"You can expect at least 2, maybe 3 episodes this month." Haha, yeah.

Ross, why make a promise you know you can't keep? Everybody who read that line knew it wasn't true, but we gave you the benefit of the doubt. I never expected you to put out that many episodes for the same reason I don't expect VG Cats to update on mondays. At this point, with your track record, it's an unreasonable assumption. But you shouldn't break a promise to your fans, and that means you shouldn't make a promise you can only break.

Your fans are frustrated. I've come across more than a bit of profanity thrown in your direction because of it. And while you can't take that back now, you can minimise the damage. First, releasing 40 wouldn't hurt. Neither would apologizing. And importantly, getting out 41 and 42 faster than normal would calm them down completely. Not in a rediculous timespan of one month, but maybe releasing 41 at the end of next month and 42 at the end of march.

And, of course, don't promise anything.

Come on man, give Ross a break..

He has a life too...And he doesn't work for us. If he want, he can say "fuck it" and stop even posting updates.


Ross, take all the time you need. It's ok.

TL;DR

Ross made a promise that he broke, and now I feel he has wronged me some way. Let me make wonderful 'suggestions' on how he could give us what we want.

TL;DR

Entitlement.

No, I think you're misreading that.

I'm saying he's a fucking idiot for making a promise everybody with more than half a pineapple for a brain knew he couldn't possibly keep. That was very, very stupid. Nobody would've cared if he took all year to make the next episode if he didn't do that. I recommended ways he could fix it, but for the most part the post was about how stupid it was to do such a thing in the first place, and to point how he's just made himself the Scott Ramsoomair of machinima. Except that's not fair to Scott, because he managed to find ways to minimise the negative effects of his schedule slip. Ross has not.

While I agree on that making promises you can't keep is not better than making no promises at all, the way you are saying this is completely unnecessary and downright disrespectful.

Gee, well look what happened when I tried to do this respectfully. So fuck it, I'll just be as blunt as I always am.

I knew someone was gonna bring this up. First of all, these frustrated fans you are talking about are more than likely retarded Youtube commenters, who complain constantly regardless of how frequent content comes out as I've yet to see anyone really complain on the forums. Second, you don't know the situation with Ross. Yeah, if he's gonna promise 2-3 episodes, he should know whether or not he's gonna be able to keep it, but shit happens. Time and unforseen occurence happens to everybody, he could've uploaded them to Machinima but they're taking forever to upload, maybe he had important family matters, even if Ross was just lazy, he'll at least apologize. If this is your idea of 'respectful' you seriously need to work on a few things.

I think you may be reading the YouTube comments a bit much. If you have a look around on this board, you will see that no one constantly nags Ross about releasing the next FM episode, let alone being profane about it. And we are most certainly not frustrated. Ross's life doesn't revolve around FM and neither does ours. It's just an internet series that happens to be excellent. And that's really what it's all about. Yeah, it's disappointing when he promises a release and doesn't deliver, but it doesn't really matter at the end of the day. Whenever they do come out it's always worth the wait. We don't know his schedule or what he primarily does for a living. Yeah, it may just be a 10 minute Half-Life video, and many people use that argument to say that they should come out quicker, but if you look at every other mind series, some are good, some are terrible, but none of them come close to being as good as Ross does them. That should say something to about how much he puts into them.

So bottom line, just chill and loose the sense of entitlement. If you're really this bummed about internet videos not coming out when you expect them, they you need to take a good look in the mirror. They'll come out when they're done.

i have been thinking...what if the small lines cutting the dialogue bars (in the progress bar) are actually the division between the 3 episodes and he will just upload all of them at the same time by the end of the month?

I'd say that's a very optimistic interpretation.



Already took that into account, and that's why I said he shouldn't of made that promise in the first place. How many times do I have to spell it out? (I swear, it's like talking to trekkies.)

That doesn't justify you acting like you're entitled to new episodes, especially when all you're doing is calling Ross an idiot and tearing him down on his website. Yeah that'll get the episodes out quicker alright.

I guess I can take back my previous insult. You guys are worse than trekkies. You're as bad as Star Wars fanatics. Right now it looks like no matter how clear I make my issue or how much I spell it out, you'll just substitute it for something easier to attack.

I was berating him for making a promise he couldn't keep, I don't give a shit about the slow release rate. Hell, I read VG Cats, and they're just as bad, but at least Scott Ramsoomair doesn't make unrealistic promises about updates. I have issues with people not keeping their word, not people failing to release media they don't get paid for often enough. Ross is both, but I only give a shit about the former. He could release once a year and I wouldn't care, but when he makes a promise he doesn't keep I'm going to be pissed.

Is that slow enough for you?

If you want to be nasty about it, he never explicitly promised anything. "You can expect at least 2, maybe 3 episodes this month.", he never said "I promise 2-3 episodes this month".

ex·pect
   [ik-spekt]
verb (used with object)
1.
to look forward to; regard as likely to happen; anticipate the occurrence or the coming of: I expect to read it. I expect him later. She expects that they will come.
2.
to look for with reason or justification: We expect obedience.
3.
Informal . to suppose or surmise; guess: I expect that you are tired from the trip.

Making a thread complaining won't get you anywhere regardless. You need to learn to calm down instead of bitching about it on his forums. He's not gonna be able to keep his promise, are you seriously getting worked up over that? It's not like you pay for it, and it's not like he's intentionally fucking with you. He missed a deadline and he'll more than likely apologize. The only thing wrong here is how you're treating it like you're entitled. I understand your concern but this is seriously not the way to handle it.

Gee, semantics. I'm leaving now, you people are hopeless.

Don't let the fucking door kick you on the way out.

Too bad, he was better at whining than Rarity.

i'm not seeing anything good from keeping this thread alive. i'm killing it.

I'll be happy to say this for the record:

"If you hate me, I don't want you as my fan."

Your whole post reads like you're either trolling or else you're disrespectful and ignorant. Yes, my time estimations often suck, but I've also produced six FM episodes in a month before. If you're not trolling, you should understand that your attitude makes me not care if you're upset or not. I'm not in the habit of stressing out over the opinions of people who are behaving like spoiled children (regardless whatever your actual age is). The fact that you interpreted your original post as respectful convinces me there's not going to be any rational dialogue with you. This administration does not negotiate with terrorists.

For everyone who is curious about what's happening though, I really did think I was going to be able to get 2+ episodes done, but a lot of stuff came up. A lot of what has sucked up my time has been personal life drama crap that I'm actively trying to minimize. On top of that, my lead sound editor completely disappeared on me for over a week, I'm having engine bugs with recording the new flyby intro for the episode, and I've received pressure from the mod team for Opposing Force 2 to do voice acting for them. While I've even encouraged them to try and find someone else, they've been insistent and I do owe them some for them putting me in touch with people for assistance on the last CP episode.

Because almost all my work now relies to some degree on other people helping, I am considering never giving time estimates again, no matter how confident I am that something will be done on time. I'm actually pretty comfortable when people think I'm dead and not doing anything. I'm also considering fully documenting exactly how much time one episode of Freeman's Mind actually takes, maybe for 41 or 42, it would be interesting, since I'm not quite certain myself.