What's up everybody I'm the hook and I'm the blade and together we're, you know, welcome to the blade cast a show about all things I'm your host Lawson with me as always is your other host the one and only Tim. What can you introduce me a different way. How I don't know just not not that way. What you didn't like the little Tim I just you may be nervous you were like the one and only and it's like oh what do I say to that. I understand it's it must be hard to carry the unbearable weight of massive talent on your shoulders massive Tim. Just big Tim energy on this episode of the podcast it's always that way I know Hello everybody so today yeah we've got a great episode for you guys it's it's gonna be great it's gonna be excellent some would even say I'm excited someone even say that Lawson's excited. If you remember back we did a previous of what if episode basically just talking about some hypothetical things some things that we knew about that kind of got cut and didn't happen.  Yeah this time we are just going to focus a little bit more on things that were actually like kind of beyond a conceptual stage and remove late in the development. So nothing like Patrice saying that he want he wanted the kingdom to be like a hunting ground for you because that never made it out of the conceptual stage. That's completely manufacturing a made up Wild West game that probably never existed. Well that well the caveat with that is like we were talking about things that are like pre production and maybe like was floated around but these are things that were a little bit more concrete. This is like cut content type stuff right. Yeah exactly things that were removed or switched around or saved for other games etc. Just a couple notes at the top of the show some of these things are legitimized more than others and I will as we go through I will say which ones are like for certain that from the horse's mouth type deal. Some of these are a little bit more maybe left field. I'm not making any kind of a definitive statement about any of these things that aren't actually like as I said from the horse's mouth. So any of these things that are a little strange. A point of clarification is the horse Ubisoft. Yes or people I've never imagined Ubisoft as a horse before but I'm kind of enjoying it or people affiliated people who actually worked in the game and authoritative figure if you will an authoritative horse. Yeah our pet horse Ubisoft. We can't call you up and be like hey man is this true. So if any of this is just like super proved false.  Also I don't want to make any kind of definitive statements about why something got cut or why this didn't make it in the game. There are many moving pieces in these games and you know like sometimes it's easy to tribute blame the Ubisoft because they do a lot of shit but. Sometimes just no one's fault you know so and I will get into why this is relevant later on. But yeah so that's really all I have to say. Lawson did you have anything to add. As far as like a note at the top of the show. I do love notes at the top of the show specifically. Yeah we all do. We all do. But I don't really have anything. I'm kind of just I'm just vibing. You're long for the ride. I'm going with the flow and I'm excited to see where it takes me. We're just gonna start from AC1 and work our way down. These are some small details to be honest. Kind of had a hard time taking up some things about AC1. I did find though that apparently and this is actually in the code of the game that there was like a drop in co-op mode. Yeah I have actually seen some footage where someone was able to like connect a second controller and then like a ghostly Altair figure would pop up. Apparently this was totally going to be a thing and they dropped it. It stayed within the code of the game somehow. I heard that I remember like maybe an interview with Patrice or something that they talked about wanting to do co-op in the first Assassin's Creed. And that the reason they couldn't do it was because like split screen was just not effective because you need to have a lot of vertical awareness to be able to climb something or see where you're climbing. And you need a lot of horizontal awareness to interface with crowds and do effective core. It makes sense why like as far as split screen goes just wasn't feasible. That makes a lot of sense. I'm wondering if it could have been more of like a not so much a split screen thing but like a utilizing the Xbox Live features in PS Online. Right. It's interesting though that they like that they have this idea for the first game and then Unity pops up so much later and does it. You know I'm sure besides just like running around together that there must be like a design thing where if you want to be running with your friend there has to be a thing where they didn't build parkour situations or like parkour routes made for like two people to be alongside each other. You know it was more of just you so maybe. Yeah I don't know. So this is probably the most speculatory thing on the list. I really just found it while I was perusing the wiki. It says that Constantinople was in the game or was supposed to be that kind of is on the edge though of like conceptual. So I just want to mention it because honestly finding things that were cut in this game is very hard because it seems like there wasn't a lot that we know of. You know of course there's the crossbow thing that was clearly in the game without you know that's minor. Some other things like you could ride a horse within the cities that's actually present in a demo that you can watch. Weird how that didn't make it in the AC2 either. You also had not only a gentle push function but you had an ability to shove citizens like guards can do to you if you get too close. So gentle push is still a thing but then you could shove them I guess with a different like probably high high profile and gentle high profile B. Yes. And so that would have been very useful for beggars. So moving on to AC2 you were not unaware of this. We've talked about this a little bit before but this is a great way for us to expand on it. So AC2 and this isn't this isn't an assassin's creed dev diary. You can look it up on YouTube and it's totally available so this is legitimized. It was originally supposed to end in 1503. Coincidentally when Rodrigo Borgia was to die totally did not was not supposed to end where it was. And I've read that there was a little sliver of room that was actually playable not just the part that you run through to get to Rodrigo. So which makes sense because I actually just recently finished AC2 again and it does look like there's a good chunk of the city that is built. Yeah you know we talked about the whole relationship between AC2 and Brotherhood in the last what if episode. What's most interesting to me is the idea of when in development it became the plan like was it simply a case of oh we couldn't get Rome in AC2 to work the way we wanted it to.  Do you think you can finesse it with what you left over. Or alternatively if as they were making AC2 they started to have ideas for what would become Brotherhood and they were like oh you know what we could do a whole game out of this. So let's stop doing it in AC2 and let's save it for later. I suspect the former just because I feel like the sales of AC2 led to that decision.  But I don't know. You know I'm also curious too because I'm wondering if they just had like a really good response to like playtesting with Ezio as well. That's also possible right like all the playtesters just start like leaving just stands on their controllers. Yeah exactly. And then management starts going maybe we're on to something. People really like that Leonardo da Vinci guy. Someone's having a breakdown in the lunch room. I think they forgot to hug Leonardo. I mean look like there's totally like bits like we know that like the DLC that that's actually in the game was not supposed to be in the game on the disk. Like it's on the disk.  AC2 might have the most cut content because it had the most things that were actually on the game that they just didn't use. Which I wonder why it of all the games when you if you take all the things that were supposed to be in the game and you just put them in the game.  Yeah I mean ending even further into 1503 and if you include the missing sequences that's a long game but still not even like you said not even close to as long as Valhalla. Yeah. I read that there's apparently this part of Venice that was supposed to be playable. There is a part of Venice that you can see off the distance. It's it's kind of low res but it's there that was apparently supposed to also be playable. I mean the thing that's most interesting to me about the 1503 date is that was what was originally intended then still though I think that if AC2 had ended where everyone intended it originally we probably wouldn't see Ezio ever again. That's a good point and I think that it's interesting how I mean that dev diary video you're talking about I don't know when that came out in the hype cycle for AC2. But the fact that they were talking in the video like the game ends in 1503 had to be a decision that was made very late in the game. I'm curious about that you know like. Yeah I mean because that's the thing is a dev diary isn't like it's not something you put out after the game comes out. Right. Okay so I just looked at the date it's October 22 2009 for those who are unaware or who may need a refresher of this. It's the Assassin's Creed Dev Diary number five where they talk about Ezio and Corey May is like our game begins in 1401 and ends in 1503. Famed Leo K lookalike Corey May. Dude it is uncanny how similar they look. It really is. I think that Leo K is just Corey May and he's hiding. It explains a lot it explains a lot is all I'm saying. Yeah it explains how brilliant and smart it is. So it is interesting to think about like what would have happened to Ezio. I still think that ending it in 1503 that would have made a more