here, and one of the big ones is on the app. We had about it Jason Ronald was on here a few weeks ago, talking about how achievements are going to be coming, and they've been testing it out. More people are seeing it, so take your updates. I'm always bad at updating my apps on my phone. You might want to go in there and make sure you're-
Larry: Bad? Bad is an understatement, Jeffery. I have scolded you multiple times on this. Do you update your phone-
Jeff: Yeah. I just turned off the batch.
Larry: Do you update your apps on your phone a lot, Rebecca? I guess that's a no.
Rebecca: Sure.
Larry: That's a no.
Jeff: Who has the time?
Rebecca: Only when I'm forced to.
Larry: It's like pull it down, you get an update. You're going to get some new... Anyway, update.
Rebecca: All right. I guess I know what I'm doing later.
Jeff: So people update, and the rest of us... Well, anyway, I'm telling you, go out of your way to do it, because achievements may be there. They're for more people.
Larry: You can kind of see in advance.
Jeff: They're going to be for everybody, as we're saying, by the end of the month, which coming up pretty soon. It's great integration there, so keep an eye out for that on Android or iOS. New update for Game Pass. So when you look in the Game Pass section of your dashboard on your Xbox console, if people are playing a game that's in Game Pass that are friends with you, you can jump into easier. So there's X amount of people are playing Sea of Thieves or Minecraft or Squadrons or-
Rebecca: That's very cool.
Jeff: ... something like that. And it's always good... because sometimes you come in you're like, "Yeah, I'm going to play this," but then, I always check my friends list and it's like, whoa, some people were here, maybe I have just bad FOMO that I'm like, "Yeah, actually, I'm going to cancel all my plans, I'm going to play outriders now." And it's for people like me with no backbone or follow through, you can just find... you just drift with the wind-
Larry: You can have this Backbone.
Jeff: And there you go. It's wrapped-
Rebecca: There you go.
Jeff: ... in the cellophane, so I'll take that if you're not using it.
Larry: No. I have another one. This was the show. Anyway.
Jeff: Last one. This was definitely a highly requested, so when you're downloading games, if you are playing a game at the same time, it slows the download, because the bandwidth goes to the game-
Larry: The CPU as well yeah.
Jeff: ... to optimize for that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But if you're downloading and want to speed up your downloads, because we have quick resume and the game could be going, the queue will now let you know, "Hey, you've got an active that is slowing down your download. Do you want to quit it? Or you're good where it is?"
Larry: We cool?
Jeff: So if you see that option-
Larry: You cool?
Jeff: Yeah. To sort of suspend the game in order to prioritize the download, which is very handy. You just see it pop up when you go to download something, it's like, "Hey, there's some active games here." And you just go, "Oh, yeah, I'll suspend that." And away you go. Last bit of news in the top of the show that I wanted to bring up is something that we had talked about in February, is that online multi-player, for free to play games, is going to becoming for free, it's going to be unlocked, and that starts now. So as you're hearing this-
Rebecca: Wow.
Jeff: ... over 50 free to play games are outside of Gold now. So if you don't have Xbox Live Gold, you want to try any number of free to play games, like, I don't know, Warframe, perhaps-
Larry: Hey, how about Warframe?
Jeff: ... you can do that without a Gold subscription. That's really interesting that I brought that up. Yeah. Why is that Larry?
Larry: That's a segue. You know what we're going to do now? Is we are going to into, Jeff had a chance to catch up with the community manager from Warframe, and talk a little bit more about their eight year anniversary and their celebration coming up.
Jeff: As we're celebrating the unlocking of free to play games out from Xbox Live Gold this week, it made me think back to the early days of Xbox One, let's say 2014, and what to free to play met. It was very different back then. And I remember firing up a game, Warframe, back in 2014, and thinking, wait, this is free to play, with these production values, in this economy? Well, Warframe is now celebrating its eighth anniversary, and I'm very happy to be joined by Megan Everett, the senior community manager of Warframe, joining us from snowy Canada? Did I write that right?
Megan Everett: Very snowy, London, Ontario, Canada, at the moment.
Jeff: Well, perfect time to stay inside, I suppose. And-
Megan Everett: Exactly.
Jeff: ... you've got a lot to celebrate, with the eighth anniversary of Warframe. Now, I fired up Warframe this week, and the thing that just bowled me over was there is so much content. There is so much here. So tell us, maybe, about the newest content, Call of the Tempestarii.
Megan Everett: Yeah. So we launched Call of the Tempestarii April 13th on all platforms, so last week. And it was very exciting, because this is something that we strive to do, provide parity on all platforms and the community can really experience this content together as a unit. Call of Tempestarii itself brought our newest quest to Warframe that introduced a very important character named Vala, and her relationship with our 46th Warframe, Sevagoth. It also included a complete overhaul of our Railjack system, which for Warframe is space battles. You can hire crew members to put out fires on your ship, defend it from boarding parties, they can even pilot it, if you're outside flying around. The Call of the Tempestarii quest also included, what we're calling a Warframe sea shanty, it's titled, Sleeping in the Cold Below, one of my absolutely favorite parts of this update.
Our sound team, they're incredible, they worked with Keith Power, who does amazing soundtracks for Warframe, Alan Doyle from Great Big Sea, vocals by Damhnait Doyle, so it's a big Canadian roots there, and it's song that really catches your ear. And I find myself humming and whistling as I'm walking throughout my house, because I don't leave my house, but it's very much stuck in my brain.
Jeff: Yeah, sea shanty's very much having a moment here in 2021, glad to see Warframe joining in on that. You mentioned the 46 Warframes, let's say, you're watching this, you haven't maybe been playing Warframe or you're looking for something new, and you think, maybe this is something I'd want to get into. Where do you start? What is the onboarding, as they say in the industry, for a new player in such an established game, so that they're not intimidated?
