Zenith: The Last City with Ramen VR Co-Founders Andy Tsen and Lauren Frazier

David sits down with Ramen VR Co-Founders and game devs Andy Tsen and Lauren Frazier to talk about their newly released MMO, Zenith: The Last City. They talk about how they started making games together and the development challenges behind their hotly-anticipated, critically-acclaimed game in VR. Also, Lisa and David debate which flatscreen game they feel made the best transition into VR and we get some hot tips on discoverability as a streamer.

For more information, follow @OtherGamingPod on Twitter and Instagram and join our Facebook Group at facebook.com/groups/thatothergamingpodcast.

Transcript

Zenith: The Last City with Ramen VR Co-Founders Andy Tsen and Lauren Frazier

David sits down with Ramen VR Co-Founders and game devs Andy Tsen and Lauren Frazier to talk about their newly released MMO, Zenith: The Last City. They talk about how they started making games together and the development challenges behind their hotly-anticipated, critically-acclaimed game in VR. Also, Lisa and David debate which flatscreen game they feel made the best transition into VR and we get some hot tips on discoverability as a streamer.

For more information, follow @OtherGamingPod on Twitter and Instagram and join our Facebook Group at facebook.com/groups/thatothergamingpodcast.

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David Jagneaux:

Hello and welcome to That Other Gaming Podcast, where we take a look behind the scenes of virtual reality, online gaming, streaming, and more. I’m David, a tech comms manager at Meta, a full-time nerd, and lifelong gamer obsessed with the future of video games.

Lisa Brown Jaloza:

And I’m Lisa, a fellow tech comms manager at Meta and recovering academic. So what have you been playing this week?

David:

I’ve only been playing one thing, and anyone that knows me or follows me on Twitter knows what the answer is, and that is Zenith: The Last City. This is a new VR MMO that just came out on January 27 for Quest, Quest 1, Quest 2, PC, Rift, PS VR. It is a massive, massive, enormous world. Reminds me of the early days of EverQuest and World of Warcraft. It’s the same kind of scale, just huge environments to explore. It’s amazing. I love it. It lived up to all the hype for me, which is kind of surprising. And I have been playing it for hours every night. I put in over 20 hours in the first five days, so I’m—

Lisa:

Oh, wow.

David:

... I’m a little addicted, you could say.

Lisa:

Just a tad.

David:

Just a little. It’s for work, okay? It’s research. And what about you?

Lisa:

I’ve been a little under the weather the past week, so mostly been binge watching Cobra Kai, not playing a lot of games. Yes, thank you for turning me onto that. But I have been playing a lot of puzzle games, lots of Words with Friends and lots of Dr. Mario, which is an old favorite of mine.

David:

Oh, got one of the best level theme songs. Just so good. I like the music in Dr. Mario more than Tetris to be honest.

Lisa:

Same, same.

David:

I need to get back to some more puzzle games. I haven’t played enough lately. You got to stimulate the mind a little bit.

Lisa:

That’s what keeps me young.

David:

Well, today’s episode is about the challenges that VR game developers uniquely face when they’re making games. Anyone that’s tried a VR game knows that VR is such a unique medium. It has different areas that developers really should emphasize on, things like player presence, interactivity, some things that non-VR game developers might not have to really pay too much attention to just because of the differences in the mediums.

Lisa:

So what was a time that a VR experience or game really changed or challenged you in a way that just couldn’t exist in flatscreen gaming—maybe a game mechanic or an emotional story interaction?

David:

I have two specific scenarios. One is back at GDC 2015, or I can’t remember which one it was. I was playing an early version of EVE: Valkyrie, which was an Oculus Rift launch title. And I remember, you have the control stick, because it was played on a game pad, so you can control the pitch and the yaw, the ship, and you could aim and stuff. But then one of your missiles was controlled by looking at a ship and tracking it with your eyes. And I remember thinking that you just can’t do that in a non-VR game. It’s like your head becomes a third analog stick. So it’s like, that is a new input mechanic that would never exist. And that just blew my mind at the time.

And then another example is a very small, relatively unknown game called FATED: The Silent Oath. It is a really short Viking story, an emotional narrative style driven game. And it had this really awesome interaction, where you use your head nodding or shaking your head to interact with NPCs and talk to them. It really made you feel like you’re part of the world.

