Cup of Jones - February 15, 2021

Hey Jones don't know if this question is too late but I'll ask anyway, How the new house so far? I know you've talked about the move alot but feel like we haven't had a update on how you guys are setting in in a while. What's the review after a couple months in the new digs??

Sage_Mode_Q

How’s it going? I just finished watching the “Tales of Hyrule” video, and I gotta say, it was awesome! The Allies talking about a certain game, game series, or topic while accompanying videos play during the conversation for the allies to see is really entertaining. I would love for more videos like “Tales of Hyrule” and the 2nd & 3rd parts of “The Gen That Was”. I was wondering, how feasible is it to get more discussion videos similar to “Tales of Hyrule” and “The Gen That Was” in the future? Thanks, and keep up the great work as always!

Ledarius Smith

Hola Jones, Any chance we get another tier-maker stream soon? It's always fun watching the allies debate regardless of the topic. Also, I think the allies should try out streaming mainline sports games. I know many of the allies don't have much experience with various sports titles but that would make it that much more entertaining by taking you all out of your comfort zones. For example, a game of Madden between Huber and Damiani? Or a match of FIFA between Bloodworth and Brad? The possibilities are endless! All the best, Shannon Khalid

Shannon Khalid

Heya Jones, Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know. If you ever want to talk about it, I'm here for you. But if the unthinkable were to happen and Easy Allies were to divorce us, would they give us the rugs, the cooks, the drugs, or the books?

Asbo Zappruder

Safety post

Happy Gaming

Hey there Brandon, Over the last week or so I had an idea regarding a potential addition to EZA content. With both you and Don having recently become parents, I thought that new EZA shows or conversations, from the specific perspective of a parent, would be especially unique and valuable. I’ve several friends who recently are having their first child whom I’d love to introduce to EZA, and I think there are a lot of topics that could be discussed: what games are you introducing to and playing with your kid and at what age? What sorts of games do you personally play and how does your schedule change as a parent? How does it feel to have your child introduce you to or show interest in other games you’re less familiar with? I feel that all of these and more are things that could be covered from your unique perspective over the course of Milo’s growth. I would never urge or suggest that he should be on camera with you, however your stories about playing and hanging out together, and the things you learn from your perspective as a parent could be valuable to EZA members, as well as new potential patrons who think that they may not be able to play games anymore or enjoy the things they used to. In general, I feel like new, or veteran parents who are also lovers of games are a less catered to demographic that is especially valuable to look at from the perspective of those who are one themselves and can give firsthand knowledge and advice. What are your thoughts? Thanks and love, Brian from Happy Gaming

Happy Gaming

Mr Jones, I felt like sitting on this just in case I was having a knee jerk reaction, but the 2020 Easy Allies Game of the Year Video is pretty hard to watch because there is text across each game's B roll. Probably just my opinion but I found it really distracting. Was there ever discussion about this aspect of the video? I know this is also late to mention but, I have always felt that the community and the 8 Ally's creativity are the strongest aspects of EZA compared to similar channels. Are there future plans to foster growth and improvements with creative content and community involvement? I have personally enjoyed more community involvement across EZA videos and would love to see it continue. Respectfully, Morgan Mohalla

Morgan Mohalla

(Spellhelp: my nickname is Sebi, its like the short version of Sebastian. Im from Hungary "sz" = "s" in my language) Dear Brandon, in the last Q&A, FrameTrap and in the Blizzcon reactions Ben is so much louder than anyone else. Maybe it is just me, but could You please check it out please? Also if im already complaining one of my pet peeves is eating on camera. If it's on a long stream im totally okay with it, becouse that has a "we are all just hanging out together" vibe, but when it happens on a produced show it drives me up the wall. The last time i recall Ian was the offender on the podcast, but this happens every so ofthen with other allies too. My mind goes to crazy places whenenver i see this. Is the one that stuffing his face uninterested in the conversation that is happening? Was he not aware that a shot was coming up and got taken by surprise in the middle of dinner? I know You are fan of how ScrewAttack did things and one of their mottos was "No breaks" so are You whippyn the guys so hard they dont have time to eat? As a father i hope You understand it wasn't easy for me to say these things, but i belive You can do better, and in time You will understand that i just want the best for You guys, becouse i love and respect You all.