Megan Everett: Yeah. That's a great question, because like you were saying, eight years of Warframe this year, which is huge. You look at that as a new player and you go, "Okay, there's probably way too much content for me to even get accustomed to, it's very daunting," and new player experience has always been very important to us. Even as we're developing content like Call of the Tempestarii, we always keep in mind how a new player would access this content or what it even looks like in-game, if you are just starting out. So over the eight years of playing Warframe, the opening cinematic that you're introduced to and the tutorial you're introduced to has really gone through so many iterations as the game mechanics themselves changed.
So now, if you boot up Warframe for the first time, you're greeted with a beautiful cinematic opening that was co-wrote and directed by Dan Trachtenburg, it really tells the beginning story of what Warframe is. You're then put into a tutorial, where you get your first big choice of Warframe, which is, what is your starting character going to be? It then takes you on a nice thematic journey to access your weapons and movement system, how to really traverse through this game, introduce to a whole bunch of new characters, and then, of course, our very, very important storyline is kind of unfolded before you.
Jeff: Yeah. I fired up Warframe this week for the first time on Series X, and it was looking very smooth. And this is a game that, if you haven't played, you're seamlessly moving between shooting and melee, and maybe one of the best slides on your knees in gaming, it's almost like Reynaldo scores a goal, and slides on a wet field towards the corner flag. But you're also then throwing kunai at the same time, which is pretty great. So talk about how the digital extremes team is taking advantage of Xbox Series X and S.
Megan Everett: Yeah. Absolutely, to the credit of the hardware itself, of the Xbox consoles, Warframe is really able to shine and provide that super smooth, quick load times as you progress through the game. Like you said, there's a lot going on, you're sliding, you're throwing things. Maybe you're out in Railjack flying around, you're in one of our open world levels, there's a lot going on and we're able to make that nice and smooth. There's that beautiful 4K resolution, 60FS on Series X, and for audio loving players, there's this new impulse response reverb that enables the audio in Warframe to be nice and rich. It's got sonic depth and detail, and one of my absolutely favorite parts of our Series X/S next gen build is the ability to have crossplay across all the Xbox consoles. And so I love playing with my Xbox One friends on my Xbox Series X.
Jeff: All right, so let's talk about you. You mentioned there's 46 Warframes, the Warframes are sort of the form that your character takes, different abilities and stats, and everything else. So what's your favorite? Who's your go-to right now?
Megan Everett: Oh, right now, my go-to... Well, I'm not going to lie, it's the newest Warframe Sevagoth. I actually just got all the pieces for him in-game, and I've been playing him. We've made some changes so far, in terms of how he plays, but he's just like a little ghost boy, and he's go two forms, so it's like a two for one kind of deal with him. I'm obsessed with him. He's big, he's scary, and he's just everything I'm all about.
Jeff: Sounds good. Now, I'm going to ask you a question here, maybe, you're big and scary, so I wanted to make sure we're not stepping over lines, but TennoCon is the annual Warframe convention, that's how big the game is, it has a convention, had to go digital last year, because everything had to go digital last year. Any news on TennoCon 2021?
Megan Everett: Yeah. Actually, when this podcast goes live, we will have recently announced that TennoCon 2021 has a confirmed date finally, July 17th, 2021. It's happening digital, coming to you live from your computer screens. The digital packs will be live. The merch packs are live. The digital pack is really just jammed full of really sweet in-game items that, perhaps, have a little nod to what you can expect to be revealed at TennoCon 2021. And like I said, if you're new to Warframe and you have no idea what a TennoCon is, it is our annual convention where we celebrate Warframe. It's community with a cosplay contests. You can see some really wonderful cosplays here. There's an art show. We have panels with the sound devs and the art devs, and of course, we have our big finale dev stream, where we reveal the kind of latest and greatest that's being developed behind the scenes.
It's truly a passion project that has evolved into something really special over the years, and each year we get to support a charity through TennoCon, and this year's is Unity Project, who provide emergency shelter and support for homeless youth and adults. And we would never be able to any of this without the players that play our game and support it over the eight years of being a free to play game in this industry. So we aim to make them proud, every single year with TennoCon, so fingers crossed for us.
Jeff: That's great. Thank you so much. I remember last year the team put together a great blog post detailing all of the announcements from TennoCon over on Xbox Wire. We invite you to do that again, because we would love to see... There was some pretty significant stuff last year, I have no doubt this year would be the same. Between now and then, if someone wants to learn more about the details for TennoCon, Warframe in general, where's the best place for them to go?
Megan Everett: Yeah. Definitely go to Warframe.com. You'll see it big right there excited about what's going on, all the links will be there. You can check it out. Of course, we've got our Twitter, PlayWarframe, our forums, [email protected], we'll be in there always, in-game. We're just everywhere, and you can definitely go to Warframe.com and that's kind of the host, the hub of where you can find all the information.
Jeff: Megan Everett, the senior community manager for Warframe, thank you so much for joining us. And Warframe, it's free to play, you don't even need Gold. Try it out, it's pretty cool.
Megan Everett: Try it out. Join me, I'll join you. Let's play.
Larry: All right, today, I'm excited to be joined by Arda Ocal, a legend on ESPN. Arda, welcome to the show.
Arda Ocal: Larry, it's great to be with you. Thanks for having me on your podcast. Great to be with a fellow legend, I guess, since you gave me such a wonderful introduction. Check's in the mail by the way. I'll send it to Bristol.
Larry: Okay. We're going to talk about that. Now, you are the ESPN esports and video game guy, which I'm sure a lot of folks out there are like, "Wow, how do I get that gig?" Because that sounds like a pretty sweet gig. People working at ESPN... I think I talked about this a moment ago. I grew up in Connecticut and a lot of my friends worked at ESPN. It's such a legendary brand and you landed the sweetest gig ever. Tell me about that.
Arda Ocal: Well, I mean, I grew up a lifelong video game fan, obviously, gamed all my life. Was pretty much my primary hobby and passion throughout my entire life. But esports definitely wasn't a thing when I was growing up. It was definitely like, "Hey, why don't you have some friends over and have local competitions, maybe." That was about it. So I also was a sports fan, growing up in Canada, big hockey guy, of course. If you don't like hockey, you get deported from the country, so became a big fan. And got into sports broadcasting, and I still play video games. Just my entire life, whatever it was, it was always a part of my life. And then, I navigated through my career going different places, doing different things, ended up working for WWE for a little while, also in Connecticut, so did that for a couple years.