Lisa:

For me, I’m gonna branch outside of gaming and go to the experiences side of the equation with Anne Frank House VR from Force Field, which they have their game development chops, and it really shows through in the experience. But having never been to the Anne Frank House, and at the time I hadn’t read Anne Frank’s Diary even, but being immersed in that environment, and feeling as if you’re actually in the physical space, and hearing the voiceover of those excerpts from the diary was just such a powerful, really moving experience that I don’t think you could truly replicate in another medium.

David:

It goes back to what we were saying earlier, the sense of presence. It’s become a buzzword, but it really is so important.

Lisa:

Definitely. And that was such an interesting experience too, that they were able to do physical installations, both at the Anne Frank House for visitors who just wanted to try the technology, and for visitors who may have had accessibility challenges that they couldn’t go up the stairs. But then it was a traveling exhibition that went to other museums around the world. So it opens up this level of access for people who may not be able to travel to Amsterdam and experience it in person.

David:

That reminds me of at early press events and stuff before VR had really came out, whenever they would set up Richie’s Plank Experience by having you walk across the 2x4 while inside VR, those fun little things where you meld the physical and digital together, and it just makes it so much more immersive that way.

Lisa:

Definitely. So super excited about our guests this week and really timely with your current obsession. It’s Andy Tsen and Lauren Frazier from Ramen VR. They made really big waves with the massive Kickstarter campaign for their newly released title Zenith: The Last City, which you talked about playing the beta for this new VR MMO in our last episode. So of course we had to bring them on to talk about the game here.

David:

Yeah. We’ve made a few jokes on this show about you firing me, but I think we might actually have to pivot to me quitting to become a professional photographer in Zenith because the game is absolutely gorgeous, like I said. And I was so excited for this episode. We sat down, and I got a chance to talk to them about the origins of their studio, the process of creating a VR MMO, the importance of social communities in VR. And we also got to finally settle the debate about whether or not it’s pronounced Zenith or Zenith, which I guess I already spoiled the answer to, but it was a great conversation. I’m excited for everyone to hear it.

Could you tell me a little bit about your background with Ramen VR, where you guys got started? Any other VR games or other games you’ve worked on, that kind of thing?

Lauren Frazier:

Andy and I met at Oculus Launch Pad, the VR accelerator, and we hit it off right away. We actually weren’t working on the same project. We had our own separate projects, and Andy’s was really good. It was a hero shooter called Conjure Strike. So when Andy won the grant, he asked if I wanted to just join and help out. And I was like, “Sure, yeah, why not?” So I was working nights and weekends on the project, and Andy was full-time. I was at Unity at the time, and the game ended up being nominated for the Unity Awards. As far as I was concerned, I was like, this is probably a sign that we can do real stuff. We can really do this. We’re not that bad at this, right? So I left Unity, and we started Ramen VR.

Andy Tsen:

From my side, I basically had quit my job at the end of 2016 because I had tried the DK2 at a computer gaming club for the first time and I was just blown away. And so moved back to California in 2016 from Boston with some savings to just hammer on VR for a couple years before Lauren and I met at Launch Pad. And so Lauren has that really amazing technical background from Google and Unity. And my background’s an eclectic mix of product management and engineering. I was one of the lead engineers on Mob Wars, which was a pretty successful Facebook game back in the day, before switching over to product management at GREE, a mobile gaming company based out of Japan, where I had the opportunity to work on some top grossing mobile gaming titles at the time. And so, yeah, it was really just a match made in heaven for us.

David:

So for everyone listening, there’s probably a good chunk of people that are familiar with the game already, but there’s also a lot of people that may not be. If you could, just give me a quick elevator pitch for what is Zenith: The Last City, and why should people care?

Andy:

Zenith is a cross-platform, massively multiplayer online world that’s been inspired by our favorite MMOs, JRPGs, and anime, and it’s been built specifically for virtual reality.

David:

Awesome. Awesome. So when you say MMO, obviously that conjures images of World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, EverQuest, that kind of stuff. Is that where the inspiration comes from?

