Bonfireside Chat - A Dark Souls and Bloodborne Podcast

This episode is a quick announcement to let you know that the way you get Duckfeed's premium content is changing. Patreon now offers individual feeds of all of our backer-only shows. This gives you control over what your podcast player downloads, and what you ultimately listen to. Since Patreon itself has this feature, we will no longer be using the individual show feeds on Fireside for our premium content. Those feeds will no longer be updated. Here's what you need to do: You will now need to subscribe to each show you want to listen to individually through Patreon. The process is very simple, just go to the Membership tab on our Patreon page. I've also created a detailed guide for you in the pinned post on our Patreon page. (https://www.patreon.com/posts/122629571) The delivery of public episodes isn't changing at this time. (So to get both the public and premium episodes of Watch Out for Fireballs!, you will need to subscribe to both the feed provided on Patreon and the public feed on watchoutforfireballs.com. I apologize for this duplication, there just isn't a way to handle it better at the moment). Very little else is changing at the moment. You will still get email notifications about every episode we post, regardless of what shows you subscribe to. If you miss the combined feed of all of our shows, what we called the firehose, we're sorry that it went away. You can recreate the effect either by using an RSS feed combiner service, or using features in the podcast app you already use to group shows together into one list of episodes. This feature is called Stations in Apple Podcasts, Overcast calls it Smart Playlists, Podcast Addict calls it Playlists. Pocketcasts doesn't have an option for this as far as I know. Patreon's multi-show RSS feature is still in testing, and there may be hiccups. This is also just one of many changes Patreon is making to make podcasting on their platform better for everyone, so expect more features in the near future. If you have any feedback about the experience, please write at info@duckfeed.tv. To sweeten the pot if this change makes you want to back us for the first time, or to become a patron again, use the code MULTIFEED (all one word) to get 20% off the first month of a new subscription.

Having broken a Great Rune somewhere in the Shadow Realm, we now head south toward the Cerulean Coast, a beautiful region littered with gigantic stone coffin ships. But the path leading there is anything but obvious.

I'm not that impressed. I've seen trees bigger than that tower.

It's been a week since Elden Ring's expasion, Shadow of the Erdtree, released to everyone. We've been hard at work finishing the game and planning out the next season of Bonfireside Chat, and we wanted to take this opportunity to give you our impressions after we both finished our first playthrough. It's good! We have a lot to talk about. This episode doesn't contain story spoilers, but please take caution if you're extremely sensitive to knowing anything about these games before you play them. We can't talk about the game without talking about the game. Additionally, this episode is free for everyone! Please consider backing our Patreon so you can get not only the upcoming Shadow of the Erdtree episodes, but a huge backlog of our other work. If you already back us, please spread this around to anyone you know who might be interested! We will have news about when the season will debut soon. Thank you so much for your support!

This morning saw the release of the first trailer for the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC expansion for Elden Ring, and we think it looks pretty neat. So we recorded a little reaction episode and are making it available for everyone to share in the excitement. In this episode we also discuss our tentative plans for covering the DLC. Since it's releasing on June 21, 2024 and we need to play it before we can structure the season, don't expect in-depth coverage until sometime in July. We will likely put up a first impressions episode shortly after release to tide you over, though. Bonfireside Chat will return for what appears to be a lengthy season, based on all of the stuff shown in the trailer. The format of the show will likely remain unchanged, and Real Lich Hours will continue its normal release schedule as well. We're excited to have you along for the ride. Now let's go touch that arm!

In this very special public feed episode, we're talking about late game areas with our audience and special guests Austin Walker* and SekiroDubi (*not pictured)!

This is an unlocked, free-for-everyone version of our second episode about Stormveil Castle. Want more? Check out our Patreon (patreon.com/duckfeedtv). Happy Elden Ring Anniversary and DLC Announcement! We've been in the shadow of Stormveil Castle for the entire game, learning of Godrick's misdeeds... and it's time to make him pay. This episode picks up at the courtyard of Stormveil Castle and goes through the Godrick the Grafted boss fight, and we also talk about activating his Great Rune at the tower.

