| Bluetta:
|
Okay. Well we've been chatting for an hour now, so I think since you got to go home early today to talk with us unless you're dying to continue we could probably start to wrap it up.
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| Cleaver:
|
I can stick around. I got another half an hour in me.
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| Bluetta:
|
Wow. Another half hour! I heard a rumor about singing.
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| Cleaver:
|
Yeah, but no one sent me the lyrics or anything to work from here. I mean, how can I sing... (general chastisement)
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| Dorel:
|
We can find them on the web!
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| Cleaver:
|
I think I should've had more time to prepare.
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| Indeed:
|
You can sing anything.
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| (?):
|
Or more time to drink
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| Cleaver:
|
That's a good idea.
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| (?):
|
I'm sure Madam will accompany you. She likes to sing.
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| Madam:
|
Madam's got a sinus infection. She's saving herself for Pirates of Penzance tomorrow.
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| Cleaver:
|
Has Madam got a quick marketing idea while I'm hoping that I don't have to sing?
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| Madam:
|
Madam does have a quick marketing idea. I don't actually know a lot about this, but I've seen a fair amount of people do this. The concept is "street teams" and it's mostly been used with indy bands. Again, I'm not super familiar with the way it works, but it seems to be the kind of low-cost thing where you're targeting a particular audience, like the college-age demographic, or something like that. People who are, I hesitate to say, "hip" to certain kinds of things, and into different aspects of the game, not just running through the frags and everything. I wouldn't say it would work sort of like the greeters, but you have sort of a level of player or a level of people who get involved. You send out this call, and you say, "Hey, who wants to work with us to get the word out?" And so they do things like, I guess this is more band-specific again, but, would put up posters for shows, would hand out flyers, would get words out on bulletin boards and things like that. And then in return, maybe you'd do a drawing every month for special merchandise or something like that. And so that way, you guys could keep your costs down, while getting the word out through something more than just simple word-of-mouth.
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| Cleaver:
|
I think it's an interesting idea. I always feel a little dodgy about asking people to do a bunch of stuff without paying them. I think that I could probably overcome some of my qualms though, because I think you're right that people would be really happy to be more involved, to do stuff, to help out. It's an idea. I know that in China and Korea, where everything is very much more web-café based, that sort of thing's really important. And so you have to have people representing the game in the cafés, getting people to play and saying how cool it is, sort of spreading the excitement. In the U.S. outside of college campuses I think it'd be that much harder because people are so spread out. But for the colleges, I think that's a good idea for a part of the push there.
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| Indeed:
|
Speaking of singing, did you listen to the song "Cleaver Baby" and if so, did you like it?
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| Cleaver:
|
I haven't listened to it yet, no. I will, though.
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| Indeed:
|
You haven't? It's been up since December! My heart is broken.
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| Cleaver:
|
Oh, December? Oh yeah, I did hear that, thought you meant a new one.
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| Bluetta:
|
What did you put that up for, Indeed?
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| Indeed:
|
Huh? Oh, for some contest-or-other. A parody contest. Extra prizes for actually singing. And, you know, I'm a sucker for attention.
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| Bluetta:
|
We didn't know that about you, Indeed.
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| Indeed:
|
I try to hide it.
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| Randall:
|
I do have a quick question before we come to the singing, which would be: When do we get cat familiars? Which I think are desperately needed.
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| Cleaver:
|
Uhm, some time, maybe? I dunno, the whole familiar thing is- I'm very sketchy about more types of familiars and I'm not really happy with the way they get handed out right now. I'd kind of like it to be a bit-more widely distributed, but I know that's going to cause a lot of people to get upset and riot and so-on. We'll see. But cat familiars I would like. More than sea cucumbers, in fact.
|
| Caspian:
|
I'm going to jump in here while there's silence. You were talking about before the different-language servers. I know for the German server and the Chinese server, they were kind of, almost subletted out, how do you feel about how that went, basically how the other language servers went and where you want to go with those in the future.
|
| Cleaver
|
Yeah. Renting servers. Well, the German's doing okay. They just need more players, I think, I'm harassing the Gamigo guys about that, and we talked about it at E3 actually. I think one of their problems is basically they're only used to dealing with a hard-core gamer audience, and so they haven't really known quite what to do with Puzzle Pirates, because it doesn't fit into the traditional 'core gamer people that they market to. So, it's okay. I think it very much depends, however, on the partner, but the issue is that it's totally not realistic for us to, say, roll out [a ]Brazilian server. I mean it's just not going to happen. And if it did then it'd be a fiasco and we'd never do any business there. So we kind of have to work with partners in order to go into those countries. China, even more so, it's so crazy out there in the Wild West- we're actually looking at a situation where we'll have two partners. One who we trust, and then another one who don't trust as much who'll actually run the game but... some division of labor between them, but just a [?] to give us more security, because as you probably know, the last Chinese partner went boom. Or rather pffft. So yeah, it's a tough one. It's painful to have someone else look after your baby and not necessarily doing a job. Also, from our point of view, anything is better than nothing. It's nice to be out in those countries, even if it only does moderately well, it's still the bonus, as far as we're concerned, and something that we couldn't do by ourselves.
|
| Bluetta:
|
I think we should get Nemo on here for our next session, 'cause I was going to ask if that gold color is really the gold he intended on or not.
|
| Cleaver:
|
I don't like the gold very much either. Steve's got a question next.
|
| Stevedave:
|
Oh, that's an old one. But I was just going to say that even though the gold is kinda lame, I'm still saving up to get my solid gold crown. Even though I'm not the king of anything.
|
| Cleaver:
|
I think you deserve it. So, does someone want me to sing something, because, yeah.
