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[Janus]

The talk of testing the 4 in a row game is close to another actual game, Gomoku, which is 5 in a row on (normally) a 19x19 board:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomoku

I actually wrote a couple of Gomoku games back in the day, one with moderate (but hardcoded) AI. 

[Lap]

I was cringing through a good majority of that because of how terribly amateur and rude the interviewers were.

-Frequent background noise and other people. If you're going to have your mom or whatever family member constantly interrupting you you shouldn't be interviewing someone, especially with an always on mic.

-Absolutely no format.

-Constant pointing out stupid things that were most definitely bugs (in a tone that was more "What were you thinking?", instead of "Remember that funny bug".

-Same thing with "X doesn't do anything!" Overt complaining from the interviewer. If you're going to bring up a supposed problem in an interview you would say, "Do you have any plans to make finding a quest monster easier as players often have trouble finding the actual monster," instead of "I went into a cave and I couldn't find the monster and that just sucks."

-"You're not technically a doctor."

-Too many personal opinions and suggestions "You should be able to do ridiculous thing X."

-Not paying attention (seriously the most rude thing of everything here. Why are you playing with keys?).

-Pointless interviewer side stories and interruptions.

Why Tarn decided to give them the privilege of interviewing him I have no idea.

[Karlito]

Why Tarn decided to give them the privilege of interviewing him I have no idea.

Oh right, because Dwarf Fortress is such a popular mainstream game that he deserves only the highest quality professional interview.  At this point any press is good press.

[Lap]

The things I mentioned aren't anything except the common expected standards for interviews and even basic conversation. I wouldn't even interrupt a good friend in a private conversation like that.

I'm sure there are a few dozen veteran players on this forum that would have been a far better choice.

As far as press goes. You're not going get any new players from this since it is too specific to certain game mechanics and anyone who is a borderline player isn't going to listen to a four hour interview.

EDIT=Just wanted to mention that I don't think the interview was useless. I don't think these interviewers were terrible people and I thank them for taking the time, but they need to be far more prepared and respectful.

[Karlito]

There aren't a few dozen veteran players on this forum making podcasts.

[asper]

Hey guys, thanks for doing this interview. You should, however, pay a little attention not to interrupt the interviewee so often 

[Languidiir]

Look, I'm sorry, but this was not actually an interview, it was a conversation. I realize now that I shouldn't have billed it as such.

I don't know about you, but in a conversation, I would interrupt a friend of mine. I don't care if he's the developer of a neat game or just some guy, I'm a pretty commanding person in conversation.

It didn't have any format because it was just me talking to him off the top of my head.

There was nothing I could do about the background noise, and I apologized for that already.

You're extremely nitpicky, and, in fact, I think you're the rude one out of this. I didn't strive to give you a 'professional interview,' I just wanted to talk to my favorite game designer. I'm sorry if you didn't like it, but I've already apologized, and your tone was far too condescending, despite your later half-apology.

I don't need to be respectful. For god's sake, he's a game designer, not the pope! This was a conversation between two people [arguably three, but Madman is a terrible conversation-haver] and I'm sorry that I didn't make that clear enough at the beginning.

[Sqee]

As far as press goes. You're not going get any new players from this since it is too specific to certain game mechanics and anyone who is a borderline player isn't going to listen to a four hour interview.

Well I have clocked maybe 3 hours DF, which lies several months back and still listened to the whole thing and donated afterwards, but that might be the exception to the rule.

[ToonyMan]

I'm goin' to check this out I am.

[asper]

Hmm, the "links" section of the Bay12 site (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/links.html) needs to be updated with this podcast... The 'Dark Diamond' one (http://darkdiamond.net/features/dark-diamond-interview-tarn-adams-technical-issues-editiondraft/) is also missing...

Hm maybe it's a good idea to make a more visible, separate "interviews" section on the Bay12 site, as these interviews are all quite interesting and could lure many a new player to the game...?

[Toady One]

Yeah, I've had that written down since the Dark Diamond one...  I should probably do it now.

As far as the value of this podcast, I don't think of it so much as attracting new people as being something useful and entertaining to give to the old people.  Other times I've been more mindful of the wider impact, since it has been pretty clear that the podcast had a wider audience and would percolate around pretty quickly.  In this case, I didn't do the podcast because I thought it would bring a bunch of people from MSPA and subsequent links (if it did, then that's cool of course!), but rather because I hadn't done one for a while, and I thought the current fans might want to hear it.

Obviously, the response has been mixed, though I'm glad some of you enjoyed it, and for the others, we can only try to improve the flaws in the future.  I'm still going to be doing intermittent podcasts with whoever is around at the time though, most likely.

[Mr.Person]

Next time, I would recommend making a forum post a few hours in advance and opening an IRC room to take questions. Really, that's a Q&A, but nothing wrong with that, eh? If it's for the long-time players, might as well involve them.

[Languidiir]

Next time, I would recommend making a forum post a few hours in advance and opening an IRC room to take questions. Really, that's a Q&A, but nothing wrong with that, eh? If it's for the long-time players, might as well involve them.

That's a really great idea! Too bad they won't be able to hear their answers real-time.

[Thndr]

Unless you do a streaming podcast.

[Languidiir]

Unless you do a streaming podcast.

If you'd kindly explain how to set that up, I'd love to.