This is an unlocked, free-for-everyone version of our first episode about Stormveil Castle. Episode 2 will come out next week. Want more? Check out our Patreon (patreon.com/duckfeedtv). Happy Elden Ring Anniversary and DLC Announcement! It's time we finally show that horny bastard Margit what we're made of, so we storm Stormveil Castle and find the horrors inside. This is part one of two, covering the Margit fight, the insides of the castle walls, Sorcerer Rogier, and the grisly grafting kitchens. Next week's episode will take us up through the Godrick fight.

On this first big episode of the Elden Ring series, we go over Elden Ring's mechanics and generalities in broad strokes. What's returning from previous From games? What's been improved? What's brand new? We talk about as many systems and aesthetics as we can, in order to establish a basic understanding before we dive into more lore-heavy parts of the game. In two weeks, we will talk about the Limgrave West portion of Elden Ring's world. This episode will be the first available exclusively at our Patreon page. (http://patreon.com/duckfeedtv)

Rise, Tarnished, and attend the first episode about Elden Ring! There's no way to describe the great unclenching that happened when we realized that Elden Ring is, in fact, good. Whether that bears out over the course of the entire game remains to be seen, but we have high hopes. This episode covers our first impressions after about a week of having the game, and we also lay out our current reckon on how the season will shape up. If this is your first time here, we're Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross, a duo of hosts who make Bonfireside Chat. Since 2013 we've talked about Souls games in high detail, in addition to talking about FromSoft's earlier games, their influences, and the whole galaxy of Soulslikes that spun off of Dark Souls' popularity. This show comes out every other Sunday, and it's normally available only to our Patrons (http://patreon.com/duckfeedtv). If you back at the $5 tier you gain access to every Premium episode of Bonfireside Chat (https://www.bonfireside.chat/tags/premium), you can listen to hundreds of hours of patron-exclusive content. If you decide to back us, you can check out how to get your content by looking at this post. (https://www.patreon.com/posts/how-to-redeem-63283880) This episode and the next episode, covering the game's general mechanics and its opening, will be free for all. We really appreciate you listening.

Since we re-launched this show, people have asked us where to find the episodes about Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Though we explained it in a few places, it cannot hurt to do so once more here. Bonfireside Chat Rekindled is a show that's exclusive to our Patreon campaign (http://patreon.com/duckfeedtv). Main episodes come out every other week, and we will begin doing off-week episodes again shortly. For $5 per month you get a lot in addition to Bonfireside Chat, and we encourage you to check out our network's other offerings. So go become a Patron today to hear us talk about Sekiro, other soulslikes, and other FromSoft games!

Sekiro is different. Sekiro is hard. Sekiro is here! Listen in for our nascent opinions on the game, based on the first few hours. This episode is free and available for everyone, and if you want other episodes of Bonfireside Chat Rekindled, and want to hear the rest of the Sekiro season as it releases, please consider backing us on Patreon. (http://patreon.com/duckfeedtv).