conclusive story. The way it ends now it clearly seems like a cut in a rewrite. Yeah we've talked about how the ending of AC2 is actually pretty weak all things considered as far as character stuff goes. It's pretty wack. It's pretty wack. When you really think about it it doesn't make sense. And it makes sense now that they're like that that wasn't the original intention it was supposed to go much further with brother ego. So I finally enough I don't have a brotherhood section on this list because brotherhood is just cut cut content from AC2. There's nothing cut from brotherhood that we could talk about. Actually in brotherhood they had this whole section where you're going to fast forward into the future and play in French Revolution Paris as a whole different character named Arno. But that actually got cut and turned into a whole different game. I got cut and turned into AC3. So for revelations there's just there's one interesting detail that I wanted to talk about. So going back to the concept of Noble for AC1 comment. Supposedly there was supposed to be some concept of Noble gameplay as Altair and that would have been a really easy like re reuse of assets and stuff. So I totally see that having happened. Oh like they would. Okay like you're playing as Altair but it's Constantinople but it's like you know 11 hundreds instead of 1500. Right. And so back so back into like some of the original stuff that I read apparently like the sack of Constantinople happens in 1204. That would have lined up perfectly with Altair. And we know from like Expanded Universe stuff that Altair made a trip to Constantinople but was unsuccessful in planting a bureau there. So it completely lined up with with things like the Secret Crusade and everything because you could just reuse the Constantinople assets and just don't give them the hook blade. They did that with Amosia stuff anyway. Exactly. Would have been pretty cash money. Yeah there's some other things you know a little bit more speculatory about how like Animas Island was supposed to be a little bit more like spooky and how the Desmond's journey was supposed to be a different concept not like the first person portal stuff. I can't validate any of that. I'm trying to imagine a spookier Animas Island and I feel like it could have actually worked really well. I wonder why they moved away from that. All things considered Animas Island is actually pretty bright and colorful. It's very Tron like. Yeah it's not like it's not like oh this is scary. So like they could have really turned up the the spook. Clay wasn't going to be just like a normal body talking to him. It was going to be also like kind of kind of reminiscent of how we saw him in AC2 and Brotherhood just this kind of like spooky figure looming over Desmond and Animas Island. And apparently this was going to be how Desmond learned the actual truth about Lucy and everything. And so he was going to like be like hey Desmond, Lucy she's Templar. Hey Lucy was a Templar.  And he'd be like oh I guess it's good I killed her then.    Honestly what interests me about that I mean first of all yeah one of the big failings of revelations is that one of the key revelations was not put into the story of the main game. It would have been confusing I think maybe hard to justify like how does Clay know Lucy was a Templar. Who knows. At the same time though what's actually strikes me as the biggest reason we didn't get spooky Animas Island is something that Darby McDevitt said to us said to you on Twitter this past week. Because you actually you tweeted at him with the clip of in our revelations episode episode 14 where I talked about how Clay is sort of a thematic reflection of Ezio and that he realizes that his greater purpose in life is he's just got to help Desmond save the world and that he's not the chosen one. And he was like yeah he said he built the narrative of every character every main character in our relations around the idea that they would have to realize by the end of the story the exact extent of what they could accomplish with their life. And right if Clay Cosmeric is going to be a sinister spooky computer ghost it's a little bit harder to humanize him to the point of being the guy that you see in that like like how do you earn that moment in the end of him you know sacrificing himself for Desmond. If up until now he's been a creepy ghost boy right. It's probably safe to assume that that was more conceptual than anything. Perhaps. Yeah I don't see how you can validate him as a main character and not use him that way and clearly I mean like these decisions had to have been made very quickly. Yeah. Because they clearly had Clay voiced and acted and stuff so it's not like this was a last minute decision or anything. Right. So we're starting slow with a lot of these but trust me the snowball is just getting bigger with AC3 AC3 also probably rivals AC2 with cut content but we just don't know about any of it. But we do know there's a very slight gameplay things are very popular AC3 like this was actually like within like screenshots of the game that were released. You had you had a canoe you could use a canoe to travel cool. Apparently if we're talking about how Brotherhood was like AC2 table scraps even black flag pulled a lot from AC3 as well. Apparently there was going to be naval free room so that Connor could just get on the what was it though the Akila. Yeah the Akila. And just kind of free room in that area so totally makes sense how they were kind of working on that system then just brought it over to AC4. Yeah.   It must have been pretty shitty. That would have been cool. You know another I think another city location would have been interesting. That's the thing right is like I can appreciate when it's like hey dad like this this city wouldn't work for Assassin's Creed but they obviously stopped caring about that a long time ago. Like why why just put like why can't you just do Philly and then design it in a way where it's maybe not super one to one but it's still it's functional. Yeah that's the thing it's exactly your point it's like Boston and New York already sucked to parkour through so how bad could Philadelphia have really been. Right. And also just I mean yeah that whole generation of games until Rogue was a little bit just not great as far as parkour and city design experience go. But it's really interesting how like if Rogues New York and AC3's New York can both be considered viable by the Assassin's Creed franchise and both be considered like this is true enough to the architecture that we're comfortable with designing it this way. As a completely clueless dummy I don't know what it is about Philadelphia that made it undoable. About Rogues New York to like the thing is is they're not just the different cities one just designed better. Right. So it's it's weird how they how they could make a few changes and have I think an actually like solid design structure and so make it to make it parkour friendly. If it can be done with AC3's New York to such a degree I could have seen like Rogue having Philadelphia and it being the same situation. Right. I wanted to check since we were talking about it and see if there was a reason that was given because I remember Noah Noah commented on our last what if episode about that exact thing about Philadelphia. Oh yeah. OK. He said what if AC3 had Philadelphia E3 footage shows Connor killing Silas who was killed in sequence to buy Haytham in 1776. Connor goes to Philly multiple times their special map marker assets for it and even the map of the frontier goes south to accommodate having a third major city. It really appears that Philly being cut due to technical issues is what caused Haytham to exist and the poor pacing throughout. Wow. OK. That's that's really interesting. Right. Yeah. Because it does kind of feel lacking with just the two cities. Right. Like I think Philadelphia would have rounded it rounded it out a little bit. Especially when you consider if that leads to the whole Haytham idea that's like a really big change. Oh yeah. I mean that that's the that's the like first three sequences of your story gone for Haytham. That's interesting. So there are if there are actually assets in the game and that's totally like Philly was going to be there and they just cut it. It's probably pretty late cut maybe. Yeah. It's interesting to me how I'm really curious about what about Philadelphia specifically was it was like so terrible like that. Yeah. In a way that New York and Boston weren't. Wait you're telling me the AC three team had standards. You're telling me the AC three team couldn't make a city.  Yeah. That is that that is seen you know in like the target game playing what not. So that that seemingly was a little bit of a late change. I'm not sad that it's gone. Who cares.  I actually have concept art of this. It's actually the hook the hook play Jesus. The rope dart.  The rope dart was supposed to be actually like attached to the hidden blade and was called the chain blade chain blade.  So they cut it which they could have they should have just done that with you know what I'm going to say right. Yeah. The rope launcher. Yeah.   Seriously. Yeah. It could literally just function as a rope dart and combat. It's ridiculous. As we know the best AC gadgets kind of bleed out into all other aspects of the game. The hookblade affects navigation and combat both. And that's why it's so effective. Yeah. And that's why it's the best gadget. Moving on AC for now we are getting into the into the juice into the meat because now we're getting into the good shit.  Now we're in the end game baby. I can't wait. So with AC for this is really interesting. And this is from the horse's mouth meaning the Darby horse. Oh yeah. I don't know if you know this. AC for how to cut sequence Darby says this was kind of late in the writing process but not so much when they started development. There was supposed to be a sequence after Edward is betrayed by Roberts.  