Guard Frequency Episode 311 | All Mixed Up About Squadrons

Cits and Civs, Captains and Commanders, you’re tuned to episode 311 of Guard Frequency — the best damn space sim podcast ever! This episode was recorded on June 19, 2020 and released for streaming and download on Tuesday, June 23, 2020 at GuardFrequency.com

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This Week’s Schedule

Flight Deck
We continue our audio adventure, Guard Frequency Origins, never saying hello to you until you get it on the redline overload.
Feedback Loop

Links & the Like

Elite: Dangerous patched the patch and threw low temperature diamond mining out the hatch. It’s going to be harder for commanders to earn some scratch, but at least it’s easier to find a CQC match.
Star Citizen has yet to produce Brian Chambers for a wellness check or a Squadron 42 update. Either would be fine. And there’s an ocean and a weapons rack. And even though there’s no longer a special star citizen joystick in the works, there is one for your Airbus, and that’s just fine.
Star Wars Squadrons promises puppies, rainbows and ice cream to fans of old school space sim games, and we completely forgot about No Man’s Sky last week so we’re going to make up for that oversight right now.

Community Questions

Has EA learned their lesson on microtransactions or will they sneak them into Squadrons at the first opportunity?
Where will they find Brian Chambers, if they find him?

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Posted

June 23, 2020

Podcasts

First Verse Problems

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2 responses to “Guard Frequency Episode 311 | All Mixed Up About Squadrons”

Xenosystems

June 25, 2020

Cqn’t wait to see how Star Wars Squadrons flying compares to the rest of Space games, starting with Star Citizen.

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Ken from Chicago

June 26, 2020

CQ1: EA will find a way to “respond” to player request for more Squadrons content and cosmetic customizations that in no way shape or form changes gameplay, especially not PvP, and is not part of the *gameplay* but merely the look. Or add separate stand-alone expansions that are “complete worlds” onto themselves.

CQ2: Brian Chambers has been celebrating his 22nd wedding anniversary. He’s tweeted about it.

General Feedback:

I hate you, Tony! I hate you, Tony Hunter! I hate you so much … for being right about Star Wars Squadrons! Why, why, WHY couldn’t you just going along with the rest of Team Guard Frequency? And if you were wrong about them adding DLC, lock boxes, paid expansions, then, to quote Captain America from Age of Ultron, then we would have faced it as a team, together.

Why do you have to be so much like your namesake, Tony Stark, and be such a contrarian with inconvenient truths? Why have you forced me to turn against the, oh so adorable, smiling, upbeat, optimistic, faces of Geoff, Brian, Henry and even Skiffy? Why must you make me stomp on their hope? Why do you have to be so right, so right, so right?

Wait, this how gotten off to a bad start. Let me restart. One of the many reason I’ve enjoyed this podcast for the past, what, five or so years, is that it’s not just a random group of people who enjoy space sim video games, the development of them, the theory-crafting behind them, but the massive technical expertise brought to bear, Geoff, so valuable in IT that he’s even on call late Friday evenings, Brian, who often have make road trips about IT, Henry, a digital graphic designer who knowledgeable in programming, even Skiffy is an engineer. Everyone is an expert in technology.

Well, except for one, Tony, the ostensible leader of the band. What is his field of expertise? His dayjob? Lawyer. WRONG! His expertise is WORDS! He analyzes words the way Geoff, Brian, Henry & Skiffy analyzes computer networks, hardware, software, audio. Tony chews words up, tastes them, tests them, wring every bit of meaning and possible meaning of them then spits them back out having absorbed them essence of them. As much as we all hate to admit it, words is Tony’s balliwick. And Tony was right.

His analysis of the game dev statement on Star Wars Squadrons was spot on, bull’s eye, 5 by 5. Tony stayed on target. Everyone hopes EA won’t “screw the pooch” (yeah, kids, that’s an actual phrase, google it) and maybe they won’t. But their statement was far from decisive in ruling that out. The dev left enough wiggle room for a nerf herder to fire a shot right in the exhaust port and blow everything apart to squeeze every last nickel, dime, credit, bitcoin and gold-pressed latinum chits out of consumers.

Plus, IT DON’T MATTER WHAT THE DEVS THINK! Electronic Arts is the publisher. They are running the show. And if they see more money they are going after it—especially since so many X-Wing vs Tie-Fighter fans are already screaming “Shut up and take my money!” And if we have learned anything over the past year or so, publishers are more than willing and able to screw you over six ways from Sunday.

Curse your correctness, Tony!

— Ken from Chicago

P.S. Tony’s expertise in words, on all the possible meanings of them, comes with a cost. He is cursed with seeing all the possible variations of meanings of statements, leaving him prone to seeing fevered imaginings from the Tonyverse. Pity him. Pity him his knowledge. Perhaps one day he can fully recover. Some day.

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