Hello, listeners and patrons alike. We come to you with some exciting news: We are changing the Patreon around! (http://patreon.com/duckfeedtv) It feels like we just did this, but the last major change was back toward the beginning of 2017. We’re trying to constantly observe what’s happening with the network and learn what to do better. That means making changes like this from time to time. We’re also aiming to never shake things up in a way that is too disruptive to you, the listener. We want to give more (or at least focus up and give better). So we put a lot of thought and consideration into making sure these changes either solve problems or help us achieve goals. Here’s the summary of what we’re planning, and you can find the details below. In order to grow the network, give patrons more, and cover rising costs, we plan to: Bring back Bonfireside Chat as a Patreon show. Give Patrons a whole episode of Watch Out for Fireballs! Move from theme months to covering big-name games more frequently. Change WOFF! Listener Response episodes to WOFF! Dispatch, make it more interactive, and have broader topic discussions. Make Adaptation Decay a monthly show. We are getting rid of the content store, and making premium episodes available on Patreon in perpetuity. We are phasing out the promise of physical goods, and sending out an “I’m Sorry!” package to people who never got theirs. In general, we are simplifying the Patreon drastically, while offering more at each tier. So without further preamble, let’s get into more detail. We want to grow. We want to grow in both listenership, patronage, and income. We are proud of the work that we do, and never want to stagnate in any of the aforementioned areas. Growth requires change. We want to give patrons more. The best way to keep listeners and members around is to always try to give more (or give better). This is also the best way to bring new people in. We are grateful to our patrons, past and present, and we want to make sure we’re giving them stuff they want. We want to meet rising costs. There are costs associated with doing this at the professional level. Traveling to live shows is expensive. Hosting, web services, applications, and equipment are expensive. Being self-employed is expensive (both Gary and I do this full time and need to cover things like health insurance). And since we’re covering more new games, we’re spending more on games! This is not a hobby for us, we’re committed to doing this full time as our main means of support, and this means keeping up with costs. People want Bonfireside Chat. And we want to give it to them. We also want to play to our strengths as a network whose bread and butter is games club content. We put Bonfireside Chat to bed when it felt like it was the right thing to do. We stuck with our guns for a long time. But with Sekiro on the horizon, and some damn-fine Soulslikes already here, it feels right to take the show out of cold storage. So we are bringing back Bonfireside Chat as a Patreon show, with a slightly different format. Listen to Bonfireside Chat 2.0 Episode 0 on the feed to learn more. Our first game is the Soulslike shooter Immortal Unchained! We want to value WOFF! appropriately. Watch Out for Fireballs! is the network’s flagship show. It also takes a lot of time to produce. We play through the entire game (whether it’s 1 hour or 100), research the games, write outlines that total in the thousands of words, record for hours, and edit. In looking at how to make this tenable in the long run, we have decided to make one episode of WOFF! per month premium. This does two things: It makes the Patreon more valuable for our members, and it incentivizes more membership. But don’t panic! When an episode goes premium, we will include a good portion of it on the public feed (up through the Generalities). So you still get something each week, it’s just that the play-by-play goes to members. NOTE 1: This won’t go into effect for January. We already announced those games, and we don’t want to revoke access to something anyone was excited for. NOTE 2: We will still have multi-part episodes, but we will never put a whole episode (Part 2, 3, or 4) behind a paywall. Only single episodes will get this treatment. WOFF! Theme Months are going away. This was a very fun idea. But it was also hell to plan for, in addition to other WOFF-based pattern incentives. So we feel like it has run its course. We want to exercise more control over the games we pick for WOFF! so we can pace out the year and cover exciting stuff. Anyone who has paid for a WOFF Theme Month will still get their topics covered, but after that hopper is exhausted the theme months will go away. We want the WOFF! Listener Response episodes to be more interesting. Right now, not a lot of folks listen to the letters episodes on WOFF. Additionally, not a lot of people listen to the behind-the-scenes episodes of DuckTRAX, and we don’t get very many prompts/responses. SO! We’re getting rid of DuckTRAX and changing the listener response episodes to WOFF! Dispatch. So the last episode of WOFF! for each month will contain responses about the games from that month, prompts and questions from the Patrons, and a segment that is a longer-form discussion about a particular topic. These will be fun experiments, and we hope you’re down for them. We want to do more Adaptation Decay Adaptation Decay is our premium show about how video games are adapted into other media, and it’s a fun show to do. Right now we have it on a very strange “8 times a year” rhythm. With DuckTRAX going away, we are taking Adaptation Decay monthly! The content store is complicated, and having content time-gated on Patreon is confusing and dissatisfying. So we’re not going to fuck with that anymore. If you back at $10 per month, you’ll get access to the firehose of content. Every premium WOFF, Bonfireside Chat Exquisite Suffering, Adaptation Decay, DuckTRAX, Try This… and whatever other one-off Duckfeed Presents stuff we make for you. We appreciate people who support us, and we want you to get your money’s worth, both in terms of the backlog and future value. We really biffed the physical goods. Under the old scheme, we offered physical goods packs and a DuckZine. We failed to deliver those, because we overestimated our ability to meet that logistical challenge. So the new scheme has no physical rewards. To say sorry for our past neglect of this promise, we will be sending out one large package to everyone who was qualified for those rewards (you should have already received an email about this). We are sorry that we disappointed you on this front, and there’s really no excuse. We hope the I’m Sorry package helps. We’re honoring our previous commitments. People who paid for theme months will get those theme months covered. If you have a WOFF! game demand or Abject Suffering demand in the hopper, that’s still there. The current Patreon scheme is complicated and we want to simplify it. We have a lot of reward tiers and stretch goals. Some of the reward tiers require backing for several months, which is confusing. In general, we let the Patreon grow tangled and weird, and we want to prune it down so it’s easier for you to pick the right tier. So, we’ve got less of everything, but what remains should be even more valuable. We are reducing the number of new shows on the horizon, because we are already stretched pretty thin. But there’s still stuff to aim for, and we hope this makes the Patreon much more valuable and friendly.