And then I said, "I want to get back into sports." But that's where I started my esports journey with ESPN in 2016. Was doing the League of Legends World Championship was at MSG, and that was my first gig. And honestly, before then, I knew nothing about League of Legends, and I was like, all right, time for a crash course.
Larry: Let's do it. I mean, as you know in the business, that's kind of the way it starts, is somebody will ask you, "Hey, can you do this?" And you're like, "Yeah, I can do it. Shit, how do I do this?" Right?
Arda Ocal: Yeah.
Larry: You got to figure it out later on.
Arda Ocal: Sure I can. Yeah.
Larry: Sure I can. I love doing this. Working at ESPN, and I said a moment ago, I have a lot of friends there, one of my connections to ESPN, as you know I went to Syracuse University, Newhouse. A lot of Newhouse folks are at ESPN, and a good friend of my just recently retired from ESPN, actually, Mike Tirico. Did you ever get to work with Mike?
Arda Ocal: Oh, wow. No. I never had a chance to work Mike Tirico. I did not.
Larry: Mike was a good friend of mine. We went to school together, and he was always... I mean, his is probably one of the finest individuals I have ever met. I mean, he is just a lovable guy, so I'm bummed you didn't get to do that. All right, I'm done with the name dropping segment, I'll tell you that.
Arda Ocal: I will say this, I have done a couple of esport talks at Newhouse, so there's my Syracuse connection.
Larry: Oh, good. Oh, okay. I mean, I need to get back up there. I've done a few things on video game development and the stuff that I do, and that's a lot of fun. It's interesting because esports was kind of drifting along there like 2008 or '09 and then kind of really picked up speed, and we saw League of Legends coming over here. It's kind of settled in now hasn't it, in terms of what people are expecting from it, would you agree with that Arda?
Arda Ocal: I think so. I think the education is definitely there. It's no longer the perception of, oh, these are just kids playing video games in their parents basements and eating Doritos and drinking Mountain Dew out of their ZOA energy drink fridges. That doesn't happen anymore. That perception is gone, you know what I mean?
Larry: Right.
Arda Ocal: It's definitely... Look at what teams are doing now, they're hiring team chefs, they're hiring psychologist, they're hiring personal trainers. They're treating their organizations like major professional sports teams, as they should.
Larry: Right. I mean, it's exactly what it is, and there's so much money in it. I remember, I've told this story a couple times, I remember, probably about 10 years ago, I was doing some CoD tournaments, and I remember I was talking with this individual, he was a nice young guy and he had just finished his competition, I don't think he went onto the finals, but he was really depressed, and I said, "Hey, man, how you doing?" He said, "Oh, I'm really bummed out." I said, "Well, what's wrong?" He said, "Well, I have to retire now." And Arda, I don't think he was any more than 21 years old, and he's like, "My reflexes just aren't as good as they were." I'm like, oh, my goodness. You're barely legal age, and you're already retiring. That's kind of crazy in the sport. Are you seeing the same thing from where you're sitting, in terms of the audience is still fairly young?
Arda Ocal: Oh, absolutely. The audience is young and also the age of competitors is very young as well. I mean, certain titles will lend itself to even younger competition. You look at Fortnite, for example, and you see a lot of players in their early teens that are competing for substantial amounts of money, in high profile tournaments. The thing is, is that there isn't a lot of education. This is something that I've noticed in the last couple years, is that now there's starting to become a lot of education in terms of what to do after in esports. Let's say, you can't compete at the highest levels anymore, well, what else can you do?
Okay, well, maybe you can create content, maybe you can work in the marketing department, maybe you can work for an organization, or even a developer. There are so many different avenues and this education is finally coming to these players. And not as many of them feel despondent, oh, my career is over. Now they have a sense of optimism, because they know that there's so much more out there in which they can contribute.
Larry: When you're working at ESPN, one of the things, certainly, it's global sports coverage and they do all the sports. I mean, remember ESPN when they were struggling for content. This is probably a little before your time, but they were playing Australian rules football at like 2 o'clock in the afternoon, which is a great sport, but it was in America back then, you're like, "What is this?" How do you see the traditional sport's coverage drifting over into esports and vice versa? Is there a toing and froing of sharing of ideas? Or tell me a little bit about what that's like.
Arda Ocal: So I think the paradigm has shifted there. Before it was, what can we take from traditional sports, because traditional sports is established and they have the formula, they've been doing it for decades, so let's glean from there. But to me, esports has finally realized, you know what? We have our own identity. We have our own way of presenting, and not only that, interacting with the audience at real-time, Twitch chat being a perfect example of that. So to me, it might be the other way around, Larry. I might be the fact that traditional sports is looking at esports and saying, "We might want to take some pointers from their method of presentation from the tricks of the trade that they have presented, particularly, during the pandemic, when there was more eyes on esports or gaming competitions, and suddenly people were like, that's a great idea."
It's sort of like when the XFL started and all of a sudden the NFL was looking at it and saying, "Wow. I like this camera angle," or, "I like what they're doing here." For all the malignment that a lot of lower level leagues get, they had some pretty good innovations that major leagues ended up picking up.
Larry: It's interesting you say that about the camera angles, because I was thinking about that, the beauty of video games is you can place that spectator cam anywhere in the arena, whether it's a sports game or a FPS or whatever it is, and you can easily say, "Oh, let me drag it over here and put it over there." Versus with traditional sports where you say, "Okay, we need to have 17 cameras, we've got to start setting up on Wednesday for the Sunday show." I mean, there's a lot of it... It's just a different type of advance work. But it's also much more flexible, because of the interactive nature of it, you can allow in someways to allow the viewer to decide what camera to look from and view from. There's just so much more interactivity, right?
