The first band that made me consider the value of conflict was Van Halen. Listening to the songs from the original lineup with David Lee Roth and you can again hear the music had more “bite” than it did after Diamond Dave left the group. Eddie’s guitar sound was certainly more raw and his soloing (and his overplaying and “noodling” as he called it) was more off-the-cuff, almost as if he was channeling his frustrations into a creative outlet. Again, plenty of stories over the DLR years of in-fighting. Once Sammy Hagar entered the picture, I got the impression Eddie was more confident as leader of the band and more into composing and arranging his music. The early years with Sammy was one big happy party with everyone getting along, and while they certainly did put out some great songs in the “Van Hagar” years, there was also something missing. The “bite” was gone.

Shifting forward in time, one example of a lack of conflict doing more harm than good was my appearance in Episode #30 of the Shut Up, We’re Talking! podcast. While I never thought the show was “bad” by any means, it was at the time the lowest-rated episode (and highest number of comments, if I recall) simply because there was no conflict at all between the guests. None. Nada. Zero. Zip. Zilch. I’m sure it was just purely coincidence, but every topic on the agenda Darren, Karen, John and myself all agreed upon. There wasn’t even the hint of a dissenting opinion, not even for the sake of playing Devil’s Advocate. The listener’s didn’t like it. And I have no choice to agree. I personally will not listen to a podcast with only one host, because there is no discussion and therefore no liveliness and no source for conflict to generate creativity. Even with podcasts with multiple hosts, I tend to not enjoy shows where all the hosts share the same background in whatever the topic is about (usually gaming). I’ve said before that in MMOs I personally prefer to be in guilds with a varied roster of personalities, not just a bunch of “gamer dudes” always having the same “gamer dude” discussions. Give me some non-gamers, some housewives, some CEO’s, some MMA fighters, anything but people who mimic my own background or interests. Similarly, I rank podcasts higher when hosts include both males and females. That discourse alone is plenty of entertainment value because you’re guaranteed to have different backgrounds influencing their opinions and preferences.

Paul (Oakstout) has brought up a few times recently that he thinks a gaming-oriented podcast hosted by himself, Aaron and me would be a good idea. I always burst into laughter, saying he just wants my blog bombed with hate mail when people hear me vocalizing just how opinionated I am. But he says he thinks it’s interesting because while the three of us often enjoy the same (or at least similar) games, nearly 100% of the time we enjoy them for completely different reasons and don’t always see eye-to-eye on the others’ preferences. For my two cents, while I have had some creative (and silly) ideas for podcasts before, there is no way I’m going to be co-hosting with my little punk-ass voice up against Mr. Guitarist/Songwriter Aaron and his deep babe-magnet voice. Yes, I am precisely that shallow! Not to mention, as stated above in my own personal listening preferences, it would be three dudes being dudes. An aural sausage-fest. That is not something I’d want to listen to, much less take the time to record, edit, and produce. Harry Potter wouldn’t have been as special if it were “The Adventures of Ron and Harry,” now would it? The addition of Hermione and her perspective was what solidified them as friends and an interesting band of adventurers. A few dudes waggling their wands is just that – it takes a woman to turn it into magic…

The Crew:

The Amazing, Awesome and Excellent Karen: Journey’s With Jaye
Darren: Common Sense Gamer
John: The Ancient Gaming Noob
and Yours Truly

The Agenda:

Introductions
Listener Mail
What We’re Playing
Game Project Management: a look at Mythic’s cutting of 4 cities and 4 classes from Warhammer Online.
Long in the Tooth: is WoW officially “old” now?
Blog of the Week
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog: An unscripted “behind the scenes” conversation that Darren decided to include in the show.

I had a blast recording the show, and I hope everyone enjoys listening to us ramble! With Karen and I both traveling home Saturday, we agreed to start the show later than originally scheduled. With the late start plus Darren recording with his air conditioning off for better audio, we mostly kept on-track with not as much off-air goofing around as last time so our gracious host co-host didn’t suffer a heat stroke or a perspiration-induced electric shock.

Darren invited me to the Shut Up, We’re Talking podcast Episode #26 last night. Before we got started I told Darren to feel free to edit or erase anything I said that was super-retarded. He said that was normal practice, no worries and we all had a good laugh. I teased Karen a bit off the air that the Vanguard half of her guild were her red-headed step-children. She had her on-air revenge (haha!) by calling me out on practically every topic. The results of which, it wouldn’t surprise me if Darren has to edit out everything I said in between “hi, great to be here!” and “goodnight, thanks for having me!”

Stage fright is a funny thing. I’ve done a tiny bit of public speaking, though much like acting, that is truly stage fright at its finest (read: worst). I’ve played guitar in a pseudo-band in front of handfuls of people. Most recently was my transition from being nervous and tongue-tied making PA announcements for passengers at work. Now I’m very casual about it, and routinely have First Officers doing any number of wacky things to try to get me to laugh; sometimes Flight Attendants will sneak up and try to tickle me to make me laugh over the PA during my announcements. 90% or better, I’m stoic and can stand my ground. But back when it was a new experience, simply glancing at me the wrong way would cause me to lose all concentration.

And so it was last night. Darren sent us the show notes several days ago, I made a Google Document with all my notes, but the second it was my turn to speak, I was in full “deer in headlights” mode. I’m terrified I’m going to end up sounding like some psychopathic ranting lunatic. I can recall one time in particular I was talking (probably speaking too quickly, too… grrr…) and staring at my notes, trying to make sure I covered each bit of the topic I had written notes about, only to discover simultaneously that I was missing the majority of them, and I literally had an OOB where I’m just watching myself in third-person thinking “WTF dude? WTF are you even talking about?” I had to get up and turn the air conditioning down to Arctic Mode, I was in such a nervous sweat.

So, to all the SUWT listeners… I sucked and I apologize… If future podcast hosts take pity on me and invites me onto one of their shows, hopefully I’ll get better with time. Seems it’s a practice makes perfect kinda thing.

I will say I had a total blast being part of the whole thing and seeing (listening?) to how it’s all done. Darren, Karen, and John are great, and I’d love to actually get to know them better, and someday have a chance to game with them. Guild chat and tells in Vanguard doesn’t count, I mean actually grouping and adventuring!

One thing you’ll notice is Darren and I in particular kept saying we’d discuss our current experiences in Age of Conan “later” then never actually got around to it! Sorry… I’ll write more of a summary either tomorrow night or when I get back home Tuesday.

Yeah, I put AoC in the title of this article… see what I did there?