Andy:

Yeah. I would say we took our inspiration from a lot of different games, but those were definitely some of the top ones.

David:

Awesome. How many people in your audience so far do you think are fans of Sword Art Online? Is there a large overlap there, you think probably?

Andy:

I don’t know. Lauren, do you want to take that one?

Lauren:

There’s a huge overlap at this point. It’s kind of crazy. If you search Zenith SAO on YouTube, it’s just hundreds of videos at this point. We actually have a bot in our server that puts days since the last SAO reference. And it’s usually one max.

Andy:

I’ve never seen it go above one.

David:

That’s amazing. I’ve seen several YouTube videos of people playing the beta for the first time. And the number of them that have made a "Where’s the logout button" joke is astronomical. Yeah. So where does the name come from exactly? Where did you get the name Zenith or Zenith or ... I’m sorry. How do you pronounce that? I guess that should be my first question.

Andy:

That is the hardest question to answer actually because everybody asks us that. And I can just say there’s no right or wrong way to pronounce it, but internally we call it Zenith. The name comes from the city that people will explore when they first drop in there, right? Zenith is, quote unquote, the last city. But the actual name of the city of itself, basically Lauren and I just very early on got together on a Google Doc and started putting together dozens and dozens of names. And a lot of them were joke names, but some of them were good. And Zenith was the one thing that I think both of us settled on, and we’re like, "Hey, this could be a good name."

David:

I’ll try to remind myself to call it Zenith now. I think I’ve been calling it Zenith, but I’m going to try to adopt the official developer pronunciation. So other than the game being an MMO, what are some of the other ways it’s been inspired by other titles? I think Sword Art Online, we mentioned, Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, but other than the fact that it just is in the same genre as a lot of those games, what else have you taken as inspiration and what kind of game is it really?

Andy:

The interesting thing about virtual reality is that when you step into that world, it’s so much more immersive, and there’s so many different elements of virtual reality that make it seem like it’s more than just an MMO, right? You can climb every surface, you can glide around, there’s shooting aspects to it, there’s action adventure aspects to it. There’s a cooking simulator that’s been baked into it.

David:

Wow, I see what you did there. Baked into it. Nice one. Yeah.

Andy:

Yeah. Yep. Got to think quick on your feet. But that’s what it comes down to. We didn’t set out to try to create any specific game or try to be the World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy of VR. We wanted to create something that was completely unique and bespoke to the virtual reality platforms itself.

David:

Right. Yeah. I think if anyone thinks of their favorite VR games that they had played over the years, they’re usually things that were designed and built from the ground up with VR in mind at the very beginning. Interactivity, all those things are just so important to VR. And what are some of the ways that that really helps elevate a game like this? It’s a big world and there’s hundreds or even thousands of people with you at one time. So what are some of the ways that VR uniquely amplifies that feeling of communal immersion in a world?

Lauren:

I think for us, one of the things that we said early on was that we were going to have voice chat, and it was going to be both party-based, which is like a Discord call, where it’s just all the same volume and it’s not spatialized. But in the world it’s actually spatialized and it’s based on where people are. I think that adds a lot to the social element because you’re all in there for the same reason, right? You’re standing in front of some mini boss or some boss because you’re all there at the same time. And so it allows you to make these pick-up groups and just do content together. That’s something I’ve never really done in traditional flatscreen MMOs. Usually if I’m doing something, it’s pre-arranged. I’m either the duty finder or I’m asking guild mates or something. But Zenith is the game where I’ve actually done a lot of content with just strangers who happen to be standing there. And it is very natural to just turn to someone else and say, "Hey, do you want to do this thing with me? Or do you want to go over here?" It’s much more natural than sending a tell to a random stranger or something.

David:

Yeah. Yeah. I’ve noticed that myself as whenever playing Elder Scrolls Online or Guild Wars or any of those other games that sometimes they have public events where you come across strangers, but no one’s ever communicating. It’s always just complete silence. Maybe you look down at the little chat box every now and then, but for the most part, you’re really ignoring each other. But here, every sound that you make, someone’s going to hear it. You could turn your mic off, of course. But I think for the most part that sort of crosstalk, that spatialized audio is, it’s so important to making it feel more realistic.

