This is our first podcast, if you are interested in the video game industry. Especially if you are interested in developing games of your own, this may be a podcast you’ll be interested in. Seeing as this is our first podcast, it may take us a few weeks before we start figuring everything out, and improve the sound quality and flow of things. Well, without further ado, here is our first episode of Kangaroos Are Misleading Podcast.

If  you liked the podcast, or like what its aim, please help us improve it so you can enjoy listening to it that much more. For any ideas, questions, comments, or specific issues that you would like us to fix, improve, or consider implementing, email us at suggestions@kangaroosaremisleading.com . If you have a question that you would like to be read on the show send your emails to mailbag@kangaroosaremisleading.com.

Now for some links related to things mentioned in the show:

DSi LL
Nyko DSi Lens
Unity 3D Free Engine
Montreal International Gaming Summit
MIGS Pricing
Valve Presentation PDF
Small Worlds
Can You Run It?

If you have been playing online games for more than a few years, you have probably noticed a decline in courtesy within a lot of gaming communities. I’m not very old myself (I’m 19), but I started gaming when I was 12 years old. My first online gaming experience was in TFC (Team Fortress Classic). since this was my first experience, I didn’t know what to expect, so I wasn’t really involved in the community and I didn’t say too much. I played this game purely for fun and never got into the competitive scene.

It wasn’t until I heard about CS (Counter-Strike) that I really started getting excited for online games. I got the game when version 1.5 was just released. I hadn’t been playing the game very long when I started talking to people and enjoying myself more, which lead to joining up with a clan. Our tag was LAG, which stood for Local Area Gaming. The name didn’t really make sense because we all lived in different parts of the world. The reason it was called this is because the people who created were friends and lived very close to each other. It wasn’t until later that they decided to start recruiting anyone, and they didn’t want to change the name. After I joined them, I really started getting into the community. The majority of the people I met in public servers demonstrated good sportsmanship. For example, whenever there was a kill, especially if it showed a high degree of skill, the person who was killed told their killer “nice shot”, “ns”, or something along those lines. If someone was the last man standing against a team of three or more, and he came close to succeeding, both teams would tell him something like “nice try”. If he succeeded, then it’d be “Good Job”. At the end of every game most people would say “gg” (good game). Little things like that made playing the game more fun. I’m not sure what happened, but it used to be that people came to expect good sportsmanship and were disappointed when it wasn’t demonstrated. Now, if you are pubbing it seems like you are relieved to see good sportsmanship.

In a lot of games, or at least in the FPS’ I’ve played, there are more and more ‘assholes’ and ‘douche-bags’. If you are wondering what the difference is, I believe that assholes are naturally jerks, while douche-bags actively strive to become worse and worse. The current state of courtesy is passable at best and you can still enjoy yourself in a game, but I’m worried that the state of online gaming will continue going in a downward spiral to the point where good sportsmanship is completely gone. Even within the competitive realm of gaming there are still assholes present, but to a lesser extent. The higher the level of competition, the less douche-baggery there is. At least this is what I’ve seen from my own experiences. I think if the community as a whole just says something simple like ‘gg’, ‘ns’, or ‘nt’ at the appropriate points, this would be a step in the right direction. If you don’t have anything good to say, you shouldn’t say anything at all; it may be a cliché’ line, but it’s true. That isn’t to say that you shouldn’t joke around while playing, and that gaming should be this magical land of pixies and unicorns. There is always room for sarcasm, and jokingly making fun of friends, but not to the extent where there are fights over the chat or even worse, over voice comm. It’s things like this that really take the fun out of online gaming. I’m not sure how many people agree with me but I hope it’s the majority, because if we want to survive as a community, we have to at least be civil with each other.

One of the things we’ll do here is write about the various DIY projects we’ll undertake. Currently, I’ve found a simple one on Instructables which regards the creation of a wireless adapter for a guitar amp. More on that later.