I was invited a couple days ago to appear on the Valve News Network Youtube channel for a podcast the host, Tyler McVicker, set up. We talked mostly about virtual reality, Valve news and Valve games in general, then Tyler had a lot to say about the band Coldplay; I’m not sure if I was the right guest for that part. I think the podcast could have been a little more structured, but it went well enough. Also it has a surprise ending! Anyway, it’s above if you want to check it out.

In the meantime, I’m mostly just trying to catch up on emails and set up some work for future videos. I hope to have another one this month, and hopefully a few for February.

Here’s the latest videochat with the audience. I was a little late getting this one out since there were sound sync problems in the recording that I wanted to fix before posting this on Youtube. This one was a little more structured than previously as I tried to answer a lot of submitted questions, though it reverted to the old chaos by the end. I cover a lot of topics, including Planetside 2, budgeting advice, more produdction aspects about the movie, Gamergate, the new Star Wars, and career and school advice amongst other things. I ramble a lot, but I think it was slightly more coordinated than the previous times.

The next videochat will be on Feb 7, 4pm EST again. I don’t know yet if it will be on twitch or another chat service, I have to do more research first. I’ll have an announcement on that ahead of time if I do change venues. Also if you have questions / topics you’d like discussed in the next videochat, either email [email protected], or else reply in this thread.

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AUDITION FOR ASSISTANT WRITERS:
This is mentioned in the video also, but I’m cautiously considering any applications for being an assistant writer on the movie script. I have the main plot and many scenes established, but I’m interested in help with smaller scenes and subplots to help tie everything together. This is going to be for an adventure-comedy with a mystery element also. I more or less have the “adventure” part laid out and have lots of good comedy, but I really want to have this script be the best it can be and I think having additional writer could definitely benefit the movie as a whole.

If you have background in comedy writing (mysteries are also a bonus) and are interested in having a shot at writing part of the movie script, send me a sample of your comedic writing to my main email address ([email protected]). If I like your style, I can consider you for the movie itself. I do want to emphasize that this will be THE hardest position to get in the movie and I will be absolutely merciless in considering applicants. So odds are, you’ll be rejected. Afterall, I’m looking for someone who can write some of the scenes BETTER than I can. I won’t be mean to anyone, but I consider the script the single most important aspect of the movie, so it’s not an area I’m willing to compromise on. That said, you don’t have to worry about typos or minor mistakes, it’s your content and style that I’ll be most interested in.

Finally, something I forgot to mention in the videochat, a lot of the download links to Civil Protection and other videos were down, those have since been fixed, so they should be working again.

Happy birthday! This is a giant birthday video I’ve been wanting to make for a while now. I had no chance at all time-wise last year, and I almost didn’t make it this year! While I definitely have my own ends with this video, I tried to keep it entertaining also. Hope you find something in it you like!

Here are the threads related to the birthday topics:

Ross tries to get you to join in on his birthday.

Related threads here:

MMO Stories

Soundtracks

Art

Mouse Printing

Custom Software

Also believe it or not, the suggested Youtube thumbnail images didn’t have one with me in it, so I left it on the default one.

Merry almost-not-Christmas! I managed to get this Christmas episode out pretty late, but it should still be Christmas in the timezones I’m aiming for! I almost covered this game last winter, but it got to be too late and there wasn’t any snow left on the ground, so I saved it for this one, since we of course have snow everywhere. Everyone has snow. Everywhere. Enjoy the episode.

After much deliberating, we now have the winners of the screenshot contest for the free games giveaway! I want to give big thanks to everyone who contributed a game, and to danielsangeo, who organized most of this and we wouldn’t have been able to do this contest without him.

I unfortunately have to announce that I decided to change the rules. The simple reason: there were too many good entries. It would have been hell to try and figure out who is #34, 35, 37, etc. We had 481 entries and 124 winners. A lot of people had multiple great entries, but we picked only one per person just to keep things sane. So instead of a big numbered list of winners, they were broken up into tiers. You can view the winning entries below:

GOLD TIER:
These were ones I thought were either amazing, genius, or extremely funny.

SILVER TIER:
These were generally really good, they just didn’t ignite quite the same spark to me that the gold tier did.

BRONZE TIER:
These were ones I thought were cool in some way, just not mind-blowing.

This whole thing was super-subjective, so don’t get too disappointed if you didn’t win. You may yet still have a chance to win something later on.

HOW TO CLAIM YOUR GAME:
1. First confirm you were one of the winners (a master list is located here)
2. Check the Games List for games you’re interested in. This will be frequently updated as people claim them.
3. Make a small list of games you want, in the order you want them. Email [email protected] with this list. If your game is still available, it will be sent to you. If not, we’ll go to the next game on your list.
4. If you submitted your entry on the forum instead of email, let us know which one your entry was (we can find out, but this will make it go faster).
5. Games will be sent first by tier, then FIRST COME, FIRST SERVE. So everyone in the gold tier will get a chance to pick before silver tier, then bronze tier.
6. Have patience. Silver entries won’t get served until everyone in gold picks a winner or a week passes, whichever comes first. So it could be a couple weeks before you get your game, depending on how things go. Once you email us letting us know what games you want, your place in line is secured.
7. In the event there are no games left that you want, please just tell us “pass” in an email.

Sorry about changing the rules and make it a semi-free-for-all, but it was the only way to retain our sanity. We had so many fantastic entries, thanks a bunch to everyone who participated. I highly recommend people check out the winners. Also since we had more games than winners, once every winner has gotten a chance to pick something, I’ll make a new post about the remaining games later. After all, I don’t think Daikatana is going to fly off the shelf.