I'll help you find the sage because he betrayed me. He's not a nice guy. And this would then lead into a and I'm sure like Noah can comment on this. I have no idea. But this this would lead into like an actually like historical accurate time where Mary read and Bonnie were fighting the British and Edward would be a part of that. And so this actually would have led straight into how Edward was captured with Mary and and how they ended up at the same prison. OK. So the idea is that Edward would have went to help Mary and Edward Mary and and would have been on this kind of little escapade.  And Darby said that he wanted to take this opportunity to have Mary scold Edward while they're in jail together. You know. So that way like that's kind of where Edward's like I guess come to Jesus moment happens. So that's kind of interesting because that kind of would have really set things up for the finale in a different way. Right. Totally. Yeah. I can see all the reasons why that would have been a great sequence and and could have maybe helped the the sort of connecting tissue like A to B of getting Edward into that prison. And absolutely having that moment at the same time. It's one of those things that like I'm not desperate for the version of AC four where that's included because they still managed to make everything work really well. For sure. And it is interesting though too because for me probably I would have liked a sequence like this a little bit more because I felt like Edward's relationship with Mary kind of ended a little too abruptly. I want to see more of them together. This would have satisfied that. I think that's true. I think they're that I would have liked to see more with them. I think it's a testament to how strong the interactions that they do have are that I still felt you know that that connection and that attachment. Right. But I would not have said no to an opportunity to flush them out more. It's interesting to think too because the way it happens in AC four is Edward gets betrayed by Roberts. He gets out of the observatory but is injured and Roberts just sells him off and he ends up at the same jail as Mary. Yeah. I totally would have preferred him getting betrayed escaping you know and then Mary kind of puts trust in him then Edward fucks it up somehow.  The other nice thing about is that it sets. Yeah I agree. The other nice thing about it is that it actually adds another node on the path to assassin because presumably if he's helping Mary read he's helping her in the context of she's trying to get Bartholomew Roberts for the sake of the assassins. So he's now doing something for the assassins even though critically he's mostly just doing it for revenge and that's another great sort of like you know you line up what his motives are and what the assassin's motives are. It would probably be the first time in the game that they're aligned but you see that he's still doing it for the wrong reasons which makes his choice to actually join and actually help for the right reasons even that much more impactful. So it's a great idea. Yeah for sure. And I think it could have provided us a little bit more attention to Edward like slowly kind of like digging the assassin ideology like like maybe him and Mary could have conversations and he's like you know what I didn't think about it that way. Yeah.  Yeah. Being with Mary leading up to her death that would have been really hard on everyone so I I'm sad that it didn't make it in obviously you know it works without it. Darby says that they kind of would have like gone back to NASA in this process and Darby says that NASA was kind of used too much they wanted to go back to Kingston and whatnot so that was also a part of the reason why he said that it was good that it got cut ultimately. Yeah. But he did want this to happen because he really liked that historical point like with Mary and and the funny and the cool thing about it too is like Mary isn't a pirate she's an assassin who's using the pirates for cover. Right. So it would have been really interesting to see like how what she's doing on these pirate missions that that are different than everyone else and how she's kind of getting and to accept some of the ideology perhaps anyway. Last thing about AC four so you know how at the end of AC four Edward you know goes in these little assassination missions Darby says that he was really they all really liked about how AC one had the And so some of the final assassination missions were going to be more about investigate than assassinate so that would have been cool just to get more Edward assassinate things but ultimately you know I think the assassination still work fine. Yeah and some of them in the end kind of do end up working like that. Well the overabundance of tailing missions really makes me think the whole investigation assassinating thing would just be more tailing missions so no thanks. That's a good point. Yeah so that's pretty much the biggest thing that Darby says was cut so there you go.  Now we're in unity. Nothing for rogue.   No apparently there were there were I was going to add a section for rogue but every detail that I found was just people like beating around the bush about what it was actually cut so. Interesting. Apparently there was a couple sequences cut. There was actually a whole introductory part of the game that was going to be in a different location but they cut it and they couldn't talk about it so they didn't give any details about it. So there you go. I don't know why they're mentioning this before because I knew this. I just got reminded about it in this process for unity. Take a guess who was supposed to write it originally with the first treatment. Take a guess the first treatment of unity. Yes.  So did you know that or that it was an actual guess. Well I just guessed because I know that unity started development right after Brotherhood and you have wrote Brotherhood so he might have been involved in that. Okay. So yeah there's a bunch of things stuff there. So you have them was the was around for unity like he was going to write unity pretty much. Yeah. He eventually left the child of light. He's very vague about why that was. So could have been because of some of the things I'm going to mention here. I'll go back to you Haley. But you know the whole like a mancio timeline is really is really interesting because he came off of revelations and he was like I guess I'll do your unity game. Then apparently he left Ubisoft entirely which we know he didn't come back to Ubisoft until 2012. And he got on the project and then left Ubisoft and then came back in 2012. So he started on unity after revelations. Yes.   Right. He didn't come back until 2012. He had to go soul searching and face licking. Yes. Exactly. But 2012 wasn't that much longer after revelations happened but like to think that like how how much was he was he actually involved in this project. Let's say he worked on it for two years tirelessly like with how long unity was actually in development like that's that's a job in the bucket. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of an interesting point like do we know who was running the ship before a mancio. No. In terms of creative direction. No. I don't. Right. I think it's the Yo-Halem. So Yo-Halem this is from the horse's mouth. I need to stop saying that. I need to stop saying that.  This is from the Yo-Halem mouth himself. So OK. So the original pitch for unity it was inspired by a movie called Red Violin. Are you familiar with this movie. Not even a little bit. So the Red Violin is a movie about a violin believe it or not. Whoa. And it's red. It follows from when it was first crafted and then it and then it follows it between owners throughout 100 years 200 years. Hmm. Do I know I've ever seen the movie. Not at all. But that was Yo-Halem's inspiration. And so basically what we can assume is that it was going to fall presumably the sword of Eden throughout all these time periods and the time anomalies within unity were actually from that original concept of the unity prologue is an example of a part of this surviving unity prologue like was going to be like the first section of this sort of Eden ownership thing. And the thing is that each owner dies after they like each owner ends up dying. So that's why your prologue guy dies. That's why Arno was supposed to die. Wow.  And so that was the thing. It was going to pass owners. And so then that makes you look at the time anomalies in a whole different light because that means you would have had the prologue which probably would have had more medieval Paris action going. Then you have French Revolution, Arno time period. You have World War II. You have the Statue of Liberty being built in Paris. So theoretically we would have had a unity that took place over a huge spate of time following a piece of Eden through all of its owners. And the thing that is really cool to me is that that could have translated into a modern day story. So obviously like look that's very ambitious. And for all the things that Unity wanted to do you know like could that have actually happened? Who knows? That was part of why I gave the preface earlier is like Yo-Halem apparently like while Yo-Halem was on the project this stuff got changed. So was that the reason why he left? A child of light perhaps? Was it maybe his decision to change these things? Maybe. I don't want to attribute blame to one person. You know it could have been Yo-Halem changing his mind. But it's probably not that. One thing I could speculate on is that if they're trying to you know because there's this whole narrative that sprung up where a lot of the choices that it seemed like they made about like player progression and RPG-esque character building in Unity directly followed on from the data they were getting for how effective the RPG ship mechanics in AC4 were. The people were staying in the game in Black Flag just to level up their ships and fight more legendary battles and stuff like that. So maybe they get that data they