Arda Ocal: Yeah, exactly. And even with the developers involved, now, they can mold the spectator modes and add angles at their will, in the game play. This year in League of Legends, for example, they've added certain angles and view points that we didn't even think about years ago, which is super impressive to see and now that's starting to permeate in other leagues as well. We're starting to see leagues experiment with that, with spectator mode and seeing where, well, this will be interesting to see in a reverse angle, or an instant replay, et cetera. So, to me, that's all innovative things that traditional sports can look at and say, "Hey, you know what? Maybe we should be learning from esports" as opposed to the other way around.
Larry: Yeah. Because I just love the sharing of ideas, and they call it best practices in corporate America, and it's just great to see that sharing. But more importantly, it's really advancing both sides. It's advancing the coverage of esports and it's advancing the coverage of the traditional sports. Because more and more I tune into traditional sports whether it's baseball or soccer or football or whatever you want, and I'm seeing the influences of video games. I'm seeing a more traditional HUD. I'm seeing, to your point, the different angles. I'm seeing, oh, wait a minute, we can now see the angles of the pitch. Back in the day, the most advanced thing was like Madden view, where he was sketching things off, right?
Arda Ocal: Exactly.
Larry: Now things are happening real-time and you can see the hot zone of this is the area that sees the most activity on the field. And, again, it's all from video games.
Arda Ocal: Yeah. I'll tell you from my point of view, I do a lot of sports coverage, right?
Larry: Right.
Arda Ocal: So I'm working on SportsCenter or SportsNation and et cetera, doing a lot of traditional sports coverage. But even on those shows, especially, if they're talk shows or magazine style shows, the idea of video game segments or incorporating news from the video game world, is not out of the ordinary anymore. This is common place. I'll give you a perfect example, when EA announced that college football would return, that was a major story, when Fortnite does a soccer collaboration, I'm talking about it on multiple platforms. When Neymar was announced or the multiple clubs and skins in the game were announced, I was talking about it on multiple shows, writing articles about it, and doing segments for people. So this is common place now. We've definitely come to a point where that sort of content is wanted.
Larry: All right. You know what? I've got some notes here, so I want to do the old ESPN Around the Horn angle here. I'm going to give you some rapid fire questions, we're going to bang through them pretty quickly, and I want to see what the answers are. Are you ready?
Arda Ocal: Yes.
Larry: All right. Favorite sports video game when you were young?
Arda Ocal: NHL 94, no question.
Larry: Favorite sports video game today?
Arda Ocal: Favorite sports, Rocket League.
Larry: All right. Favorite interview that you've done?
Arda Ocal: Probably, the Rock.
Larry: Biggest sports interview you want to host? One you haven't done.
Arda Ocal: Biggest sports interview I want to do?
Larry: Yeah. You haven't done yet.
Arda Ocal: Oh, Lord. Oh, I haven't done yet.
Larry: Yeah.
Arda Ocal: Mats Sundin, my favorite Leaf of all time. I guess-
Larry: Biggest-
Arda Ocal: ... that doesn't count big, it's big for me.
Larry: Okay. I said big. I said big.
Arda Ocal: You're like, who? What? And I'm like, come on hockey fans, where you at?
Larry: Wikipedia. All right, of all the athletes you've known or follow, who, in your opinion, is the most real gamer?
Arda Ocal: The most real gamer?
Larry: Yeah.
Arda Ocal: Devin Booker's a real gamer. Mitch Marner is a big Fortnite guy, he plays for the Maple Leafs. Yeah, there are definitely a few. Josh Hart is a big gamer as well.
Larry: Yeah. I mean, to your point, we'll wrap that... I mean, that's not the last question there, but that's what I've noticed also is whether the professional sports, because they're so focused on their on field or on court, the game is the thing, is that they travel with consoles. They all travel with their Xbox Series Ss-
Arda Ocal: Yep, they do.
Larry: ... and they're playing the night before, so they can stay in their room and stay focused. And it's just great to see that that's kind of the thread through a lot of the esports, certainly, esports, but just casual video games is something that a lot of the athletes today are really participating in. Not because it's like, okay, let's do this, it's they grew up doing it, right?
Arda Ocal: Yeah.
Larry: That's what they did when they were younger.
Arda Ocal: And Tarik Cohen wins tournaments. He literally enters Fortnite tournaments and wins.
Larry: Right. Yeah. That's kind of bananas isn't it?
Arda Ocal: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Larry: When you look at the athletes, the traditional athletic athletes that... Athletic athletes, that's a weird way to put it. When look the traditional athletes that you interview and then you look at the esports folks, what are some of the commonalities and the personality traits? Certainly the focus, certainly... Do you see any similarities there?
Arda Ocal: Well athletes are more media trained. That's starting to come into esports a little bit more, so if we're putting that aside, personality-
Larry: Sure.
Arda Ocal: ... they all have a competitive spirit. They all want to win. They all have a passion for what they're doing, and you can tell. It permeates from them. If all they talk about is that all day long, they're fine with it. They're thinking about it all day long. They're consumed by it. They're thinking of ways to get even over that top one percent hump, in order to win and compete and have the edge over their opponent. So it's always interesting to talk strategy with athletes and with esports competitors, because of the way that they think about their particular game is some much different than any casual player would. And so, that's always fascinating. But, yeah, passion, desire, confidence as well, they feel like they belong there much of the time, as they should because they have a talent and a skill. So, yeah, those are some of the traits I'd say.
Larry: It's interesting you say that, because I remember when I was a Syracuse, and I haven't really talked about this publicly, but I wanted to go to Syracuse to Newhouse to be a sport's broadcaster. And I had done a little bit before, but when I got there, this is a true story, I saw the talent that I was up against, like Mike Tirico, who would come on to do great things for ESPN, and I cashed out. I'm like, "I can't do this." I respected them so much and knew that I could never do that, and have that kind of dedication and focus, and I went an entirely different direction. Here we are in video games. But, yeah, so I-
Arda Ocal: I think you did okay.
Larry: I did. Thank you very much.
