Not Addicted

Cat's out of the bag; there might be a Notacast someday. Frybread,
Alhija, and I sat down not too long ago and tossed around some ideas
and recorded a demo. After listening to our recording we threw it in a
toaster and burned down the house containing it. Making a Podcast is
not easy, or, making a good podcast is not easy. It takes planning,
personality, and millions of dollars. Fortunately though, not many
people out there are interested in making a good podcast. For many aspiring casters, the
development process breaks down into:

Two friends are talking over vent one day. Mid-anecdote, one friend says to the other "hey, we should record this conversation and distribute it so everyone can enjoy how funny and clever we are!" Mics are bought, Audacity is downloaded, and history is made.

While developing Notacast, I thought it would be a good idea to get a feel for the current World of Warcraft podcasting community. After hours of searching for a show that I might enjoy I discovered that there weren't any. To spare you from wasting this time yourself, I went through and reviewed the podcasts that I listened to. Learn from my mistakes.

WoW Radio: Warcraft Anonymous

These guys exhibit all of the charm and wit of morning radio, without the alleviation of musical interludes. From what I can gather, the two show hosts (Haiko and Railvas) are 35 year old college students that live in college dorms. Over the course of this way-way too long episode, Haiko and Railvas use fake radio voices (spoken entirely in the key of nasal) to convey the most current events of their personal social agendas, with the word "Warcaft" sprinkled sparingly between dorm-life stories.

Trapped in a Picardian time-warp, the show pulls out gimmicks that were dated in the mid 80's. One such gimmick plays like a 5th grader's youtube Beastie Boys remake where one actor will attempt to emphasize the final word in the other's sentences, with a 25% success rate!

Haiko: Come and join...
Haiko and Railvas: us!
Haiko: This will be a fun...
Railvas: Time!
Haiko: Thing!
Haiko and Railvas: LOLZ!

The talking takes place over a looped contemporary acoustic guitar track most likely cut by one of the pair's 55 year old coffee shop dwelling uncles. The show takes a break part way through to deliver an amateurish skit that surely will elicit laughs from their elite group of friends.

Content: 2/10
Entertainment: 4/10 this is more of an "E" for effort than an endorsement of their ability to entertain.
Personality: 0/10

World of Warcast

This podcast brings to mind the old SNL national public radio spoof The Delicious Dish. I imagine 3 people sitting around a folding card table wearing Birkenstocks with socks and Dragoncon '93 t-shirts. Throughout the course of the show, the hosts barely interact with one another, instead delivering soft-spoken monologues about their experiences playing the game.

I actually thought that the content of the show was substantial, or at least more substantial than anything else out there. The episode flowed well, and the conversations actually centered around World of Warcraft. The downside, however, is that I often found myself drifting away into superhero themed day-dreams while listening. A randomly spaced gunshot sound would do wonders for this show.

Entertainment: 0/10
Content: 6/10
Personality: 2/10

How I WoW

How I WoW is the podcast "about real people who happen to play World of Warcraft." This tagline is stated in the first few minutes and gives the impression that these two men are on a crusade to prove that WOW PLAYERS ARE STILL PEOPLE TOO! For these two guys (Patrick and Sean), World of Warcraft is a side note to their otherwise fascinating lives. But unfortunately, the equation that they're adopting here is:

WoW Player + Radio - WoW Content x WoW Personality = Good Radio

The duo attempt to spice up the show with interviews featuring slightly higher-status podcasters from other WoW shows, but the premise falls flat when you realize that these "special guests" live about as interesting lives as the hosts. This podcast is still in its infancy (3 episodes strong as I write this), and I am more than accommodating to people finding their stride, but at the rate this show is going I don't anticipate a very strong future.

Content: 0/10
Entertainment: 2/10
Personality: 5/10 - I actually think these guys would do alright if they talked about WoW.

Legendary Thread (1UP.com's World of Warcraft Podcast)

Alright, I didn't necessarily have high hopes for this podcast, but I expected a certain level of production value from a podcast endorsed by the Ziff Davis family of websites. I realized the error of my judgement when one of the hosts is unable to make it into even the Hello Kitty Beta. The show itself features the highly original premise of a group of people sitting around talking about their lives, MMORPGs, and WoW.

The breakdown of hosts is as follows:

Karen: The tomboy gaming girl who sounds like a poor caricature of the female goth hacker chick personified in early 90's renditions of the underground "hacking" world. Closing my eyes I can almost imagine her fingerless fishnet gloves and knee-high leather boots.
Brian: Comedy Relief, I guess? Brian is one of those nerds unfortunately graced with a very nerdy voice. Now I don't hold this against him, but there's a reason that Frybread and I didn't make a modeling website. His personality doesn't help his likability either.
Jeff and Sean: Both of these guys have decent radio voices and sound like they've graduated 10th grade.

Hey Ziff, for ten bucks I can improve this show 100 fold. Put Jeff and Sean in the driver seat, make a show outline ahead of time of what they're going to talk about, and stick to WoW.

Content: 4/10
Entertainment: 2/10
Personality: 7/10 for Jeff and Sean, 2/10 for Karen and Brian

Outlandish

The episode I listened to began with 2 minutes of un-introduced outtakes from an earlier recording. At first the show felt like an experimental sojourn into post-modern podcasting, or someone left the mics on and they decided that the resulting audio was as good as anything else they've produced. Later this introductory section of random sounds and repeated sayings is explained to me as "lolz, this is b4 we could act!". Once the episode transitions out of random mumblings and failed skits, I am treated to a "best-of" episode where I am unable to distinguish between outtake clips and broadcast clips.

At one particularly low point I am subjected to a making-of-behind-the-scenes look at one of their skits. The clip drones on for 12 excruciating minutes, as the voice actors repeat the same phrase over and over and over. And over. The group laughs hysterically as they plod through this thoroughly obnoxious segment; I suppose I'm glad that someone found this funny.

This show peaks at mundane and cruises on completely stupid. Every once in a while there are entertainers that leave their audience at an intellectual deficit as a result of their listening - to attribute this podcast with that is a generous compliment.

Content: 0/10
Entertainment: -4/10 - I didn't originally think I was going to be employing negative numbers.
Personality: 1/10

I'm sure that many people that participate in these podcasts will give me a stern "hey buster, we do this for free and if you don't like you can just stop listening!" My answer to them? Done.

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