This is it. Thank you so much for everything.

Gary Butterfield, Kole Ross, and John Hurst take one final look at Dark Souls. Please stick around for the next episode, which will be the proper conclusion to Bonfireside Chat as a whole.

Gary Butterfield, Kole Ross, and Mitch Benes read your questions, prompts, and thoughts about Souls in general.

Gary Butterfield, Kole Ross, and Mitch Benes look back at Demon's Souls and offer their final summation.

Gary Butterfield, Kole Ross, and Randy Walker read your responses, prompts, and other musings on the Souls series.

Gary Butterfield, Kole Ross, and Randy Walker return to Drangleic to say goodbye to Dark Souls II.

Gary Butterfield, Kole Ross, and Stewart McGowan read your thoughts and prompts about Bloodborne and the Souls series in general.

Gary Butterfield, Kole Ross, and Stewart McGowan remember and say goodbye to Bloodborne. This is the first entry in our "Victory Lap" season, a period of two months when we look back at the Souls series and talk about what worked, what didn't, and why these games were special enough to cover for all of these years.

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross read your responses to Hollow Knight.

Gary Butterfield, Kole Ross, and Nick Daniel continue their discussion of Hollow Knight.

Gary Butterfield, Kole Ross, and Nick Daniel talk about Hollow Knight, up through the first visit to the City of Tears. Seriously, buy and play this game.

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross read your responses to Nioh.

Gary Butterfield, Kole Ross, and Mai Sinclair whirl through the broad strokes of Nioh. This is a very cursory glance at a very huge and complicated game. We extend a great deal of thanks to Mai for letting us borrow her expertise!

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross read your responses to Let It Die.

Gary Butterfield, Kole Ross, and Brad Gallaway do a whistle stop tour of Let It Die. This is the first of a pair of episodes that will take a cursory look at some notable Big Deal Soulslikes. We extend a huge thanks to Brad for letting us borrow some of his expertise.

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross read your responses to the Ringed City DLC, and discuss the future of Bonfireside Chat.

Gary Butterfield, Kole Ross, and Richard Pillbeam talk about the Ringed City portion of Dark Souls III's final DLC. Please tune in to the Appendix next week for important announcements about the future of the show.

Gary Butterfield, Kole Ross, and Richard Pillbeam talk about the Dreg Heap... the first part of the Ringed City DLC. Here we are, the beginning of the end. Next week will be an extra-long episode about the Ringed City proper.

Alex Eich, of the Blighttown Beacon, joins me for a look at our respective top ten bosses. As always for these specials, a hearty thanks goes out to the Souls of Darkness Kickstarter backers. Thank them mightily!

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross read your responses to DarkMaus... but there weren't any, so this is a listener mail grab bag.

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross talk about the 2016 indie soulslike DarkMaus. DarkMaus is available on steam, and you should really play it with a controller. Also, please understand that this is an extremely difficult and unforgiving game.

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross read your responses to Salt & Sanctuary.

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross conclude their discussion of Salt & Sanctuary. This episode runs from the Dome of the Forgotten to the very end of the game.

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross continue their discussion of Salt & Sanctuary, covering everything up through the Mire of Stench.

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross talk about the generalities and first couple areas of Salt & Sanctuary. We don't get very far in this episode, just up through the Village of Smiles. Next week, we go through the Mire of Stench. The third and final episode will cover the rest of the game.

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross talk about the first volume of the 2016 Dark Souls comic.

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross read your responses to Hyper Light Drifter.

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross talk about the remainder of Hyper Light Drifter.

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross talk about the generalities and Northern area of Hyper Light Drifter. The next episode will cover the remaining three areas and the end-game.