did make that decision that like well let's let's apply that to the character. Maybe that goes hand in hand with the whole co-op idea of you know like you've talked about customizing and specializing your characters so you can differentiate it from the other people you're playing with. That would all be very hard to make work in that red violin context because you can't really level up a character if the game has four main characters because it jumps through time periods. Correct. Right. Yeah. I don't know. The reason why the reason why this I think I feel like this gets a pass because it is like it is conceptual to the point where it didn't make it pass like the first treatment. Yeah. However there are remnants of it in the game. We have the time anomalies. They became something else but like the Unity prologue was we were probably going to play as that guy you know until he died. It was probably going to be more than just a mission. It was probably going to be a sequence you know and that totally makes sense for all like the assets they built for the anomaly stuff. I know that you are particularly like you really want to see an assassin speaking that takes place over many different areas. Yeah. That's what I've been wanting to see and our friend blue as well. That's something that I listened to one of the episodes of his podcast over on overly sarcastic productions of their new podcast. He was talking about having the exact same thing he wants to see where he was specifically talking in the context of like a like an Asian setting like in China or Japan. I've always talked about in the context of Russia of going between like Russian Revolution and Cold War era Russia and maybe even long before that. Right. But that being like something they wanted to do for Unity and the fact that like we've got that we got the sort of exploration of that a little bit with the World War One Rift and Syndicate and you had actually you sent me a link a while ago to an interview with Corey May back in the day. And he was talking about that being something that he wants to do with Assassin's Creed in the future way back when he was really involved with the brand. We know that you have him and Corey May are like close like they were friends in the series and they work together a lot. So this could have been something that the two of them were theorizing together. You know it gives me like a little bit of hope that maybe one day they'll return to that idea now that they have more like next gen capabilities and stuff because it would be I think the best way to match the scope of some of the recent Assassin's Creed games while still focusing on you know a parkourable urban environment because you can give us one big beautiful city over three time periods and it could be a case where you know that's three separate maps and if you stitch them all together you get something bigger than Valhalla's England. I hope not but possibly you know since it seems like that's something they care about. Throughout the eras you could do things like let's say that there was a bridge there that wasn't built before and now you have parkour opportunities. That could totally be a future. You could progress linearly through the story you go from the past to the future. For sure and look I mean Ubisoft clearly like if they're like no but we want to do a lease you know that could have also tampered with the whole idea that you're going to have multiple characters because how can you have a fruitful relationship arc if you are moving beyond all these characters so frequently. But apparently so within Dead Kings Leon the little boy apparently he was supposed to be actually like originally he was going to be in Unity as like Arno's little companion. Yeah. That would have been really interesting to me because there's not a whole there's not a whole lot of like child presence in AC what I'm interested in to give Arno who has daddy issues a little son figure you know. Two daddy issues. Yeah. He has multiple daddy issues. At least. Yeah I think that would have been interesting especially if if that was ever involved in tandem with the original vision if one of the characters in the future timeline is the what is a kid in one. Yes. The main character in another. Yes. Yes. Yeah you are you are you are right on the money with that one because that's totally what they could have done with it. Like they could have had Leon like then you play as Leon as a man in the later era. And he's like look at my cool assassin robes I got from my not dad. Yeah it's like Arno's like here take the sword of Eden. Take the sword of Eden. And then he dies with it. I'm dead now. Goodbye. I think it would have been really cool to see that happen. The anomalies are some of the best parts of Unity would have been cool if there was actually a story attached to it. And like you said we get that we get that it's scratched with syndicates so it's not all lost you know. Right. It's funny though to think about right because the time anomalies thing like the black box era and whatnot like that was all like Unity and syndicate and they're just like see you later. The time anomaly thing could have been really awesome if they developed it more and that's also why like the eventual third game to the Revolution trilogy could have really like been the revelations in that sense and took all these things and made them into like one holistic experience which reminds me of a feature that I've been excited to introduce to the podcast Tim Anomalies. Just drop the E. Me for different time feeds. Tim Anomalies, yeah. We'll have alternate pathways through the podcast based on Tim saying different things. You can choose your own Tim in the episode. Yeah, choose your own Tim so. Which Tim do you want to hear? Angry Tim, sarcastic Tim. You have chosen Italian Tim. Oi. That's a good cup of tea. I don't think that was Italian at all. You have chosen French Tim. Oi. That's a really good piece of bread. Oi. Alright, so you like my Cafe Teatra. Alright, move it out of syndicate. This is last on the list that I have. Lawson. Yeah. Pop quiz. Who also wrote syndicate? Can I choose a different Tim? Wrong. It was Jeffrey Yohalem. Jeffrey Yohalem. This made it really easy for me to dig up things about unity and syndicate all at once. Straight from the Yohalem's mouth. Straight from the Yohalem's horse. Did you know that there was supposed to be a playable modern day in syndicate? Yes. Well, for those that didn't, there was originally going to be a playable section of modern day. Got cut. I will send you the concept art of how you would interact with it in the open world so that you could like throw it up on the screen or whatever. But yeah, there was going to be like little phone booths that you could enter and then go into the modern day and so the modern day gameplay would have been the story that we got. So it's not like we were going to get a different story. It just would have been playable. So we would have been able to escape with Rebecca or Sean or maybe just play as Rebecca. That would have been interesting. That would have been cool. That was a feature. They couldn't end up doing it unfortunately, but there was going to be playable modern day. Ultimately though, that's the thing is we love syndicates modern day. Everyone knows that and it's not playable. So that's not the determining factor really of a good modern day anymore. Yeah, it's not the end of the world. You actually kind of uncovered on Twitter with one of the guys who worked on it, we know that the time anomaly in syndicate would have been more, right? They cut a lot of it because of featured a woman. Yeah, it was Justin Farron. I think I talked about it on the podcast at one point where he worked for Ubisoft Singapore and they were talking about the World War I rift and they had a lot of difficulties with the editorial department at Ubisoft because they literally asked Singapore, can you give us a version of Lydia Fry that is a man? And they're like, do we have to? Can you give us a version of Lydia Fry that's less feminine? What if we just turned down the female slider on this Lydia Fry? It is interesting to think that it would have been much longer than it is now. It seemed to have been like a battle to even get it to where it is, right? Yeah. The open world was going to be a lot more like dynamic. So we talk a lot about actually about how Jacob kind of destroys things and then Evie has to clean up. Almost immediately though is what happens. In the game though, we would have seen like adverse effects of these things within the open world itself. So we would have seen things at the store like consumables and whatnot would be astronomically priced because of inflation. We would have seen guards all over the place. We would have seen the transportation systems break down and then you can't fast travel anymore.  Yes. Damn. So that would have been present within the open world and then here's the thing. This is how you're hitting me. Sounds so cool.  But to unlock the final sequence you have to clean up certain things as Evie. It does kind of mandate that you play as Evie.  Yeah, I mean that's interesting because I feel like what that allows you to do is it allows you to sort of set your own difficulty with it. As someone who I never used fast travel I might have just left that alone. But if I started not enjoying having to spend more on consumables then I would have maybe wanted to step in and fix things as Evie.  