PolyCast Pilot Episode: "Is Anybody Listening?"

[DanQ]

Apolyton Civilization Site`s (ACS) official podcast is returning to its roots this week with the release of its first pilot episode, "Is Anybody Listening?", recorded this past September. The formatting of this show by and large reflects regular season episodes to date, but is roughly 1/4 shorter in length and the ordering of what was to become standard segments is also slightly different.

Standard segments "News", "Modcast" and "Interview" are joined by "Mailbag". Available for download in MP3 format at 64kbps quality, the total runtime is 47m49s (22.4MB). What was production-wise the first "Interview" segment has co-hosts Daniel "DanQ" Quick, Wouter "Locutus" Snijders and Makahlua taking turns interviewing each other. Imran Siddiqui was unavailable at the time of this episode`s recording due to technical difficulties.

Next week, the series` first blooper reel -- comprising of clips from the three pilots and five regular episodes recorded in 2006 -- will be released. ACS is the first and to date only known Civ fansite to produce its own podcast.

[DanQ]

Summary of Topics

Summary of topics for this episode:

NEWS (02m00s)
Civilization IV and the Warlords expansion both doing well in North American sales charts, GameProducer.net interview with Firaxis Games Producer Jesse Smith and Gamasutra  goes on about too many clicks in Turn-Based Strategy games.

INTERVIEW (22m09s)
"[W]e couldn't find anyone else to badger". This is how LOCUTUS introduces this segment at the outset of the show where he, DANQ and MAKALHUA take turns interviewing each other. Hear a summary of LOCUTUS' Apolyton and non-Apolyton lives, how MAKALHUA got into playing Civilization, DANQ's favourite and LOCUTUS' least favourite Civ titles respectively and what other podcasts each of the three listen to (gasp!).

MAILBAG (29m08s)
How to support Apolyton financially (here's one example), displaying the correct timezone in the forums, submitting a news item, why is the screen all black and how do you sell improvements or disband cities in Civilization IV.

MODCAST (39m02s)
The extensive re-organization of Apolyton's forums and should a Civ game have an economic victory.

[Nubclear]

You could have interviewed me

[DanQ]

Originally posted by Tacc
You could have interviewed me

Not only would you not have 'necromanced' any threads at that point, I don't believe there was a user here named Tacc to talk to back then either...

[Asher]

Honestly, Dan...I think the poll results answer your question.

Surely you have something better to do with your time?

[DanQ]

Originally posted by Asher
Honestly, Dan...I think the poll results answer your question.

Surely you have something better to do with your time?

The results of the poll are currently statistically insignificant, but even if and when they are this is one episode -- and a pilot episode at that -- recorded when we were still "getting our feet wet".

Don't you have something better to do with your time than being a wet blanket?

[Asher]

I'm trying to help you. This whole thing is a bit of a running joke.

[DanQ]

Originally posted by Asher
I'm trying to help you. This whole thing is a bit of a running joke.

So says you, and likely a few detracters would agree with you -- that's nothing new. This as with any service has its fair share or more of critics but there are supporters as well. It's easier to criticize than support, and those who criticize are usually the more, ah, vocal group.

It seems that even some of those who are critical of this podcast seemingly listen in on a regular basis anyway, so...

[Asher]

Of course...

This thread has been up for some time now and very few people have voted seriously. The fact that there's not enough for a "significant sample" should tell you something.

[Wiglaf]

I think the idea of a podcast is fine, i havent listened to any of them but I think the opening post (and many of DanQ's) is officious and very wordy, like a press release. I would not allow that if I were teaching high school English unless my students were actually writing some sort of god damn press release. Sorry I had to mention.

Also, Imran needs to be booted off in dramatic fashion. "Technical difficulties" ? Just admit you fired him

[Wiglaf]

The names of your podcast episodes seem like names for episodes of star trek or some **** up in here, which is bizarre, perhaps this is just me.

[Asher]

I CANNOT WAIT TO HEAR TEH BLOOPERS

[Kuciwalker]

I'm kind of confused about what the podcasts are going to be about... honestly there's not that much news around here.

[DanQ]

Originally posted by Asher
This thread has been up for some time now and very few people have voted seriously. The fact that there's not enough for a "significant sample" should tell you something.

Besides being released during the holidays, this as with all episodes released to date have not been voted formally on in any significant fashion in relation to how many times they have been downloaded. It tells me that most people are not interested in exercising their option to vote on these episodes -- presumably after being listened to -- which is their choice.

[DanQ]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
I think the idea of a podcast is fine, i havent listened to any of them but I think the opening post (and many of DanQ's) is officious and very wordy, like a press release.

The opening posts are news items as seen in http://apolyton.net/misc -- I write them to disseminate who, what, where, when and (perhaps inherently ) why. If it were a press release, for one thing there would typically be a paragraph summarizing Apolyton as an entity etc. at its end. If we must agree to disagree, we wouldn't be the first.

Also, Imran needs to be booted off in dramatic fashion. "Technical difficulties" ? Just admit you fired him

If that were true than he would have been fired and then re-hired as this pilot episode was recorded prior to Episodes 1-5. In this episode Wouter explains why he is absent.