Ross Scott
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Posts posted by Ross Scott
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If anyone has advice for recording it, let me know. I'll be on Skype with Tom, I remember OBS not cooperating when I did a test with that before since Skype would seize control away from it.lebowsky"]I would definitely like to see your portion of this Ross, since it's impossible for me to watch it at that time. -
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Hey everyone, a friend of mine, Tom White (of Weird Videogames), is doing a marathon gaming session for a charity fundraiser he's involved with and asked me to show up for a few hours. The gaming marathon will be on twitch here and will start at 8PM EST on Nov. 20th, however I won't be showing up until 2AM EST on the 21st and will stay there a few hours. He has some other guests also, one of the most impressive being Jon St. John (the voice of Duke Nukem), here is his full schedule. I could try and record my portion of this and post the results unlisted on Youtube afterwards if people were interested. Anyway, if you were one of the people who DID like Moon Gaming, here's your chance for more, otherwise, I'll be working on the movie and the next Game Dungeon in the meantime.
EDIT:
Here's a copy of the stream below. I was unable to record the game audio. As a warning, this is mostly just us commenting on various games and isn't as substantial as the usual videos.
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Aww... Thank you all. :3
I suppose that a few important time-stamps in the description couldn't hurt... They would just be:
THE MOVIE | 3:27 and 8:50 |
Freeman's Mind | 6:50 |
Monthly Video-Chats | 1:01:17 |
Civil Protection | 19:40 |
Moon Gaming | 1:25:20 |
But having more than that might clutter it all up. These are just more of the topics that your audience would be interested in hearing about. :3
But you could have a link - I don't know if it's simpler to add into the blog post or make a direct link to the forum page - to provide the timestamps for all those who really like to get into the knitty-gritty details, inside the description.
If that helps some people, Yesss.EDIT: Oh, crap, almost forgot. Everyone thank Danielsangeo too for helping me a little with this.
I think we could have around 20 really (depending on the Youtube limit), I guess go with questions that I spend more time on answering rather than quick simple ones. Also I don't plan on editing these things, sorry guys. For the amount of time it would take (probably just a couple hours, but still), I'd rather just spend that on one of the regular videos.
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Jeb_CC: If you wanted to give me timestamps of the more important topics, I could add that to the Youtube description, I was considering having that anyway, but thought there would be too many entries.
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Hey everyone, here are the results of the videochat for anyone who wanted to take a look at it:
There was lots of rambling, but I went over a lot of things and answered a bunch of different questions. For those that don't want to watch all this, I don't blame you, probably the biggest news in this was that due to such fantastic support from the fundraiser, I plan on continuing Freeman's Mind out of respect for the viewers. Having my back the way people have this past month has made such a difference in my life that I feel like I owe it to the audience. The downside however, is I don't want to let this push aside the movie, so I won't even begin on it until after I've made significant progress on the technical end of things for the movie, specifically establishing my animation systems and having rigged character models. Even after that, progress will be slow, but hey, more Freeman's Mind in the future!
This video is completely unedited and while I'm making this first one totally visible on the Youtube channel, for future ones, I thought I might post them unlisted, so that regular viewers aren't spammed by them each month. They'll still be easily accessible from the site here however. Let me know if people have suggestions for when the next monthly chat should be, I'm leaning towards December 6th, but I don't know what time yet.
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Yeah I had heard of Majestic and Motor City online. A friend of mine followed the Year Zero stuff and showed me some of it, I came up with the theory that the camera distorted looking at the giant hands because maybe it was a paradox from us seeing them, thus causing it in the future.1: With regards to ARG games, I'm surprised you haven't heard of some of the more notable ones. I mean, yeah, I could conceive that you wouldn't have followed the Portal 2 ARG, but there were a couple of interesting ones like Year Zero. I recommend looking up the archives on that one or sinking some time into the Nine Inch Nails wiki's articles on it.2: In addition, EA actually put out a conspiracy-themed ARG-MMO called Majestic back around 2000, and from what I read, that game was ahead of its time-almost like a proto-Secret World. In fact, Majestic was probably more X-Files than Secret World is (loved the Lone Gunmen reference, by the way). Not very successful, though.
3: I kinda figured you'd reveal that Secret World was going under too. I actually kinda thought "I'm amazed that game's still running, but probably not for much longer." EA is not known for holding onto a good thing or even maintaining an MMO. Need For Speed actually had an MMO before World, called Motor City Online, and that game's also long since shut down.
4: I'd say the closest thing to a typical MMO I've played is probably Spiral Knights, and that game is pretty atypical. The combat isn't really cooldown-based in that game, it's more "Zelda-style," I'd guess.
Good news about EA though, from what I was told they only handled the physical distribution of the game, so buying the game digitally, no money went to them.