Hello Brandon. It seems that more and more allies have internet issues at their homes. I have little knowledge about home internet in US, but I assume that if you could simply switch to another Internet Service Provider that’s available in your house, you would have done it already. Which probably means that you don’t have much choice, which probably means that Internet Service Provider isn’t particularly motivated to solve your issues, which probably means that these issues will likely remain for foreseeable future. Do you think this can become a problem for Easy Allies as a company?

Alexander Zyryanov

Hi Jones, The Half Life Alyx spoiler mode is one that I've been looking forward to ever since I finished it, however I wanted to offer some (hopefully) constructive criticism as I unfortunately felt it didn't land as well as I was hoping: 1.) more explanation - In the promo for the spoiler mode, you recommended to those who feel they will never get to experience Alyx for themselves and just wanted to get an idea of what happens via the spoiler mode to listen. The actual conversation I don't feel really helped those people as the first question right off the bat was so pointed and specific that if you hadn't played it before you'd be completely lost, and the discussion afterwards doesn't really clear that up. Not really a valid criticism for most spoiler modes as it usually requires everyone to have played the game, but for this one in particular if part of the goal was to explain to those who can't play it what happens I think it fell short of that goal. If yall were to have stopped at the beginning to simply explain what happens before getting into questions about what happens, I think that would have gone a long way for those people. 2.) needed refreshers - This spoiler mode really felt the lack of recent playthroughs from people to me. I definitely understand that there's a ton to play/cover and that a full re-playthrough of a VR game is probably not in the cards, but due to the gap between playing it and the spoiler mode there was a ton of story stuff left out of the discussion. I'd love to go through some of those major points here as examples but CoJ is not spoiler-safe territory so I put a comment on the Youtube video itself going into some deep lore stuff/corrections on specifics if you're interested. 3.) Patron questions - The 2nd point would probably have been aided by getting questions from Patrons beforehand, which I didn't see a post asking for them to be gathered. For games where it's been a while and not as fresh in everyone's mind, I think this would have been a great way to have a more guided and thorough discussion. Half Life, specifically the story of it, is a huge part of my life and I care a ton for it, so while I'm not usually motivated to bring this sort of stuff to you I couldn't help myself as I've been dying to have a spoiler discussion with anyone on planet earth about this game but have not been able to because of how few people got to actually play it. Overall I did enjoy the discussion, but was just hoping for more digging into the meat of the story itself is all. Thanks, and L&R, Will Schmuck

Will Schmuck

Hi Jones Hope you're all well I have an idea called "Review and A". (Like Q&A) The idea is to solicit questions from the Patreon or YouTube comments of a review and have the reviewer stream answering some of these questions. This could make more use of the immense amount of time and effort the allies put into playing and thinking about the game. It would also let the community be part of the conversation and branding itself as a unique piece of content that will hopefully further engage viewers. If you don't like the idea no harm done. Thank you for all of your great work Love and Respect

LaXouch

Hi Brandon, I sadly don’t listen to Cup of Jones as regularly as I used to. They started to make me feel a bit sad due to the abundance of (constructive) negativity. So shoutout to you good sir, for allowing us to tell you how bad of a job you are doing each week (obvious sarcasm). I still don’t know of any other Patreon that does something like this. In all honesty I think you and the Allies are doing great and I appreciate all of you. I did listen to last weeks though because there were a few things floating around the internet about it concerning the Patreon numbers, etc. Speaking of last weeks, sometime in the future when additional staff is an option. Please consider hiring a female. I think it would help balance things nicely. I have a few women in mind that can do it all (stream, podcast, review, edit, etc) and would be perfect. Just hit me up on Twitter if you’re ever curious who they are. Anyways, you’re doing great. Take care!

yarden

Hi Jones, I got an idea for a new miniseries that may (or may not) be interesting. I few weeks ago on Friend Code the guys had a great discussion about RE4 and at some point they started talking about whether RE4 would actually need a Remake treatment like RE2/RE3. One Patreon wrote in and said that he recently just played RE4 and how surprised he was how much the controls etc hold up today. So I went on my Switch and started up RE4 myself (picked-up on sale but never tried it since the Wii version) and I have to say, NO for me the controls don't hold up, I'm constantly irritated by the camera etc etc. That made me think, when we look back to all the great games we played over the years how many of them still hold up to this day. It would be great to see the Allies try, every episode one Ally brings in an old game that he hold dear to his heart and the other will check if the stands the test of time or if a needs desperately needs a next gen upgarde. L&R Daniel

Daniel Fuchs

Hi Jones, can we get a classic Trailer Jones-style review of that godawful Knockout City trailer from the Nintendo Direct? Maybe as an editorial today? Pretty please? It's one of the worst trailers I've ever seen, I think it deserves some special attention, otherwise I wouldn't have asked here. L&R!

