SOE Podcast Review

Those crazy cats at SOE really like to keep up with the trends. Smed's been blogging a bit. And now, they're podcasting.

I'll start off with the positives. Is it a nice feature to have? Sure. What's great about a podcast is that you can listen to it on your way to work, at the gym, or while you're tradeskilling. I've been curious about the whole EQ Progression server, but not curious enough that I wanted to take the time to look up the information on it. But, since I was able to listen to the SOE Podcast while I was doing other stuff, I was able to get a good overview. The sound quality is great and vocally I thought everyone did a nice job. And the content is there.

My main problem is the style in which that content is delivered. And that may be subjective. But it's absolutely overly scripted. I can even see the monologues being scripted but a scripted interview is deadly. You need a much more conversational tone and you need people answering off-the-cuff and not reading off a sheet. It's even okay to know the questions beforehand. But don't write down the answers and then read them.

If you look at most popular podcasts they are conversational and unscripted. Or at least they do a good job of giving the illusion of being unscripted. A good example was the brilliant Ricky Gervais podcast from Guardian Unlimited which was number one on the charts for a long time and basically just featured three friends talking about various subjects and messing with each other. Same thing with EQ2-Daily - it's the jokes and conversational nature that make it fun to listen to.

Again, the SOE podcast is a good feature and I'd rather have it then not have it. But I'd like to see them liven things up a little by not pre-writing everything.