Andy:

Yeah. Yeah. And I get a lot of questions about, does Zenith stand up to MMOs that are not VR out there, right? And I always think that that’s like comparing apples and oranges because of exactly what you just said. It’s an MMO that’s been built specifically for VR, so it’s not the same type of game. In most other MMOs when you’re cooking, for example, you’re pressing a button a thousand times. It’s about the end goal of crafting a product that you can consume to buff yourself in a raid fight or something like that. But with Zenith, every single system we build has to have a VR component to it. It has to have that level of immersion. So in essence, we’re building a ton of little games into one massive, massive experience.

Lauren:

It’s about making sure that we design these things for VR, as opposed to porting things to VR, which is a bit of a design challenge. It’s an engineering challenge as well because you’ve got things like syncing transforms of where people’s hands are, where people’s heads are, how the audio is coming through. So there’s a lot of technical challenges there. But yeah, at the end of the day, it’s just about how well do these systems come together, right? You also don’t want it to feel like 10 very well made systems that don’t interact, so that you want to make sure everything is cohesive as well.

David:

Yeah. I think you bring up a really good point, and maybe this is something you could speak to a little more in terms of if any developers are listening that are looking into VR development. More so than traditional game development, I think having proof is so important because it’s so easy to come up with ideas and then post a Kickstarter page and ask for money. But over the years, you’ve delivered alphas and betas, and you have a Discord of thousands and thousands of people that have seen and played the game. So how important has that community building and feedback been to the game’s development over the years?

Lauren:

The community has been invaluable. There were a lot of people who are still in the community now who were there from the beginning, like the pre-Kickstarter days. But yeah, it’s been super useful. I don’t think you can build an MMO without having a lot of people. It’s the kind of thing where you need things to appeal to a broad group of people. You can’t just lean on your own instincts and just hope that you’re right, and that everyone will feel the same way that you feel. So we did a lot of testing of things like just bringing in people to test, “What does it feel like to throw a fireball? Do you like this? Is this something that you would want to do?” And the rest of the game wasn’t there, right? There was no story. There was no scenery. It was a capsule and a sphere. And it was like, “Are you having fun throwing this and pretending this is a fireball?” We’ve always tried to bring in community members to test things and just sending out surveys and asking for opinions. I think on the flip side, people have also just been very supportive of the team. So it’s always really nice to go into chat and see people talking about what they hope to see in the game, and that they hope to meet more friends, or they hope to be able to learn to be more social or things like that in the game. So there’s a lot of people who are excited about it, and I think in turn that inspires the team members to do our best.

David:

Absolutely. I know I’ve talked to several people that tell me when they play a normal MMO, they play solo or they only play with people they know. But I think being in VR makes it feel so much more sociable and approachable in a way because, like you said, it’s so easy to just walk up to someone and ask a question rather than having to go through menus and type out stuff in a chat box. It’s just very natural. So I know we’ve talked a little bit about the game’s longevity and how important updates are over time. Can you allude at all to any of the things that are coming down the line? What kind of things should people look forward to over the coming weeks and months?

Andy:

We’ve always said that in many respects, launch for Zenith is only the first step. We want this to be a live service title, where we keep adding things to the game over time based on player feedback. There’s plenty of stuff we know that Zenith still needs to get to where we want it to be. Things that we’re really excited about in particular are continuing to improve upon the social features that we have, fleshing out the guild system, so people can interact with guilds in a lot more rich and robust ways, setting up things like instanced dungeons, our third class, adding more end game content. And of course there’s also the things that really I think will be unique in virtual reality, things like player housing, guild housing, and how people will construct their own homes in VR and things like that. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention PvP as well. That is something we definitely want to get into the game at some point.

David:

Oh, great. Okay.

Andy:

Yeah. Yeah. That’s definitely, that’s a confirmed feature. The thing we want to make sure about is when we do introduce PvP that it’s a rich and robust experience and it’s not just something we tack on. So that’s why we don’t have any specific dates for a lot of these features. It’s more about when we think it’s done and when the community thinks it’s done.

David:

Do you anticipate a lot of those things making it in this year? Is that the goal? Or is a lot of that stuff going to stretch on into 2023?

