April News

[Ross Scott]

So with the Gorilla Gong update will they finally fix their registration issue with the birth years? I know it's probably silly but after years of putting an earlier year when signing up for accounts after I turned 18 a while ago I really really don't wanna do it again because I should be damn well old enough for a site that doesn't sell anything.

It'll be night and day man.

[Darth Blitzer]

I seem to have disappointed more people than usual this year, and I admit, this might be the meanest AF joke I've done.

Hey man, it was actually moderately funny at least. Which is more than can be said for a lot of other April Fool's day jokes this year *Darth Blitzer looks menacingly at the three episodes of "cat" grumps that was uploaded to the game grumps channel.

 

 

I remember the good old days, when Youtube did that "1911" filter for April 1st, 2011. They should of left that feature as standard. And by good old days I mean that one time there was something on April 1st that actually didn't annoy me. So actually, it wasn't the good old days at all really.

[Alyxx Thorne]

I thought the joke was awesome and understood quickly it was a joke too. Not disappointed at all. Good luck with your movie!

[Xalder]

Everyone realized it was a joke. The disappointment was in the fact that it couldn't possibly not be a joke.

 

Unless there was going to be an occasional episode or something of the sort.

 

I wasn't really disappointed but I think seeing how badly other people want to see this thing is wearing off on me. x3

[BTGBullseye]

It wasn't mean in the slightest... And you can always use it as an option if you need to take a break from other things, just do an episode in another game. (or you could take an actual break if needed too)

[scott155]

It wasn't mean in the slightest... And you can always use it as an option if you need to take a break from other things, just do an episode in another game. (or you could take an actual break if needed too)

This.

[Xalder]

 

Ooh the second response given to me seems slightly less generic. Slightly. The fact that they have to be at least seeing my messages is a good sign, right?

[BTGBullseye]

Can't hurt...

[ReverendTed]

If you go to the Steam Workshop, go into Dota 2 and select "Announcer", for "Most Popular This Week" AND "Top Rated All Time" the number 1 result is the FM Announcer Pack. I can't see how they could ignore it.

[HLPrincess]

 

Ooh the second response given to me seems slightly less generic. Slightly. The fact that they have to be at least seeing my messages is a good sign, right?

This.. is... a bit creepy... I saw how many hours and how much work Ross put into this. And how much frustration. This were very tough times for us and Ross at least deserves a straight reply what's wrong with his recording. It's almost like one of the reviewers doesn't like him

[VeryShyPerson]

I find some submission guidelines but I don't know if it will help any.

This is a URL: http://www.dota2.com/workshop/requirements/announcers

[Xalder]

Oh, hey. Ross, some quick questions. I'm looking at the guidebook for DOTA 2 announcers. I'm sure you went through this several times but it might be good to double check.

 

[*] Do any of your files in your Announcer Pack submission have any capital letters in them? Because "All line filenames must be in lowercase."

 

[*] ... well, if they actually had time to go through all your lines and make sure everything in column 'B' is correct you'd have to imagine they'd have time to tell you such...

 

[*] You said you have 603 lines, perhaps if you remove 3 that would get you further, even though it was supposed to be a soft cap. I actually don't see the term "soft cap," myself...

 

[*] Make sure no lines are longer than 5 seconds, I guess...

 

[*] Double check that you have all the basic required info as well.

 

So yeah, if everything looks good, I'd say just remove a couple lines until you only have 600. I'm sure that in itself will suck deeply, but I'm seeing NO mention of that being a soft cap. Maybe the rule changed since you'd first seen them and they made 600 a set limit, instead.

 

As for where I am with my support ticket...

 

 

This Derrick guy could probably be using his time better. I wonder how long it took for him to write that one long poorly constructed sentence.

 

Actually probably not much time at all, lacking in so many ways that it does. I guess he just doesn't care enough to make proper sentences.

[Mike_90]

What is the overall size of the package? 603 audio files, if high quality, can be quite a burden for the servers. Maybe they set some sort of unofficial restriction to that.

[Nz17]

Ross, in regards to the DOTA 2 voice pack problems, you should contact Gabe Newell at [ [email protected] ]. People get personal (though short) responses from him all the time and if anyone can, he should be able to get the ball rolling. If nothing else he'll forward your message to the right person to help you out of your situation.

[Ross Scott]

Honestly I really enjoy hearing you talk. Maybe you could release a weekly podcast? It probably wouldn't take as much precious time as any of your other projects, you could make money off of it through (hopefully minimal) advertising, and I'm 98% certain most people here would listen to it. Just had to throw that out there.

Well I'm not against the concept, but I'm pretty much operating at max capacity now. Any new project will take time away from something else. Additionally I find a lot of gaming news to be relatively vapid, or else not that applicable to me (oh great a new game, guess I'll see if it's any good in about 2 years or more!). I prefer the stuff I do to be semi-timeless so that if someone saw / listened to it months or years from now, it would stay about as relevant.

 

It's good to see Ross working on his movie project again. I know he took a break from it for a while during the whole machinima fiasco.

Actually I'm NOT at the moment (I was for a little bit before the fundraiser), I have too many other things to do with the shorter term videos, but it is a goal I'm working towards.

 

] Make sure no lines are longer than 5 seconds, I guess...

Christ, that's a NEW requirement that's been added since I submitted it AND since it was rejected. My longest lines are 8 seconds, they're all "easter egg" ones though, not main gameplay ones. The thing is, a lot of their lines work this way in tandem. They'll have the basic line, then the "extra line" tacked on sometimes, which can come to over 5 seconds together. For the "extra" lines, I just combined them, again, this was TOTALLY VIABLE at the time they listed the requirements. So I'm kind of pissed off that they keep changing the rules and they could have saved me a LOT of work if they had TOLD ME THE RULES to begin with, but fuck it, at least now I know what to do.

 

Alright, I guess we can call of the dogs, I have to revise the damn pack to their ever-shifting guidelines. I'll clean it up and match it to their specifications again then resubmit. I'm reminded of Empire Strikes Back when Vader says "Pray I do not alter it further" in reference to terms of agreement.

[VeryShyPerson]

I hope it work.

[Xalder]

Ah. That really does suck. Hopefully there's not too much revising you have to do, but yeah, that's very wasteful.

[HLPrincess]

That's so unprofessional of VALVe!And outrageous! :/

[Ross Scott]

Ah. That really does suck. Hopefully there's not too much revising you have to do, but yeah, that's very wasteful.

Well it's both good and bad news. Now I hopefully know what the problem is and can fix it, it's just frustrating. And no, there's a LOT of revising to do. It's more complicated than the previous post implies. There's a dead minimum of modifying or redoing about a third of the lines, could be more like half. Any lines that get permanently cut due to their new rules I'll try and release as extras later.

[Xalder]

Ah. That really does suck. Hopefully there's not too much revising you have to do, but yeah, that's very wasteful.

Well it's both good and bad news. Now I hopefully know what the problem is and can fix it, it's just frustrating. And no, there's a LOT of revising to do. It's more complicated than the previous post implies. There's a dead minimum of modifying or redoing about a third of the lines, could be more like half. Any lines that get permanently cut due to their new rules I'll try and release as extras later.

 

Well... shit. Don't know what else to say about it other than good luck, I guess.

 

Suppose I should stop harassing this guy working on my support ticket...