Arda Ocal: I think you did all right.
Larry: I appreciate that. I do too. But it was just one of those things, because when you see that, you see this pure talent and you have to respect that talent, Arda, it's really... And I know you and I have seen some amazing athletes and professionals in the day, and it's really, it's humbling, isn't it, when you see this talent?
Arda Ocal: It absolutely is. And it's nice when they're humble too. Because athletes can be real jerks about it, like, "I'm the best," and everything. And somethings that makes for a good soundbite, but definitely not as a role model.
Larry: Yeah. Definitely not somebody you want to spend your time with too. You know what, unfortunately, we have to wrap it up though. Do you have any final words? How do people find you, by the way? I know I flashed up your Twitter a couple times. What's the best way to find you and get in touch with you?
Arda Ocal: Yeah. You can find me on Twitter @Arda, @A-R-D-A, that's my central hub, so everything that I post, whether it's segments on ESPN or whatever it is, that all goes there. Yeah, this was fun. I appreciate being on here. This was a thrill to get an invite.
Larry: Arda. I got to tell you, I've been a fan for you for a long time. I want to have you back on, we'll talk about some other things. Maybe, I'll just have you on on a quarterly, just to kind of have a regular segment on, and you can come on and I'll let you go, and we'll have a little bit of fun here, right?
Arda Ocal: I would love that. That'd be amazing.
Larry: So we'll talk about that. Arda Ocal from ESPN, where can they find you on air, on ESPN proper?
Arda Ocal: So I do SportsCenter on multiple platforms whether it's Snapchat, Radio, et cetera, that's about once a week. SportsNation, it's on ESPN+ every single day. You can see me hosting there multiple times a week, and In the Crease, which is our daily hockey show. That is on ESPN+ as well. You'll find several gaming segments on all of those different shows and properties, because if there's one person that's banging the drum for gaming at ESPN, it's definitely me. So I'm all for it.
Larry: We've got the Seattle Kraken coming here to Seattle soon, so we're going to have a little thing there. I know you've got your Maple Leafs, but whoever has a better record, we're going to do a little jersey swap, and I'll have to wear yours on air if you guys are better or you'll wear the Kraken, how's that sound?
Arda Ocal: The first game, we should definitely do that on the next podcast. I'll wear a Kraken jersey, if your Seattle Kraken beat my Maple Leafs in their first game.
Larry: All right. Deal. All right my friend, we'll chat with you later, and I look forward to see you on ESPN.
Jeff: That's Arda Ocal from ESPN, wrapping up our back to back Ontario Canadian section. I didn't realize that was a recurring theme, but you know what? New host, new province, let's just... we're mixing things up.
Rebecca: Sure.
Jeff: What do think about that, have a proper open next week. It'll be-
Larry: Why not?
Jeff: Why not?
Larry: Why not?
Jeff: Why not?
Larry: Anyway, great. Thank you all my guests. Jeff, thank you for doing that. We're going to have you do some interviews as well coming up in future shows, so you're going to have a chance to interview some crazy people, maybe some Minecraft people, maybe not.
Jeff: Those were very sane people, Larry, I don't know what you're sort of-
Larry: Us. We're the crazy ones.
Rebecca: Great. I'm excited to ask some hard questions.
Larry: We've got some other news as well, including some Minecraft news we're going to have Rebecca talk about. So Jeff, why don't you get us rolling with some even more news.
Jeff: Oh, sure.
Rebecca: Lots of news.
Jeff: Every other show... Yeah. It's a very news heavy week, which is good, because it means a lot more games to play. So new update on Xbox Game Pass, as you well know, MLB The Show 21 came out on Game Pass for Cloud and console this week. Couple additional games on Cloud, which is always really cool to see, when a older game, like from the 360 era comes out, so Fable Anniversary and Fable 3 are now available on-
Larry: Yes.
Jeff: ... Cloud. You can just pick up your saved game from 2007 and jump back in, which is always kind of like, wait, what? That's what happened to me with Warframe, because it was like, what's the last achievement I unlocked? Oh, that was in 2014. And then I went and unlocked like six more, which was pretty good.
Larry: That's the beauty, because I can't even find files I created five years ago on my PC, and these are files... this is a saved file it's 15 years old.
Jeff: Jason Ronald finds each save file for you, he's actually back there doing it-
Larry: It actually goes and puts on a hat-
Jeff: ... he's just connecting things, like an old school switch port.
Larry: ... he retrieves it, he goes through the files, pulls it out. It looks like-
Rebecca: He's the guy.
Larry: ... the Raiders of the Lost Ark thing, all of our saved games are on there.
Jeff: Yes. Yes. They're a top man on your saved game, but every time it downloads, I'm just like, "Thank you. Thank you Jason for finding that for me." So a couple new games, entirely new, that are coming to Game Pass. One is Second Extinction, that'll be coming out on April 28th. You might remember this sort of dinosaur looking game that we showed last summer, I want to say. That's coming into game preview. This is actually one of the more exciting games for somebody who played like Dino Crisis growing up, and so that'll be in game preview for Cloud, console, and PC. It's an ID@Xbox game. Next week, maybe, we'll be talking about next week.
And then, also, next week April 29th, a relatively new game, which was the remake of Destroy All Humans! And that will be available, like I said-
Larry: Ken loved this.
Jeff: You were very into that. You were playing-
Larry: I loved-
Jeff: ... it on the show.
Rebecca: I never played that one.
Larry: Yeah. You play this little human crypto, or he's run by crypto, and you've got to run around-
Jeff: An alien.
Larry: Alien, yeah. It's just, you're doing just crazy stuff, so it's... I don't know why, I got hooked on that. It was a weird time in my life, Jeff and Rebecca, it was a very weird time.