Andy:

I would say Zenith at the end of 2022 will look dramatically different from the beginning of it.

David:

That’s great. I mean, that’s what you want out of an MMO. You want it to constantly evolve and change and always evolving and updating, which is really exciting. I would love to hear a little bit about the creation of the aesthetic of the game. It gives me big Phantasy Star Online vibes. The soundtrack alone is great. So if you could just speak a little bit about, to that sci-fi meets fantasy vibe, that would be great to hear about.

Lauren:

Sure.

Andy:

Sure. In terms of the art side, we took a lot of inspiration from JRPGs. Lauren and I are both huge fans of Final Fantasy and JRPGs in general. And so when we’re looking at the aesthetic, we had to figure out both what would work in VR, given the current generation of hardware, and what would look good across many different platforms. So what we really ended up going with was something that felt pretty stylized with a little bit of cel shading on the characters, something that really evokes a sense of grandeur and exploration like you might find in a Miyazaki film, for example.

We wanted that open world, pastoral lush farmlands feel. And we wanted people to feel very different as they’re exploring the different biomes that we have. So for example, you start out in this very cyberpunk underside, which is at the bottom of the city, and then you need to take an elevator up. And from then on, you get exposed to all these different, beautiful environments and locales. And so our goal was just to create something that felt extremely expansive and reminded people of things that they may have enjoyed in the past, but at the same time was completely unique and capable of running on all hardware platforms.

Lauren:

I think on the music side, so to start, I mean, this is obviously a massive oversimplification, right? But Western RPGs tend to have soundtracks that are very ... depending on the style of the game, often medieval sounding, often harsh, often very action-packed movie-style soundtracks. And then I think if you look at a lot of JRPGs, they’re the polar opposite. They’ve got these sweeping orchestral soundtracks, very emotional. Often if you were to listen to the soundtrack, you wouldn’t even know what was happening in the game. The game could be people fighting, and then the soundtrack is very calm and orchestral.

So I think we wanted to blend those a little bit, but we did lean a bit more toward the JRPG side. The same thing applies is what Andy said to the music, where the music is very different for each biome. So we want you to feel a certain way in the underside versus at the beach versus the desert versus all these other areas. We want them to have their own unique sound, their own unique theme. But the other thing is that we really do love our main theme song that Jordan wrote. So we always try to weave a couple of motifs from that throughout the rest of the game. So in that sense, we did take a lot of inspiration from games like Final Fantasy.

David:

I’ve already asked Andy when the soundtrack is going to be on Spotify. That’s something that’ll be added to my various playlists, for sure.

Lauren:

I can’t wait.

David:

The one other topic that I love to talk about a little bit is just more of a numbers question. Right now there are five biomes, lots of different sub zones within each of those. So could you tell us a little bit about how many different types of enemies there are, how many quests there are, how much is there to do and see in the game?

Andy:

Yeah, I mean, there’s quite a bit. The max level is 40, and we expect that it’ll take people quite a bit of time to get there, unless you’re a power gamer. During the beta we had, which we ran for five days, only 1% of users from the beta were able to reach level 40 by the end. And that’s not for lack of trying. We had pretty high engagement and retention numbers. So people were on it playing every day. So there’s a lot of content to grind through. There’s also other things that you can explore that I think are pretty crucial to the game, like gathering the Tears of Amara to get your stamina buffs, and I think we have 200 of those scattered all throughout the world that you have to collect. We’ve got 70 main scenario quests, and that’s just main scenario quests. If you compare that to the latest Final Fantasy, which I just beat, and Walker, great game, and Walker’s a great game, I think that had 100 main scenario quests and took about 70 hours to complete. So that’s without doing any of the side quests, without doing any of the end game content, without doing any of the raids. So we have over 70, and then we also have many, many side quests for people to complete, public events and things of that nature. So it’s safe to say that this is a pretty massive world, and most people are going to take a while to be able to explore every nook and cranny.

David:

Awesome. That’s so important because as you mentioned, there’s that group of players that are going to try to get through it as fast as possible, rush to the end game and see what there is to do there. I’m the polar opposite. I’m the person that’s going to be climbing mountains and picking flowers and searching for things that other people may not have found or seen. So it’s great that the game definitely caters to all types of players.