Joseph La Russa

Hi there, in one of your latest episodes you mentioned that it is still hard to establish some kind of regular chit-chat with the Allies during the working from home situation. I found a solution that works really well with my researching coworkers at my university. It is gather.town (this is the actual url ;-) ). First of all it is free for up to 25 people (a big „thank you“ to the devs), you can move freely, select a funny avatar, chit-chat (video) and have fun by placing shared google docs (to work together on them) or by just playing some browser-based games. My experience shows that the free movement combined with the feature that you can only talk with the people nearby maps perfectly to the normal world, where you naturally move through you office space, meet others, and of course split from a bigger conversation if you want to talk about something else. We have one space there that is always open (default setting) and we agreed upon that in case your schedule allows it you will join it between 11am-1pm. Give it a spin and see if it works for you. Love and respect Snaqe

iDens

Opening bit suggestion Lucie Muller is asked to produce an announcement trailer for the next big game (think of a game of the magnitude of Cyberpunk 2077; the next big third party AAA hit). Help her decide what she puts into the trailer over a span of 10 to 20 weeks. Keep in mind that there is an internal rivalry between Lucie and Sally, since only one of the trailers produced by them will get published. To make things worse, Sally was often caught peeking over Lucie’s shoulders to steel one of her ideas. Each week the community should come up with two ideas. The idea that is not picked by the Allies goes directly to Lucie’s nice (but not so nice) coworker Sally. Thanks. Love and respect Snaqe

iDens

Hey Jones, Now that Fiasconauts is on hiatus. I've been rewatching old episodes of show and it reminded me how funny and amazing some of those old shows were. Camp death, the Jojo one, the heist and the rock music one were some of the standouts. one thing I noticed in common across many of the old episodes is how good the views were for the show in the past. Most of the episodes I saw had 15 to 30k views which is I think is pretty great. Especially when 3 years ago EZA had a lot less subs on youtube. Yet the most recent episodes had 5k or less views (even though the latest episode was amazing). Why do you think the views for the show have dropped so low while subs in youtube have gone up? I'm sure you guys have more detailed access to youtube analytics to look at this trend but it's kind of surprising to me. I think the show lost some charm / energy once the allies moved into the studio and the move to zoom hurt the show even more, it still doesn't seem to explain huge drop in views overtime. Anyways I hope it comes back occasionally once the allies are back in the studio as they were always fun. Thanks and L&R

Faraz Rizvi

I did it Jones. I spend money on a mobile game. Should I feel shame? It probably earned my money. Though I will make sure to not spend more than $60 (the average price of a new game) a year on any single game. So my question is, how did it feel the first time you spent money on micro transactions in a mobile game? Shame? Regret? Worried now that the wall is crumbled you might spend more money on it? Or was it no big deal?

Parasitepaladin

Hey Mr. Jones! I was looking at the website to check out the calendar to see if there are any games EZA was streaming I would be interested in, and it finally dawned on me (after almost five[!] years of operation) streams, outside of special events like reactions and one-offs per months like the Showcase, are typically two or four hours, dependent on the Ally. So, I was wondering what is it about two hours specifically that makes it the (average) cap? Are any streams shorter than two hours not long enough for EZA to do to justify the effort on a consistent basis? And conversely, is two hours just long enough before the Allies tire and don’t wish to do anymore? Thanks as always for reading and have a wonderful rest of your day! Cheers! QUESTION: When it comes to streams, two hours has been the normal length across multiple Allies and many, MANY games over the years, but what about two hours specifically makes it the standard for the average EZA stream? Is doing shorter streams more often too much effort or conversely is doing longer streams less often more tiring? Or is two hours just the comfortable balance not worth considering changing? Just an observation I had and wanted to gauge your thoughts.

Brandon K Gann

Hi Jones, Can we get a weekly Huber Marvel show :)? Thanks

Ibrahim Sozer

I love how the EU has 1 timezone.

Ibrahim Sozer