So when the world changes because of progress in the narrative in a way that actually affects the gameplay of the game that really excites me. I can see how it's a slippery slope though because what if you have the player who fucks up everything before cleaning anything up how hostile is the world towards him now him or her playing the game that everything is broken and nothing is yet fixed how difficult does that make the remaining missions and the remaining progress in the game? I can see the consequences of that. It's something that it would have been a really easy way to innovate on the narrative of that game with the tools that they already had of the actual setup of the engine and the gameplay that would have been like a little sprinkle of innovation on top that might have really elevated the whole game. That's the thing is they kind of would have been slightly ahead of the curve of these dynamic open worlds too because that's all the rage right now and you know open worlds can always benefit from being more dynamic and it's really interesting to think that not only with the narrative tie into the world but it also kind of gives you the power to correct it as well I appreciate how they don't just give it an optional thing like yes you're going to need to repair London you can't just leave it broken forever and finish the game that way so I do like how it's not completely optional but I also like how they were going to give you the option to wait until the final sequence but they're still not saying that you could just fuck up London and never repair it as Evie you know it would also give stakes to Evie's actions too because Evie would have to be doubly careful not to screw things up even more which speaks to her personality That was the narrative device and syndicate that I appreciated I loved that sort of back and forth between Jacob and Evie it's just that feeling the gameplay side effects of that progression could have made it even more you know it would have made a lot more people dislike Jacob probably which would have been fair and deserved yeah it would have been interesting if that was going to lead into a Jacob redemption thing where perhaps at the end of the game they team up to fix things together and Jacob realizes his buffoonery which is kind of what happens right what happens because instead what happens right is it's kind of like a milk toast version of this where Jacob does something and then Evie will call him out on it but she still just cleans up his mess and then they kind of move on like I feel like if Jacob himself was seeing like I don't know fucking people like starving in the streets like because of him you know or if he saw people like getting you know like not able to get to work because of him or something and that would give Jacob some self reflection right totally because if everything's super hyper inflated you can't can't buy anything people are gonna go hungry and so Jacob is actually making things worse when he thinks in his you know in his man child brain that he's making things better that would have been some really interesting like introspective stuff that Jacob could have done in tandem with Evie calling him a moron and fixing his shit because at the end of the day Evie does love Jacob and so she wants him to do better and that could have been a really interesting relationship hundred percent not to not to say that their relationship doesn't exist now they clearly have a relationship in the game and I've read a lot of fan fiction where their relationship gets even more interesting but we're not going to talk about that that's all I have for cut content oh shit hold on hello hey I'm here drop my phone no it's okay it landed on the back that's all I have for cut content so I feel like there's a lot of interesting stuff there there was one thing I wanted to mention in our last what if episode that completely passed me by that I want to just throw in now go for it there was at one point they were considering at least in like the marketing branding department of things that Assassin's Creed Odyssey was not going to be Assassin's Creed Odyssey or Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Assassin's Creed yeah Odyssey and Assassin's Creed Adventure you can see some of the concept branding for that and I feel like that would have been really interesting because it might have actually alleviated a lot of the complaints people had about Odyssey I feel like if you looked at it through the lens of being a spin-off and not expecting to see Assassin's Creed stuff in it that maybe you could have actually experienced it in the way that the developers presumably intended it to be experienced could have been interesting but I also see why it's risky move because you don't know necessarily is the Assassin's Creed brand strong enough to support a spin-off of that nature right it's interesting because that would also make them all the more ignorable yes if Odyssey was coming out it was Assassin's Creed Adventure I know to fucking ignore all that shit and just not bother with it and that would have given Ubisoft and you've mentioned this before we talked about how like if they ever did a Templar game again if they did a Templar spin-off you were saying how that could have been their way of embracing very non-traditional AC gameplay and still kind of set it in the Assassin's Creed universe so I think a similar effect could have taken place here where Odyssey could have been Odyssey and Origins and Vihala and they all could have been their games they could have been these little spin-offs yeah I wonder I mean I feel like the reality that we're in right now is that we're just getting these in Assassin's Creed Adventure games but they're being sold to us as mainline traditional AC titles and I feel like it would be more beneficial for us if there was at least that little subtitle in Assassin's Creed because look you go to any Ubisoft feed about Assassin's Creed now and there's someone underneath it saying why are you calling these Assassin's Creed still I feel like people would still see the Assassin's Creed Adventure and still just go buy it you know like I don't know if they would I don't know if it would impact sales as much as but look clearly there was a decision made that changed it to Assassin's Creed Odyssey over Odyssey and Assassin's Creed Adventure so there very well could be some market research that suggests that that subtitle doesn't work but I do think that as far as our perspective is concerned as hardcore fans that it would have given some much needed separation like even when I was just playing around with Immortals Phoenix Rising a bit I was like it's crazy how much more palatable some of the Odyssey design choices are when they're not infecting my Assassin's Creed absolutely like this combat is actually pretty fun when I'm not expecting Assassin's Creed if they're more ignorable then you could even like them more yeah it is interesting to think like what that have actually split the games up or would we have just gotten an Odyssey and Assassin's Creed Adventure and then Assassin's Creed Valhalla yeah you kind of you start to wonder how many ideas for games have they had or settings or you know what have you that they thought there could be a really great game there but it just wouldn't be Assassin's Creed enough for our liking because it seems like they got really excited about this ancient Greece game and they knew it was going so far back in time that after Origins they couldn't hamfist any Assassin stuff into it so they leaned into that and you also wonder if it's Odyssey and Assassin's Creed Adventure how much of the very few things that our Assassin's Creed stick around I bet you there's no modern day in that game you know what I mean I bet you there's not a lot of isu in that game potentially because those would be exactly the kind of shackles that they would theoretically be free of by not branding it Assassin's Creed for sure and you could do settings that don't need necessitate parkour because you don't really need parkour right unfortunately I think with the ultimate decision they made on Odyssey and with how Valhalla has turned out I think they've they've come to a place where the actual lines of the brand are flexible enough that they could probably get away with anything more or less and still have people buy it and play pretty much maybe not with us the fans but you know we are not the general gaming public and our needs are more specific than theirs unfortunately yeah it's interesting to think with the what was I gonna say holy shit you're like this isn't in my outline I color coded it and everything I did I gave like revelations like a purple that's that's so horny I don't know what I was gonna say fuck it well god damn it anyway yeah that's you can just end there that's a plenty good spot to end if you guys have any additional things that may have been cut that you know about that we didn't mention here leave them in the comments and you know what fuck it we'll do a part three like I said at the beginning if anything of this is like just completely dead wrong you know whatever I mean at the end of the day a lot of it's hypothetical too you know we just had a lot of fun discussing what could have been and you know what sometimes discussing what could have been makes you sad but sometimes make you happy like in this situation that is quite possibly my favorite tim anomaly yet boy if you like the show we really really appreciate it if you leave a comment on our youtube channel video upload of the episode assuming you're listening to it on youtube give us a like give us a comment subscribe if you're not subscribed which apparently 30% of you listening to this are not so fix that immediately please I mean look I understand why you're not subscribed just please I don't I don't get it all we're great podcast we deserve your subscription thank you so much I appreciate it you know from from this this tim anomaly appreciates it but you know maybe maybe there's another one like that really doesn't appreciate it and that's why you should tweet at us at hookblade on Twitter to get access to the other tim anomaly about what was your favorite tim anomaly this week and hold on wait I think I have one more let me do let me do Ethiopian no please don't oh that was what I was going to do isn't it great being an Ethiopian that's it that's my favorite tim anomaly also we have a facebook page like our facebook page if you like to do that like our facebook page if you like to like facebook if you like liking facebook pages like our facebook page it's called hookface pod book I might change it to that now actually but yeah that's it we really appreciate you guys listening and supporting the show I've been the hook and I have been the blade and with that good night good night