Andy:

Yeah. That was really important for us, to make sure that everybody could have something to do and explore in Zenith. We have people that just cook, right? And as we introduce more crafting disciplines in the future, more varied ways to progress, that’s only going to continue to get better and better.

David:

Awesome. Any advice for new players?

Lauren:

Try different roles. A lot of people come into the game with their own preconceived notions like, "I always play DPS and X games, so I’m just going to play DPS in this game." It’s worth trying. If you’ve never played a support character, try it in Zenith. I actually play support personally in Zenith more than I’ve ever played support in any other MMO. So I think there’s a lot to try there. I’ve actually made friends in the game as well, so don’t be afraid to be social. I think the community is very welcoming and very kind, so don’t be afraid to talk to people and just hang out.

Andy:

Yeah. That’s great advice. My favorite thing is going in-game and seeing players help each other out. There’s a lot to do in the game. And I would say give the game a chance to sink in. Because on the surface when you play it, you may miss a lot of the things that add to its depth, increasing your stamina, doing sensitive gliding, picking up a bunch of the side quests, and just climbing a tree and grabbing a fruit from it and then making a smoothie. There’s so many things you can do in the game, and it’s not just all about combat. It’s as much a social experience as it is a game itself. And that’s what we’re very excited about.

David:

Hopefully everyone else is excited as well. If you’re listening, Zenith: The Last City is available on Quest and Quest 2, as well as on the Rift Store, on PC, and on Steam and on PS VR. That’s a lot of platforms, all cross-play. If you get it on Quest or Rift it is cross-buy as well. You can get the game for $29.99 USD and join Zenith, get online, play a VR MMO with people all around the world. It’s going to be a great time. You can look for me. I will be Jaggernaut in-game, so feel free to search me out there. Happy hunting, everybody. Thank you for joining me.

Lauren:

Thank you.

Andy:

Thank you.

David:

That was such a fun conversation. I love talking to them. It’s really cool hearing about the beginnings of Zenith, and where they came from, and their multi-year plan and place for new content. They just really seem like they have a great concept and great design in place for supporting the game.

Lisa:

Definitely. And I remember writing the blog post back when Andy won the Launch Pad grant for Conjure Strike.

David:

Cool. Wow.

Lisa:

Yeah. I’ve been here a while. But it’s just great to see Launch Pad grads come back and put something on the platform that just takes off. Really exciting to see that.

David:

Absolutely. All right. Now it’s time for probably my favorite segment of our show and that is Jaloza vs. Jagneaux, where we each get one minute to make our case on a chosen topic.

Lisa:

For this episode, we’re going to debate which is the better VR entry in a traditional flatscreen gaming franchise: Resident Evil 7 or Tetris Effect. And why don’t you go first this time?

David:

All right. I’m picking Resident Evil 7 because I think VR and horror are just perfectly, perfectly made for each other. VR headsets are the most immersive technologies on the planet. They completely shut off your senses to the outside world. You’re immersed visually in terms of sound, interaction. Everything just really makes you melt into the world that you are playing in. And the best genre to really see the power of that is horror. And I think Resident Evil 7 is an excellent, excellent horror game because not only of how immersive it is, but because of the story. It’s got a gripping narrative, it’s 10+ hours long. There’s such an incredible adventure that you go on. There’s some really visceral moments that are just so jarring. It’s probably the only game I’ve ever played that literally gave me nightmares. I woke up in the middle of the night multiple times terrified, and I would go through it again.

Lisa:

Tough act to follow, but I’m going to go with Tetris Effect: Connected. Ironically, some of the argument that you would make for Resident Evil 7, it’s the same argument that I would make for Tetris Effect. This is a game, the entire Tetris franchise really is a game that capitalizes on the idea of a flow state and putting you in that sense of a flow state, and what better way to make the most of that and really embrace it than in VR, where you are visually enveloped, the sound is enveloping, it’s spatialized. All of your senses are so attuned to what it is that you’re doing. And I think Tetris is the perfect game to really get into that almost Zen-like flow state. And the game itself, out of the franchise, it’s a D.I.C.E. Award finalist, took home several top game awards and is just one of my all-time favorites.

