Bel Folks Stuff

Bel Folks Stuff – Episode 4

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We are still in the process of releasing all of the original episodes of Bel Folks Stuff as I continue to work on brand new episodes.  This show in particular originally released on January 16th of 2015 and featured my friend Petter Mårtensson.  At the time of the recording Petter was behind the Don’t Fear the Mutant blog, and extremely active on the CSICON Network hosting several shows including Claims the Normal, Three MMOSketeers, Enochian Frequency and Who’s Who.  In the time since we recorded this he has moved into the game industry proper working for Massive Entertainment a game studio under the UbiSoft umbrella and most known for The Division and The Division 2.

Weird story is that I eventually took over the column he once wrote about Final Fantasy XIV over at MMOGames and then I myself moved on from that as well.  We had a really interesting discussion about science fiction and futurism and geeked out more than a little bit about Doctor Who. These early shows run a little long but that is largely because I found myself getting wrapped up in the conversation that I didn’t want to stop.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did recording it.

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Bel Folks Stuff – Episode 3

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We are still in the process of releasing all of the original episodes of Bel Folks Stuff as I build up a vault full of brand new content. This show originally aired on December 4th of 2014.

For years Alternative Chat otherwise known as Alt was a fixture of the World of Warcraft community. Over the years since I recorded this episode I have lost touch with her as to the best of my knowledge she is no longer doing the game blogging thing. This is something that happens as folks move in one direction and others move in a different occasionally perpendicular direction. However this episode was extremely enjoyable to record as we sat down to talk about stuff and things with a sizable dose of Warcraft. If you are interested in the things Alt is doing these days you can find her on the Internet of Words blog or on twitter via @MoveablePress or @InternetofWords.

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Bel Folks Stuff – Episode 2

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Featuring Rowan and Scooter

This was originally aired on November 14th of 2014. It is being released as part of the reboot of the podcast as we go through the process of recording new episodes and because it never quite made its way to YouTube. This is part of a run up to the start of brand new episodes that are currently being recorded.

This is a discussion with @RowanBlaze and his partner @Sctrz who are a pair that often time explore MMORPGs together so it absolutely made sense to talk to both at the same time. Rowan is best known for the I Have Touched The Sky blog and some time after recording this I actually got to meet both of them at Pax South in San Antonio and hang out a bit. It was a fun evening of sitting down and talking to both of them, and as such I share it again with the world.

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Revisiting Folks and Stuff

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The other day I posted a New Years resolutions post of a sort, and one of the topics addressed is how I really miss the existence of a thing that I once did called “Bel Folks Stuff”. The idea was simple, that I get together with some people that I interested in and have a sit down to talk about various topics. There really wasn’t much of a format other than that, and this idea of starting it up again has been something rolling around in my brain for the last year. The original series run released starting in October of 2014 and the last episode ever produced was released in May of 2015 with a new episode releasing almost every month during that time.

I really enjoyed the series but I allowed myself to get hung up on the fact that it seemed like no one was actually listening to them. They were in theory a labor of love, with me talking to a bunch of my friends rather than seeking out industry names and trying to wrangle them for a conversation that would ultimately feel more interview that honest discourse. In theory I have reached the point where I am just not watching stats in the way I once was, and if this ends up being listened to only by a handful of people then honestly I am fine with this. I went back and listened to a few of the episodes yesterday and it was a fun trip down memory lane with me talking to some of my friends for an hour and some change each time.

In the years since 2014 I have maybe figured out how I want to proceed in this whole podcasting thing. This past weekend we recorded our 282nd episode of AggroChat and that show has shifted a bunch since the super cringe-worthy first episodes. Weirdly however I think that Bel Folks Stuff more or less still holds up so I have decided to start re-releasing them. The show is going to live as part of this blog and I will configure a section for it. The goal is going to be to start re-releasing them on Saturday since I don’t generally make a post then. I will be doing the whole show card treatment like I do with AggroChat as well as starting to upload them to YouTube.

I am going to kick the process off by recording an episode zero, that is just me talking about the goals of the show. While the early episodes didn’t have much of a structure they did have several questions that I asked pretty much all of my guests, and in similar fashion I am going to be setting up a new set of questions going forward for episodes past what has been recorded to date. In episode zero I will be essentially laying out the sales pitch for the show and answering the questions about myself.

Moving forward I am going to be sitting down and having an hour long conversation with people as often as I can seem to manage it. Then I will file these recordings away and release them as I need fresh content. I’ve cobbled together a list of about thirty people that I am going to seek out and I am sure I will be adding more people to that list as I go forward. I’m being all responsible like and using Trello for this much like how we use Trello to keep track of topics for AggroChat so I guess I legitimately mean business now about this nonsense. As I see it I have a few months before I run out of the original show run and have to start producing real content. The first series of interviews are likely going to be me sitting down with the folks from AggroChat and using them as guinea pigs before branching out into a new batch of folks.

At the end of the day this talk show of sorts was a labor of love, and as I post the old episodes I am going to try my best to do a sort of “where are they now” update in the post as to what they are up to these days. The challenge as always is going to be finding the time to sit down and talk to all of the people who are in time zones diametrically opposed to my own. I am trying to focus on doing things this year that bring me joy and this show absolutely did. I mean 2014/2015 was a better time over all in our gaming community, and maybe naively I can think I will recapture some of that magic by travelling back down this path. The other secret hope is this will be a sort of long form method of introducing the consumers of my nonsense a whole list of new people to care about.