what is up guys karma medic here and welcome back to another dose you need to the channel hi my name is Nasser and I'm now a fourth year medical student studying at King's College London and today I'm joined by Ali Abdaal for the very few of you who don't know who Ali is Ali do you want to give like a little introduction sure hey guys my name is Ali I am sort of a doctor based in in the UK as well I was at med school for six years and then I was a doctor for two years and for the last month I've been taking a bit of a break from medicine and I also have a YouTube channel and so I've been watching you for a long time and so I feel like I've heard that intro so many times that it feels a bit surreal to be here right now with your mascot thing in the background or wherever it is what are you talking about Ali Abdaal has a YouTube channel he's very influential in the productivity tech time management space and so I thought he would be a fantastic person to talk about comparing the life of a medical student to that of a doctor we're gonna go through a couple of topics generally social life sleeping habits daily habits studying and things like that that would be different between being a medical student and a doctor so let's start off with social life that's cool with you of course so you know social life is obviously a huge part of university and I feel like the university sort of simplifies and makes it easier to have a social life because you're constantly surrounded by people in lecture you have like clinical partners when you're in the hospital and things like that so how does that translate over like being a doctor sucks in terms of the social life relative to university because you know as you said at university you're living with your friends you're breathing with your friends you're like all together in one place and once you're a doctor depending on which hospital you're at and what the vibe is that can either be pretty good or it can be not very good at all in terms of the social scene so for example in my first year I was at adenbrooks hospital which is a pretty big hospital in Cambridge the social scene vibe amongst the doctors wasn't like it was alright but it wasn't the case that you know you'd be going around to your friend's house every evening like we would at medical school and equally in my second year where I was working in as much smaller hospital in a town called various and Edmunds again there was a bit of a social vibe like the doctors mess would hold events you know every couple of weeks kind of this is pre-lockdown it obviously wasn't as nice as in med school where you're literally living with your friends and you can like you know walk two minutes to see someone and then walk back your place like that is the main thing that university is just so good for I feel like it's not really a difference between medical student and doctor it's more a difference between student and working professional like when you're a student you are literally hanging out with friends all the time and when you start to work whatever field you're working in whether it's medicine law like whatever other jobs exist in the world what you find is that you will see your friends a lot less and you have to make much more of an effort to hang out with people yeah I've heard that they have to constantly plan like weeks in advance what specific day and time you're gonna be available and honestly sounds like such a hassle and something that takes the fun out of socializing and meeting yeah yeah it's definitely a bit of a dragon and this is one reason why I was I was not very keen to go to London because I'd heard that in London specifically the vibe is very much that people get booked up weeks in advance and you have to plan three weeks ahead to see a friend you do have to put more intention into socializing in a way that I certainly didn't have to do it university where it just happens by default yeah go to pencil it in then along with everything else absolutely yeah it's just another part of the schedule it's exactly and it becomes another thing that feels like work like okay I know I should take my relationship seriously I know I should reach out to this person but you know that's not to say it's bad you just need to be more intentional about it than when we were at university so the next thing Ali that I really want to know about is sleep schedule because in my life generally I've never pulled an all nighter for work not once the idea of having to flip my sleeping schedule around between on calls and normal day shifts something that like seems kind of scary and seems so backwards how could you possibly socialize and maintain relationships outside of work when you have such a backward sleep schedule so can you talk to me a little bit about that yeah certainly when you're on night shifts usually if you do if you're doing nights you'll be doing it for maybe three like between three and six days at a time sometimes even longer stretches than that and so during that period your sleep schedule is completely wrecked like for the first night you kind of have to stay up all night and then you'll kind of want to sleep the next day you'll try and pre-sleep before your night shift but that's really hard to do and then you'll do this kind of nocturnal thing where you're sleeping during the day and working during the night and usually that means that actually there's not really much time for socializing so that was certainly the case for me when I was working in any overnight because you don't really rest when you're when you're doing that stuff just keeps on happening right but depending on what placement you're on like when I was on my psychiatry placement I'd be doing nights and often I would only have to do maybe one or two hours of stuff during the night okay and so I would sleep the rest of the time in the on-call room where would you sleep oh we had an on-call room like a bed like a bed like a little sofa desk sink everything okay with like curtain lights fan like like the whole shebang and you would just get get called on the kind of special phone thing or bleeped right if you had to I don't know prescribe a drug or to clock in a new patient could you switch on that fast though like from being asleep you get this phone call and then you have to go take a history yeah you become pretty adept at it because because like when you're sleeping you kind of know that okay that I'm I'm living on borrowed time here like I know I don't deserve right now I'm not allowed to do this but I'm gonna try and get a few hours and and so certainly I had a few days on psychiatry where I'd be sleeping the whole night and then you're free the next day and it feels like oh my god I've suddenly unlocked gained time I've gained free time because now I can kind of go shopping and go to the post office and pick up all the 18 parcels that have wrapped up because you know the post office doesn't open weekends and all of these little things or even grab a random coffee with a friend so I think it really depends on how busy the placement that you're on is okay but it does kind of vary that's really interesting to hear because obviously a university most of the time you can set a relatively steady sleeping schedule you'll usually have lectures starting at like 9 a.m. they'll almost never start at 8 and if they're starting later then you can sleep in or not but you almost always know what time you're gonna be waking up what time you're gonna be sleeping and it provides a bit of consistency in your life oh I don't know like for me I felt like my sleep schedule at university was a lot more wacky than it was working fair enough I will say that maybe I'm like not the norm for that so do you turn up the lectures every day oh I watch all the lectures but I do it online okay I'm sorry I don't go in in person yeah I'm like I'm there at the same time that the lecture starts but I'm just watching the previous ones online until that one gets uploaded oh that's kind of okay so I'm always a couple of lectures behind but I always watch every single one okay but back in Toronto I would attend every single lecture because nothing was online okay and if you missed what was said in lecture you were kind of screwed because there was nowhere else to get that information okay so yeah I did attend every single lecture for sure and so I had a really good sleep schedule I've always had a good sleep schedule yeah like seven hours and then I'm good yeah so for me working life was more like that because even though we do have night shifts usually it's like I don't know at the very worst it'll be maybe one week every month or one week every two months so actually most of the time you have a reasonably solid schedule and for me for the last eight months I was an obstetrics and gynecology thanks to COVID didn't swap over as we normally do every four months yeah but we didn't have any nights for that so it was pure daytime daytime work and so I would every single day without fail I'll be waking up at half past six to get into work by 8 a.m. whereas at university you know going into lectures is optional whereas when you're working going into work is not optional at all that's another thing like if you like when you're in university if you wake up late or if you miss a lecture like it's fine yeah but when you're at work you can't show up even like 10 15 minutes a it's just it's non optional it's just not a thing it's not a thing right yeah so in a way it kind of removes the optionality from your life and so you don't have that sensation of everyday thinking do I really want to go in today or like every hour really kind of reconsidering that do I really want to stay in placement or do I just want to go to