Jeff: Which we called, October, or something. It was not that long ago. Anyway, Destroy All Humans! Coming out on console, PC, and Cloud, Xbox Game Pass on April 26th. The Fable games will be April 30th, by the way. And since we're talking about Game Pass, one of the biggest sort of plus ups or benefits of being a Game Pass Ultimate subscriber is EA Play. There are tons of games to play in that vault, and those games are getting better. So as you hear this, many of these games have doubled in frame rate, so Sea of Solitude is now up to 60 frames per second, and a number of them now are supporting up to a 120 frames per second. I'll just rattle through these lists, Battlefield 1, 4, and 5, I threw myself off with the number, Titanfall 1 and 2, Unravel 2, Star Wars Battlefront 1 and 2-
Larry: 120 frames on Star Wars Battlefront?
Jeff: Exactly.
Larry: Wait a minute.
Rebecca: The 2017 version, right? Not-
Jeff: Yes.
Rebecca: Yes.
Jeff: Well, yeah. Actually, it says, Battlefront and Battlefront 2. I think these are the more, yes, the more recent versions, but-
Rebecca: Yeah. [crosstalk 00:52:43]-
Jeff: ... you've got a 120 hertz. They were already really smooth. I think those ones were already running at 60 frames per second, but doubled. Mirror's Edge Catalyst and the Plant vs Zombies games, Battle for Neighborville, Garden Warfare 1 and 2, all now supporting a 120 hertz.
Larry: Wow.
Jeff: You don't have to do anything. I don't even think you have to download an update for those-
Rebecca: That's amazing.
Jeff: ... they just do it.
Larry: All of a sudden-
Jeff: I don't know how that happens, but-
Rebecca: It's just better.
Larry: ... more frames.
Jeff: Yes. And those games are all part of Game Pass.
Rebecca: So you don't always have to update. Right?
Larry: Right. That's right.
Jeff: How does that even happen?
Larry: Shh, don't ask questions.
Jeff: They just wake up one day, and they're like, "I feel twice as good. I feel twice as-
Larry: Jeff, how does a bird fly? How does the sun the shine? It just happens.
Jeff: But what if that bird is now flapping at twice the rate as... Anyways, I'll leave that alone.
Rebecca: Yeah. Now it's going... yeah.
Jeff: All right. Speaking of birds-
Rebecca: Every bird is now a hummingbird.
Jeff: Speaking of birds-
Larry: Yes.
Jeff: ... Earth Day, we're doing some cool stuff.
Rebecca: Oh, yeah.
Jeff: And Minecraft is sort of foremost among them.
Larry: Oh, Earth Day. I love Earth Day.
Jeff: Rebecca-
Larry: Rebecca, tell us about a little bit of the Earth Day action.
Rebecca: Yeah. I mean, not to brag, but Minecraft is participating in Earth Day or doing some stuff to celebrate Earth Day. So we have an ongoing partnership the Nature Conservancy, we have a new map that's come out, called Sustainability City. And it kind of maps to some of the UN's sustainable development goals, so you can explore things like responsible food production and recycling and clean water. And these things might sound kind of boring, but we've put it together in a way that's really fun. And then there's also a lesson for people who are educators or using Minecraft in the classroom and actually want to use it to teach kids about sustainability too, so it's pretty neat.
But then across all of Xbox, we have different collections. This is all in the Xbox Wire post, so go check it out. We have different collections of movies and games and TV that are kind of laddering up to Earth Day and kind of have that sustainability messages, so games like Grounded, I think Astroneer is another one. And then, I know that Halo is also doing... they're releasing a Hog wild name plate, and spoiler alert, it ties back to the warthog in-game. So there's just a lot of cool stuff going on across Xbox for Earth Day, and I think it's pretty cool to get to be a part of it too.
Larry: Yeah. Earth Day is so important. I mean, you talked about it's... I actually find it fascinating, because, I mean, look, we live on this planet, third rock from the sun, we live on this planet. We have to take care of our home people.
Rebecca: Yeah. Nowhere else to go. Yeah.
Larry: We've got nowhere else to go.
Rebecca: Mars colonization is not going well.
Larry: So we need to... Did you see the helicopter, by the way, lift off on Mars? That was kind of cool, the drone.
Rebecca: Yeah. That was neat.
Larry: Jeff, did you watch that?
Jeff: No. I was playing Outriders, and that also showed that, if things don't work out on Earth, do not expect some other planet to save you, because it's pretty bad over there.
Larry: Anyway, that was kind of cool to see that with the NASA thing this week. To me it's amazing how much, and we talked about this is the ESPN interview, video games technology and what we expect is other area, and it looked like a game to me. This little thing taking off on Mars and it was really kind of cool. But anyway, long story short is we have to take care of our planet. Let's do that. That's important. Thank you. Okay, Jeff.
Jeff: So one of the easy things that you can do, just with regard to all this, and while you're playing games, sometimes if you launch a game that is... In Game Pass, you can get these Microsoft rewards, so every time I load up Dragon Quest it pops up, just hold down-
Larry: Or Yakuza.
Jeff: ... the Xbox button... Yeah, I mean, absolutely, and so I'm racking up these points, and you can actually go ahead and donate them to the World Wildlife Fund and the Nature Conservancy, and then Microsoft will double that, which is pretty cool. You can use those to buy other things, so do what works for you. But if you've got... Somebody needs to take a look, because if you haven't looked in a while, you might have thousands of points, which is worth real dollars that you can donate to a number of different worthwhile charities, and I think I gave to the Nature Conservancy this month, and I've got another few thousand points racked up, and I'll go do it again. So it's a [crosstalk 00:57:03]-
Larry: I need to go find out, because I know I've got a bunch, and I donated a bunch last year. So I think you're... Thank you for the reminder. That was a great PSA.
Rebecca: Yes.
Larry: Yes. Anything else you had over there?
Jeff: There's a couple little news bits here.
Larry: Let's have it.
Jeff: There's a new Warhammer game, Age of Sigmar that was just announced. Look, that's turn-based strategy, so I'm like, "Yeah, I'll play that." That's coming out in May. And then there's sort of like a, I don't want to say, Olympics, but the Guardian Games are coming back to Destiny 2, and this is where you're sort of divvied up like the hunter and the titan and the warlock, and they're all sort of competing against each other for-
Larry: Oh, I did see that. I did see that.
