Podcast Update

It's been a while since I updated my list of podcasts that I listen to. There haven't been too many big changes, although my order of preference has changed a bit.

The biggest change is that The Order 66 Podcast is pretty much off my rotation. I'm still subscribed, but I haven't listened to an episode in ages. I'm around 20 episodes behind at this point, with no real intention to catch up. It's not that the podcast stopped being good, it's just that I can't see myself playing the game anytime in the foreseeable future, whereas I am doing a lot of miniatures gaming, so I'm more interested in podcasts covering that. I still recommend it to anyone with an interest in the Star Wars Saga edition RPG, and even possibly to someone with just a general interest in either RPGs or Star Wars.

The other big change is that Dice Like Thunder has now become my favorite 40K specific podcast, ahead of 40K Radio. Part of this is that I simply think the guys at DLT have a better grasp of the game. Part of it is that the guys at 40K Radio are really adamant that they are doing "internet radio" and are really pushing the live show aspect.

I'm going to diverge into a rant for a bit here. I'm very firmly of the opinion that one of the biggest advantages of podcasting is the ability to listen to it when I want to, not when the producers of the show decide to make it. Scheduling a time to stop everything and go listen to some guys make a podcast feels very pre-VCR to me, and I have little to no interest in doing so. Of course, I can still listen to the recorded episodes of 40K Radio, but as they aim more and more of their programming towards live call-ins, and other audience participation elements, I feel more and more left out. The Order 66 also suffers a bit from this, but to a lesser degree. It's all starting to feel very cliquish from my perspective. I'm sure that's more an issue with me than the show, but it's still an issue that has me enjoying the show a bit less.

On the other hand, DLT is very much a podcast, and a good one. As the disclaimer goes at the beginning of their show "there are certainly things with which you will vehemently disagree," but it's still both informative and entertaining. It's also one of the few podcasts which I have liked enough to go back and listen to old episodes of, something I'm still in the process of doing. One disclaimer about recommending it though is that they're currently undergoing a rather big change in that the founder of the podcast has moved to California (it's based out of Chicago), and rather than trying to do it over Skype, they are switching to an alternating cast format where the guys in Chicago do one episode, and the next is done by the founder and some friends of his new to the podcast. It's too early to tell if this is going to work out over the long run, but it seems to be going well so far.

As good as DLT is, World's End Radio is still the podcast I look forward to the most, followed closely by the D6 Generation. I've already gone over both of those in prior posts.

Podhammer is back, sort of, but it's been a bit sporadic lately. It's common knowledge among his listeners that the host has been through quite a lot lately, and presumably still has major issues to deal with aside from podcasting. For those interested, his earlier hiatus was a result of his wife filing for divorce, and since then he also lost his job. He has found new work since then, but it's quite possible that the work is more demanding on his time than his old job was (pure speculation on my part). I'm hoping that he works things out and gets back to podcasting, as I enjoy the show despite not currently playing the game it covers.

This Week in Wargaming has also been very sporadic, with both the hosts having various difficulties going on that limited their ability to do a podcast to the point that the co-host had to quit entirely. It would be more accurately titled This Month in Wargaming at the moment, but Troy McCauley has announced his intention to get things back on track. We'll see. My wallet has enjoyed the respite, but I'll still be happy if this one gets back on a regular schedule.

I'm still listening to 40K Warcasting, although it is firmly in third place on my list of 40K only podcasts. I'm not sure if I can finger exactly why that's the case. I feel that the DLT crew is the most knowledgeable about the game, but the 40K Warcasting crew is probably at least as knowledgeable as the 40K Radio crew. It may simply be that 40K radio comes out more often.

That's pretty much my list right now. I've been sampling a few other podcasts, but that's on hold for now as I catch up on back episodes of Dice Like Thunder. I'm sure that in a few months my list will have changed again, if only because the shows have. That's the nature of podcasting.