the mess or do I just want to go home when you're at work you're at work and so that just that that strand of decision-making from your life gets completely obliterated you don't even think about it yeah yeah it's like going to school it's like you wake up you go to school it's not even an option or that university is every day is an option so moving on to sort of technology or apps or things that we use to keep us productive while we're in medical school I know for me the iPad has completely revolutionized how I take notes in university how I keep my life organized and I know that wasn't the same case for you when you were in university and then I also know that you started using your iPad in the hospital as well so can you touch on that a little bit yeah so I used to take my iPad pro with me to work and the cool thing about that was in my first hospital you know big central teaching hospital in Cambridge they were using an entirely electronic system called Epic which is used in like America and Australia as well and there and that had an iPad app so I could literally do whatever I wanted to from my iPad that's amazing and this was life changing because if you're on a night on call you can literally just sleep in on the sofa in the doctor's mess with your iPad next to you and if someone bleeps you and says I need a drug prescribed you don't have to do it on the app you can do it on the app you don't have to log into a computer right no it like it mimics the computer thingy on your iPads you can just literally do everything from the iPad okay equally when I was on surgery and we'd be doing ward rounds at seven o'clock in the morning because the surgeon has to rush off to theatre and you're going around different wards in the hospital it varies a significant ball ache to trying to find a computer logging in blah blah blah but I would just take my iPad with me and therefore I'd perch on the bedside and just type up and they'd be like oh down this is actually like genuinely making the whole team more productive and so did you use it for the four two years I used it for the first year where we had this electronic system in my second year we didn't have an electronic we had an electronic system but it was a bit more archaic it was a bit more windows 95 you couldn't use the actual iPad I couldn't use the actual iPad I'd still take my iPad with me because for example I have this thing called productive downtime which is when you're a doctor like there are lots of moments of downtime throughout the day like half an hour here and there where you're waiting for blood results to come back or you know you've got to breathe there where you just happen to not have any patients coming in to see you for that half an hour window if I had my iPad with me I find that I'd be able to bash out like a script for a video or something like that true and so that was sort of my productive productive procrastination when I was at work but I didn't use it for medical stuff but um that's actually very similar to how I feel now when I'm on placement because you know when you're on placement you have like pockets of learning that happened throughout the day it's very like spontaneous and it's not really that planned and so anytime I can I'll pull out my iPad and try and do something whether that's like updating my portfolio or like reviewing like a clinical exam that I need to do or something like that that's very good if you say no no or working on like YouTube scripts and things like that yeah I hope you mix up both um but it's like how much of the line are you gonna tow here the only thing I do at work is work on my portfolio I think is the technical thing you're supposed to say I do but I do both but yeah I know when I'm at the hospital I try and get as much work because I can't done there because once I go home that's when I enter like YouTube mode like extracurriculars or social life um so I try and get work done while I'm still there so something I've been thinking about a lot now that I'm in fourth year is how my role in the hospital has changed as a medical student so in my second year and third year when I show up at the hospital and introduce myself as a second or third year medical student you know people wouldn't really want you to get involved and they're sort of they know that you're almost more of a burden than you are a practical and useful part of the team and then now when I show up to the hospital and introduce myself as a fourth year medical student suddenly eyes light up and they're like oh okay you can actually help me you can write in the notes now you can go do an exam for me and report that back obviously it makes sense that every year you go up in medical school you gain more responsibility obviously as a doctor all the responsibility actually falls on you you're not really I mean you're still reporting to people but you do have things that you are directly in charge of yeah so can you talk about like what that transition is like because I'm scared I'm scared to go from 50 or two in f1 yeah it's it's definitely daunting initially and sort of I I was I was laughing about what you just said because for us like the first year of clinicals is fourth year and so if someone says they're a fourth year medical student you assume okay this person knows absolutely like less than nothing and you have to start from from ground zero definitely that transition of responsibility is a big one and the weird thing is that I think that that shift of when you're a final year medical student to when you become a doctor there is no difference at all in terms of your knowledge or anything like that in fact you probably know more things as a final medical student just having just passed the exams yeah you probably know no more medicine than I did because you've just passed the assembly yeah exactly but when you have that responsibility you kind of grow into the role that you have responsibility for okay and so I think if you're on if you're on a team whereby the registrar the senior is holding your hand a lot then you can feel you do feel a bit less involved whereas certainly I found that like on on days where I was the one who had to check up all the bloods and make sure everything was okay I was the one sort of the only one who was going to write these eight discharge letters right having that responsibility makes the job itself a lot more fun and I kind of joke about how being a medical student is less fun than being a doctor when you're actually at work being a doctor is quite fun because you are responsible for this thing happening and obviously you've got like senior support and stuff if you need it and you rarely you're out of your depth but when you're the one who has to do it then you and you end up just doing it you know if you tell me a patient's name I'll be able to recite their blood results for you because when you have that responsibility you just switch into that mode of knowing what's going on that's a that's a good point because I always I'm always asking myself like how do these doctors know who is in what bed and what their heart rate was their blood pressure their blood results and I'm like I was there with you I was on that wood round trying to follow along and I can't remember it but I guess it's the same with like driving like if you're the one driving to a destination you'll remember how to get there whereas if you're a passenger sort of observing you won't necessarily pay attention to that exactly yeah and this was something that they used to battle me as well like how the hell does it you know what's the patient's correct name how do you know that it's 497 but then when I'm in that position where I'm the only one who knows of course I know it's 497 it's just one of those magical feelings where responsibility leads to you kind of growing into the role yeah I mean I'm really looking forward to honestly and I'm excited to move from sort of the observing position to actually doing yeah and I think that's when it's going to become the most fun and the most engaging and everything and your own teaching and stuff so when you get your baby medical students you can send you can send them off and do stuff and you'll empathize with the role of a medical student so you'll actually get them involved in doing things rather than treating them as an accessory yeah I've promised myself I'm going to involve medical students as much as I possibly can yeah and certainly I found that anytime I have students I feel like yes I have another I have another team member with me I'd be right you and I find that when you when you give them responsibility that it's your job to take the history and come up with a plan tell me what's wrong with this patient if you don't know google it and then we'll we'll take it from there because I'm busy doing something else and the feedback I've gotten is that they really appreciate having that responsibility thrust on them as it were we're almost looking for times when someone senior tells us to do something because it's so much more difficult there's so much friction in putting yourself out there and asking to do that thing it's I mean it's easier when someone tells you to do it so the next thing that I want to tackle is sort of studying habits research academia and things like that so obviously as a medical student we spend a decent amount of time studying especially there's a lot of lectures we need to go through clinical skills and exams that we need to learn and I found that throughout the first three years of medical school it was sort of easy for me to go to the library and block off four hours to do some learning or like two hours here two hours there yep no problem now in fourth year that's becoming quite a bit more difficult we're in the hospital from nine till four almost for sure ready yeah oh yeah we're like signings and stuff yeah we have to sign in with a qr code on our phone no and it gets tracked oh my goodness um so yeah we're in there quite a bit and I find that you know after a