Jeff: ... who's the best class. And so that's going until May 11th, there's some fun things, activities. There's an exotic that you can get, just through this event, and an exotic sparrow as well. And then the Lamborghini Huracan, which was the cover car of Forza Horizon 3-
Larry: Do you remember when we had that at E3?
Jeff: ... so if you've seen that before... I don't know, did we drop the Huracan? It was yellow. I remember it was a super-
Larry: And I remember I was... We had it before it was-
Jeff: ... Lamborghini.
Larry: Do you remember that Rebecca? And we had it in front of the Galen, and I remember I got in trouble, because I put a banana on it for scale, if you remember? Do you remember that?
Jeff: That seems like something you would do.
Rebecca: No, I don't remember that. I remember the car though. Yeah.
Larry: I got in trouble for that, but okay.
Jeff: Well, that Lamborghini-
Rebecca: No. It's always nice-
Jeff: ... is now in Rocket League.
Rebecca: ... to see the Forza cars roll through at E3.
Larry: Yeah. That's pretty impressive.
Jeff: Or drop from the ceiling, as they've done in the past.
Rebecca: Oh, yeah.
Jeff: Anyway.
Larry: Anyhow.
Jeff: So the Lamborghini Huracan is in Rocket League. So if you really like that car, you fell in love with it with Forza Horizon 3, well, it's in Rocket League starting today.
Larry: Awesome.
Rebecca: It's crazy. That's pretty cool.
Larry: Awesome.
Jeff: You can fly a Major Nelson flag in there-
Larry: Yes, you can.
Jeff: ... if you so desire.
Larry: I have my own flag in there. That's right, I remember. Thank you for that call back, Jeff.
Jeff: Yeah.
Larry: Do you have season two Sea of Thieves on your list of things to talk about, because as somebody who's playing that game, I'd love to talk about that.
Jeff: Talk about it. Let's do it.
Larry: Well, the update was available last week, but it's free for all players with Xbox Game Pass. It's got more sea of thieving in there. It's fortune event, but really... merchant alliance trades, just I'm into that game. Jeff, you and I played that a little bit, we need to go back and into that. Rebecca, I'd love to have you play on that game. Have you played that game?
Rebecca: Only a little bit, but yeah, I'd love to get back into it.
Larry: Oh, you have not visited this game recently, and when I say recently, like the past six or eight months, you need to go visit it, because it's a completely different game.
Rebecca: Okay. Yeah. Cool.
Larry: Jeff, you have a smirk on your face. I'm a little concerned.
Jeff: No, I was like-
Rebecca: I know. What's that look.
Jeff: ... what was that sound? I heard a real weird sound, and maybe it's just in here. But, yeah, so we played-
Rebecca: It might be Pumbaa.
Jeff: ... with Ryan-
Larry: Yep.
Jeff: No, it was great. It sounded like a dragon sleeping, actually. So-
Rebecca: It's Pumbaa.
Jeff: Yeah. It's Pumbaa. Okay, cool. Ryan [Trite 01:00:00],[trite and true 01:00:02], who we play with sometimes, he's the best ship captain, and he makes you feel useful, even though you know you're not, which I'm definitely not.
Larry: He and I have nicknamed, when we go out, I call Trite Charters. He takes charters out almost every day.
Rebecca: Trite Charters.
Larry: He takes charters out almost every day, and they're full. And I'm the only he yells at, if you notice. He ignores me or yells at me all time, because he just... I don't know why. It's that type of relationship.
Jeff: You can't help sometimes. You'll get there Rebecca. You'll get there.
Rebecca: I mean, maybe the problem isn't him, maybe you're doing something.
Larry: Guilty as charged.
Rebecca: Maybe you're not a great shipmate.
Larry: I ring the bell and it irritates him. He's like, "It's not dinnertime." The bells [crosstalk 01:00:42]-
Rebecca: Well, there's our answer.
Jeff: There we go. Of course, we're recording this before lunch, and just saying that made me hungry.
Larry: That's another thing, Rebecca, is we tend to record this at this time, and it's usually lunchtime, and Jeff and I get hungry, and so, I don't know... Is Pumbaa hungry? Is Pumbaa eating?
Rebecca: No, he's-
Jeff: I think so. I think I hear her.
Rebecca: He has a stuffed Pumbaa toy, and either he gets flirty with it, if you know what I mean, or he'll just chew on it, and he's kind-
Larry: Does he get randy?
Rebecca: ... of doing a little bit of both of those right now. Yeah. A little bit, I wasn't sure how much I could say on here.
Larry: Wow. I think people know.
Jeff: That's more than enough.
Rebecca: He's a growing boy.
Larry: It's more than enough.
Rebecca: It's quite the sight seeing Pumbaa go at Pumbaa.
Larry: PVP means something completely different.
Rebecca: Yes.
Larry: Anyway. Right Jeff? This is about the time when the show unwinds. All right, what else we got, because we're... This is exciting. I'm really excited to have you onboard Rebecca and have you be part of this nonsense, so thank you.
Rebecca: It's fun. It's nice to have an excuse to put on real clothes and makeup once a week now, because was not doing it before.
Larry: Did you hear that Jeff? Real clothes and makeup.
Jeff: Sweatpants are real clothes.
Larry: What's the over/under? [crosstalk 01:02:03]-
Jeff: [crosstalk 01:02:03] right there.
Larry: ... I bet you don't even shoes on.
Rebecca: Well, you're inside. Maybe this is the Asian in me, "You should not be wearing shoes inside."
Larry: Oh, there we go.
Rebecca: Oh, no.
Larry: Slippers.
Rebecca: Oh, no.
Jeff: No, they're indoor slippers.
Rebecca: Okay. Okay.
Larry: He has indoor slippers.
Rebecca: Okay.
Jeff: My wife would kill me if I had shoes on in the house, are you crazy?
Larry: I agree. No shoes in house.
Jeff: Yeah.