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| Randall:
|
Yes, we do want you to sing something. (evil laugh)
|
| Dorel:
|
I have the lyrics for "I Feel Pretty."
|
| Bluetta:
|
Because you know I feel pretty.
|
| Cleaver:
|
Nope.
|
| Indeed :
|
Lies, everyone knows that song.
|
| Cleaver:
|
Not me.
|
| (?):
|
How about "Rubber Ducky"?
|
| Cleaver:
|
I don't think I remember that one either. Someone could sing it to me.
|
| Randall:
|
And there was silence.
|
| (?):
|
Come on, Stevedave.
|
| Stevedave:
|
The only song I know how to sing is "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park."
|
| Cleaver:
|
Well, go on then.
|
| Stevedave:
|
I need to get the lyrics up in front of me if I'm going to sing that.
|
| Bluetta:
|
There's gotta be a piratey type of sea-shanty that you know.
|
| (?):
|
Where's Eris when you need her?
|
| Cleaver:
|
Well I could pick something out, but I don't think I should be looking for what I'm going to sing, you guys should send me something. Something off the forums would be great, if you've got something.
|
| (?):
|
The only thing that I know where it is real quick is Hom's "Sound of Stupid" or whatever that was.
|
| (?):
|
What one was it?
|
| (?):
|
The one Homullus did to "The Sound of Silence."
|
| Bluetta:
|
Well here's the parody thread, from the octos. Thriller, no.
|
| Randall:
|
Jacqui, If you have a question I think you can just ask while everybody is looking for songs.
|
| Jacquilynne:
|
Okay. I wanted to ask, Cleaver, how strange it is, as a game developer, as an engineer, to be in a situation like this, where you have people doing this weird idol-worship thing. "Oh my god, it's Cleaver!" kind of thing that happens in the game all the time.
|
| Cleaver:
|
It's not that weird. Honestly. It's okay. I don't really think of it as idol-worship. I just made this game that you like to play. That's okay. I'm pleased, I'm really delighted. And one of the things that makes me really happy is people I meet and talk to who play the game- I like them. Which is really nice. It would be a lot more difficult and awkward if I didn't actually like the people who tend to play the game. Then it'd be weird and a little more uncomfortable. Also, there aren't that many of guys around, so that also makes a difference. If there were hundreds of thousands of people mobbing me wherever I went, then it would probably bug me a lot more. But also it'd be very much less likely that those hundreds of thousands of people would actually be kinda cool(?).
|
| (?):
|
I found Homullus's "Sounds of Stupid," to the tune of "Sounds of Silence." Which, I'll admit, I don't think I know what "Sounds of Silence" is.
|
| Cleaver:
|
I don't know if I can remember the tune to that one well enough to be able to give you a rendition.
|
| (?):
|
Yeah, I know that one but I'm a horrible singer so I'm not going to demonstrate it for you.
|
| Bluetta:
|
Anyone besides me looking here? This should've been planned beforehand
|
| Cleaver:
|
Yeah, I thought you already had the thing for me to sing. I was braced.
|
| (?):
|
We were really going for "I Feel Pretty."
|
| (?):
|
All I can think of is "Rule Britannia."
|
| Cleaver:
|
That's kind of terrifying. I'm not that British these days. Any other suggestions?
|
| (?):
|
Amazing Grace? [?] Oh come on, he can do it.
|
| (?):
|
Or some Boards of Canada stuff that has lyrics.
|
| Cleaver:
|
No, Boards of Canada don't have any lyrics at all.
|
| (?):
|
Orange? Say it over and over again.
|
| Cleaver:
|
(laughs) One, two.
|
| (?):
|
We were thinking "I Feel Pretty" beforehand, but I was under the impression that Dolphine was going to send you the lyrics, or the song, if you didn't know it.
|
| Dolphine:
|
I thought Llama was.
|
| Caspian:
|
Pull in themes(?) and do "A Pirate's Life for Me."
|
| Cleaver:
|
I might be able to remember a Talking Heads song, give me a sec. Any other questions, or chat amongst yourselves.
|
| (?):
|
I just want to comment on the miscommunication here, Llama, ban him!
|
| Indeed:
|
He was busy having all of us stalk him in D.C.
|
| Randall:
|
Actually I think Madam has a question from Rubby.
|
| Madam:
|
Rubby wants to say he is not a wuss, despite what I say in here, but he wants the question which is on everybody's minds, which is, when are we getting shirts?
|
| Cleaver:
|
Oh, t-shirts? I saw Nemo working on the designs today. So, real soon now.
|
| (?):
|
Hot damn!
|