David:

I think we can both agree it has the better soundtrack, that’s for sure.

Lisa:

It does have a really good soundtrack. I was going to say earlier, when you mentioned preferring Dr. Mario to the original Tetris soundtrack, which I completely agree with, I think the Tetris Effect soundtrack might be even better than Dr. Mario, although I don’t know. Dr. Mario has a special place in my heart. All right. So now you know what we think. It’s your turn to tell us what you think. Head on over to our Facebook Group or Twitter and vote on whether Tetris Effect or Resident Evil 7 is the better VR entry in a traditional flatscreen gaming franchise. And let us know what you think about the show on Twitter @othergamingpod.

David:

Last week during the segment we debated which is the better cozy and wholesome farming game, Starter Valley or Harvest Moon? Drumroll... And the winner was Stardew Valley. Which of course, once again, Lisa wins. I think... the show has to be rigged at this point. It has to be rigged.

Lisa:

I’m paying them off on the back-end. That’s all there is to it. Over on the Facebook Group, we recently asked which games for 2022 you’re most excited about.

David:

Just like myself, Alessandro commented that he is hyped for Elden Ring. I am so excited for that game. I don’t usually play FromSoftware games too often just because they are so hard and they take a lot of trial and error. But Elden Ring definitely appeals to me. The trailers look amazing and I’m excited for more open world style. He also said he is very excited for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas coming to Quest 2 and VR.

Lisa:

Yeah. I think most people are pretty hyped about that particular title. Yeah. And Vincent gave another plus one to Elden Ring and also called out Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands from Gearbox and 2K.

David:

That one looks interesting because I like Borderlands, but this is almost like a D&D version of Borderlands, which looks great.

Lisa:

Yeah. And the vocal talent that they’ve got, the lineup is just amazing. It looks really, really good.

David:

Before we go, I want to drop a live streaming hot tip from my fellow content creators out there about discoverability when you’re not live. A lot of the time, the advice that we used to get from popular streamers is, “Oh, you got to stream eight hours a day, seven days a week. You got to make it your life, blah, blah, blah.” But if you think about it, you’re going to spend more time offline than you do live. So you have to try to create ways to gain attraction and gain an audience when you’re not live. And one of the best ways to do that is to create content for other platforms to then draw people to your streams. Twitter’s a great way of doing that. It’s very easy to post video clips and hashtag them just like on Instagram. TikTok is obviously a great way to gain exposure and get an audience.

And then obviously the tried and true way of using YouTube. So if you’re using OBS or something like that, you can easily download the stream afterwards, clip out sections. There’s a great website called StreamLadder, which will take a clip from Twitch or you can upload a video to it, and it will automatically crop your webcam and footage to be formatted for TikTok, which is great. So a quick shout out to StoneMountain64, who is a Facebook Gaming Partner. He’s a huge creator. And he’s a great example of repurposing content for other platforms. He has a great series he does, where he plays Apex Legends, and he uses a voice mod on his microphone to sound like a drill sergeant talking over an intercom speaker. And then he clips out sections of chastising his teammates in character, and it makes for great YouTube content.

Lisa:

Definitely. And StoneMountain64, he’s an OG. He’s been around for a while on Facebook Gaming.

David:

He was one of the originals. Yeah.

Lisa:

Nice to give him a shout out. Thanks so much for joining us on That Other Gaming Podcast from Meta. Remember, we’d love to connect with you on our Facebook Group, and you can follow along on Twitter and Instagram @othergamingpod.

David:

The show is produced by LWC. Cedric Wilson is our lead producer and composed our theme music. Kojin Tashiro also contributed music. Jen Chien is executive editor. That Other Gaming Podcast is executive produced by Michael Kirkland and Juleyka Lantigua. Art by BJ Prema. Thanks for listening. Catch me on Twitter at David Jagneaux for all my Zenith photography. And this is my last day. Talk to you later, Lisa.

CITATION:

Jagneaux, David and Jaloza, Lisa Brown. “Zenith: The Last City with Ramen VR Co-Founders Andy Tsen and Lauren Frazier.” That Other Gaming Podcast. Meta, LWC, February 17, 2022. 

Produced by LWC