Larry: Well, then, actually, Rebecca now that we've got you on the show, hopefully, on a regular basis, we should also talk more about, another thing we frequently talk about on this show, which is, Asian toilets.
Rebecca: Oh, my gosh, that's something that you guys have actually talked about more than once.
Larry: Here's the [crosstalk 01:02:42]-
Jeff: Larry, Larry, is a TOTO influencer.
Larry: I'm a TOTO influencer-
Jeff: TOTO Washlet influencer.
Larry: ... for Washlets.
Rebecca: Oh, my gosh. That's amazing.
Larry: So we can talk... we don't have to talk about it now, but it's a passion project of mine.
Rebecca: All right, I definitely want to come use the bathroom at your house sometime.
Larry: You are... Or Jeff's house. I mean, we've-
Jeff: Mi casa es su casa.
Rebecca: And there's a sentence I never thought I would say, but-
Larry: It is a-
Jeff: There we go.
Larry: ... unilateral-
Rebecca: Mi toilet es su toilet.
Larry: As long as you bring Pumbaa, both.
Jeff: Pumbaa will love it.
Larry: Yeah, Pumbaa will love it.
Jeff: Love it.
Larry: We've got a-
Rebecca: Well, I don't know about that.
Larry: ... lot going on. We've got some more interviews coming up. Rebecca, I'm going to talk to you off the air about some other interviews we're going to have, that I'd like you to do. We've great Minecraft news coming up. You talked about the Earth Day... You guys always having something going on over on Minecraft, right? I mean, it just feels like it's constant-
Rebecca: Yeah..
Larry: Right. You've got your finger on the pulse of the world.
Rebecca: I feel like the Minecraft team is almost aggressively philanthropic. Everyone that I work with want to do something for every cultural moment, every global moment, too. It's a team full of really passionate people, honestly.
Larry: Yeah. I mean, I love what they do over there. And there's whole other part of Minecraft that a lot of people know about, but there's a lot of people that don't know about it, which is the Education Edition for schools. Because my young lady isn't in school yet. I was talking with a friend of my who has a little girl and boy in school, and they were telling me how amazing the Minecraft: Education Edition is. But that's a whole other conversation.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Larry: Have you played that Jeff?
Rebecca: No, it's cool.
Jeff: Well, my daughter's been playing Minecraft since as soon as I could put a controller in her hand. She's very good at it. But we've participated in Hour of Code and things like that, that used Minecraft to teach coding mechanics, and they're really well done. Even when she was six or seven, she was small, and she was able to do the majority of the lessons, with my help. And it was really cool to see her work out the logic and she's developed a real, and maybe it's just her and maybe this is the early exposure to it, but a real love of logic things, so like Sudoku or Rubik's Cubes and other things that make her... I can't be smart, I should at least make my kid smart.
Rebecca: Well, it's really cool. Kids these days get to use computers. I mean, this last year, obviously, it's been a little bit different, and not as exciting. But kids these days use computers and games to learn, which is so crazy to me, because I didn't even... I think all throughout elementary school, I only used a computer like once or twice, all of my assignments were handwritten, you know?
Jeff: Yeah.
Rebecca: But now, kids get to use Minecraft in schools, which is so awesome. But then we also, because of the pandemic, we created a Minecraft Education Collection, and so it's available in the game itself. So there is different lesson that kids who are stuck at home, they can still play through those, and it's an educational experience. I tell a lot of my parent friends about this, and they're like, "Wow, that's really cool. I didn't know it was available." So, yeah, a lot of good stuff out happening.
Larry: And not only that, I've called Minecraft as the kind of the playground of the current generation. Like when Jeff, when you and I or maybe Rebecca, when we would go on a playground, when we were younger, we learned how to behave, how to talk to people, sometimes we'd get thrown out of the playground, what to do and what not to do, kind of the social constructs, but nowadays, it's Minecraft, because you get kicked of the server. It's like getting kicked off-
Jeff: Or don't touch my stuff. Don't destroy my house, stay out of my [crosstalk 01:06:21]-
Larry: Right. That's what I said-
Jeff: ... box. Yeah.
Larry: It's just such an amazing, amazing tool. So I'm really excited to have you on a regular basis update us more about what's going on with Minecraft, so that's fun.
Rebecca: Yeah. Excited. Thank you.
Larry: Anything else you want to say before we go there, Jeff or Rebecca, let me know, because we're going to wrap up the show, because I've got a-
Jeff: No, it's great to have you Rebecca. Once you hit episode two, you will have lasted longer than the Super League, and that is just beauty to my ears. So we're happy to see you back here next week.
Larry: If you'll join us.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Larry: Don't scare her away, Jeff. Don't scare her away.
Rebecca: I guess, I'll think about it.
Larry: Okay, yeah. Think about it.
Rebecca: I'll bring Pumbaa. Yeah, all right, episode two, or next episode, see you soon.
Larry: All right gang. Thanks for watching follow us online. If you want to follow me you can hit me up at majornelsoncomplaintdesk@jeffrubenstein, and then, Rebecca, how od they find you? I put it up there on social.
Rebecca: Yeah. I'm on Twitter, thanks, yeah.
Larry: And I'll put a link in the show notes. In fact, I've actually added you, officially, to the show notes. People, you'll see Rebecca's name and her link off to her profile, so you can find it all there. Right, Jeff?
Rebecca: Yes.
Jeff: Yep. Let us know what you think. We always love reading your comments on YouTube, like, subscribe, ring the bell, do all of those things, or, of course, listen where finer podcasts are sold.
Larry: Yeah. Just search for the Xbox Official Podcast and that's how you find us. All right gang-
Jeff: Or Major Nelson.
Larry: ... we'll see you guys-
Jeff: We're working on that.
Larry: I've already tweaked it Jeffery, we'll talk about that offline. All right.
Jeff: Oh, all right. Good.
Larry: All right gang, we'll see you guys next week. Rebecca, thanks again for joining us. Jeff, we'll see you. Bye-bye everybody.
Jeff: Go Gators.