long day of being on the wards it's hard to schedule in like studying time and especially by the time I get home after I've commuted like an hour or so all I want to do is chill I want to have dinner I want to work on my other things like enjoy life a little bit and you know as a doctor obviously you still have exams you still have sign-offs you have your portfolio so when do you squeeze in time for these things yeah that's a good question um I think when you're in the run-up to preparing for an exam for the sort of two or three months before then or sometimes even one month then people will go get home from work and bang out two hours of work every day studying for the exam when you're not in exam prep mode you basically don't do any studying at all you just like completely don't care about anymore if you need to learn something you'll google it there and then and then you'll know it and if you prescribe a drug enough times you just memorize the dosage of it just just kind of by default so I found that for my first two years of being a doctor I basically didn't do any extra work beyond yeah once I got home beyond if I was thinking about preparing for the USMLE for example and think oh let me bust out some bit of pathoma or whatever but like the portfolio things you do have to keep on top of it usually you can find time at work to actually do it so I would find and and this is true from basically all of my friends as well we it's a much firmer separation between work and life when you're working as a doctor compared to when you're a student because when you're a student there is always one more exam to prepare for there is always another publication slash project that has been in the works for the last three years that you're working on there's always something that you signed up with some society to do three years ago and now you're regretted but you signed up for it so you have to keep doing it like the work is never ending when you're a student but when you're a doctor you come home and you can switch off that's true that that's a really good point that once you leave the hospital you don't have an exam study for most of the time you don't have any like extra homework to do or like research for a quality improvement project or something yeah so yeah I'm actually really looking forward to that when you can draw a line in the sand and sort of move into a relaxation mode that's quite nice so moving on to extracurriculars so things like exercise hobbies and things like that we're obviously both quite heavily integrated into this whole youtube thing we're pretty committed at this point pretty committed so yeah that's something obviously that for me it's like a non-negotiable in my life I know you've talked about this non-negotiable idea before a youtube video has to go live every thursday at 8 30 a.m like pretty much no matter what unless i've given myself a very good reason for why i'm taking a break and similarly with exercise you know every two days i have to do exercise whether that's gym running like whatever it is basketball it has to happen does that translate well to when you're a doctor or do things just come up and you run over time like you're supposed to finish at five but then you don't how do you organize all of that and make sure it still happens again this kind of depends on which placement you're on okay for some of my placements i would finish at five p.m on the dot and so i would know that okay it takes me half an hour to drive home i will be able to get to squash club every tuesday without fail at 6 p.m and then that is kind of scheduled into my life when i was a student i couldn't really do that because we were always on placement and i certainly from clinical years onwards there's almost no way you can actually stick to a defined commitment unless you're willing to commute quite a long way but a lot of the time depending on which placement you're on again like when i was on surgery sometimes officially we're supposed to finish at half past five realistically we'd end up finishing at half past six seven even sometimes half seven eight and so when there's stuff that you're scheduling kind of in that sort of danger zone between 5 p.m and 8 p.m you always kind of know that this i'm probably not going to make squash club today so you've got this like buffer where it's like probably don't schedule something in there but if it's like you know grabbing dinner with a friend at like 9 p.m at that point you think you can think okay i'll definitely be home at 9 p.m and able to make it today yeah i think like the worst thing about that if you knew from the morning that you were going to be delayed till like 6 37 like you could come to terms with the end sort of plan ahead but the worst thing is like halfway through the day or towards the end of the day extra work comes on and then you realize you have to stay later oh mate the worst thing ever is when the consultant rocks up at half past five when you do to leave and says right let's do a board round where we go through all the patients or even worse let's do a board round where we go around all the patients for a second time and you're like oh no and then that generates more jobs and you think oh crap i need to discuss this Odin CT scan with radiology and the night team is not getting it until 9 p.m and i can't leave because there's no one else to do this and then you stay behind because so whilst in medical school you know you're sort of obliged or supposed to be watching lectures or in clinical placement from Monday to Friday and then when the weekend comes Saturday and Sunday you have absolutely no obligation to do anything for medical school unless you're working on some sort of extracurricular project or studying for an exam as a doctor sometimes you're working Saturdays and Sundays and sometimes you're working Friday Saturday Sunday Monday so how does that work in terms of rearranging your other parts of your life your social life because everyone else is free on the weekend yeah there's probably one of the worst parts about having a job that makes you work weekends and nights and stuff is that inevitably a friend says you know do you want to go to Cornwall this on the 14th of September and your response is right let me just check my rotor you know like look oh crap i'm gonna call that weekend um right i know uh johnson called me before i know sannik called me after i know that he's busy i think there's basically no chance i'm gonna be able to swap that because you can only request leave for stuff where you're not on call and so if you're on call at a given date and you want to get leave on it you have to swap it with someone for a normal day and then you can get leave on that day and so this is like a real huge negotiating act what me and some of my friends used to do and still do is that at the start once when well once we've all got our rotas we would send out a doodle poll and be like right which weekend is everyone free on and then we'll arrange a holiday book the airbnb people can request leave two or three months in advance that's a great idea at that level but there's so many birthday parties i've missed because i've been i've been working so many things i wanted to go to in london so many like magic lectures so sad it's like yeah you can't go because you're like well i could maybe get to london for 7 p.m but what if i finish later that day there's no way i'm gonna make it and therefore i don't want to commit to it fair enough fair enough oh yeah so i think that's everything that i wanted to ask you and everything that i wanted to discuss just to end this video i wanted to ask if you have one piece of wisdom or one piece of advice that you could give to a fourth or fifth year medical student what would you say oh man what i'd say is that happiness is not found on the next rung of the ladder like you really want to enjoy the hero now because the hero now is all that we have and when you're a medical student if you're in that mode where you're thinking oh my god med school sucks i hate it i can't wait to be a doctor i basically guarantee you're going to hate being a doctor as well because a lot of it a lot of enjoying the job and enjoying the stress and the long hours and the work and the responsibility a lot of that is the story that we tell ourselves about it and if we tell ourselves the story that this is fun i'm enjoying this we're going to enjoy it if we tell ourselves the story of i freaking hate being a medical student i can't wait to be a doctor because it's going to be so much better it's not going to be better you're still going to have those negative thoughts you're still going to be telling yourself the negative story that what you're doing right now is not fun and so i couldn't agree more that's right you know please don't believe the myth that you know when you become a doctor suddenly you'll be happy because that's just not the way forward be happy right now enjoy your time and you'll be a doctor and you'll absolutely smash it yeah that was excellent like i completely agree with how you frame the situation that you're in plays such a huge role in how you enjoy your experience like people who complain constantly about whatever is happening around them i'm like you're literally putting yourself in this vicious cycle you're asking to hate everything around you you're you're attracting things that you don't like and you're making everyone else sort of go away from you as well i think that's some great advice yeah man i'm very jealous that you've got another two years of med school left because i'm very happy and i'm going to take full advantage of them fantastic all right and that brings us to the end of this video if you did enjoy it please don't forget to leave a like and also subscribe to my channel to more content from me in the future also if you're not already subscribed to Ali Abdel's channel make sure you go do that immediately and we will see you in the next one peace ready what is up guys karma good start good start