Yeah, a lot of people mentioned that. That's great if they do it, though for now it's only proof of concept videos.Also, recently I found out in a comment in YouTube, someone is remaking Battleforge. It'll be now named as a Battleforge Reborn. -
Well I can ask for other recommendations in the stream, for the first one I'm trying twitch. The main thing I wanted was the following:For me Twitch is no go. I personally hate it for lack of optimization, really idiotic stream configuration, forcing for HD stream, really bad, bad, bad, bad mobile app. And all that covered with double-dragon-falcon-punch traffic sucking machine. In one minute it can just kick to death my 50 mbps LTE and actually stop any other traffic in home.Any other stream service, even VOD with 1080 res videos doesnt have such problems.
-Support for a LARGE audience
-support for moderators
-no limitation on size of the chat
Twitch seemed to meet all the requirements, though if enough people want me to switch to something else later, I can.
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Because I'm new at this and I wanted something I was sure could handle a ton of people and I know twitch.tv has a really seasoned architecture for this sort of thing. If people decide they want Livestream later, we can switch to that.Why aren't you using a normal livestream site ross? -
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I have some information on the soon-to-be monthly video chats with everyone. For the time being, I'll be starting the first chat on twitch.tv here:
I plan to have the first broadcast at 4pm EST on Saturday, November 14th. My plan is to give some basic updates as to what's going on, then I'll answer questions or discuss topics people are interested in. I'm expecting this to be a bit chaotic (I'll have moderators, but probably not enough), but I'll just respond to good questions / comments as I read them and address what I can. Since this is on twitch, I'll also have a game running in a window, but it will probably just be one of my old game demos running so that I don't have to be distracted while I'm talking.
Since it's inevitable not everyone will be able to show up, no worries. I'll put the stream on Youtube afterwards, plus I'll try and cycle the time or day for the next time so that more people can show up. Anyway, I hope to start doing this once a month as a way to stay in touch with everyone. In the meantime, I hope to be working some more on the movie this week and catching up on the massive number of emails.
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Yeah that's fine.Would any of the other mods/users mind if I just put all of these images in spoilers myself? For Ross' convenience of course!OT: Great video! Was watching it in my spare time at school, had to slap myself to stop myself from laughing out loud. That award; "What?" XD was amazing.
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Those are pretty damn good. Reminds of the awesome Battlefield 3 in real life videos:That PayDay ragdoll glitch deserves screenshot of the year award, IMO. XD I love PayDay ragdolls...Congratulations to the winners though!
Payday wins best ragdoll glitches.
Maybe i've played too many ragdoll games, but i wasn't all that impressed by it...
...then again, maybe it's because i've played Medal of Honour: Airborne.
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I wouldn't even propose anything especially problematic for companies, I would leave it as nebulous as a "best effort" by the parent company to allow others to get the server running. So they could release as much source code as possible (and as someone else mentioned, they would NOT be releasing commercial rights to it), or a patched client. Whatever worked best for them and gave people that bought the game a respectable chance at getting the game running. That would so infinitely better than the "do absolutely nothing, you're screwed" approach we have now.A fair solution to all parties would be to require game publishers to somehow let someone else take over the responsibility of running the server, either by opening the server end (not necessarily releasing the code or unencrypted assets) or by handing over control to a third-party to run at no additional cost to the end user. If they cannot provide for this hand off, the source code and all assets must be released to all people who purchased the product, with exceptions for privacy of end user data stored on servers. Privacy of end user data shall not include any intellectual property, to protect IP the operator of servers much ensure that some party is keeping the server only. -
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Welcome to the 11th hour grand Halloween episode! I have to say, doing this episode in the timeframe I had really tore a chunk out of me. This came really close to not getting made in time and I've been working just about nonstop since the last episode. This is definitely a very Halloween episode, I doubt I'll have anything this much in the spirit of it next year. My brain is a bit fried at the moment as I've been awake for a significant amount of time.
It may be a while before the next Game Dungeon, I haven't had anything close to a free day in at least 2 months. While I think the push I did these past couple months has really changed my life forever due to how much you've helped. Thanks again to everyone who has helped with that, I feel like you guys have my back more than Youtube ever did. Unfortunately, this pace I pushed on myself really isn't sustainable and I'm going to need some real time to recover. I still need to figure out what I'm doing next, but I plan to make the video chats the next priority (and reply to people) once I've recovered some. Have a Happy Halloween!
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Here are my winning picks from the screenshot contest, followed by my favorite runner-ups. Congrats to Zac Moore, Bob Builder, and Jax Kenobi, who will receive a copy of Uncanny Valley. I picked ones that I felt stood out well enough by themselves without needing a lot of context and I leaned towards ones that suggested there was some deeper story going on.
WINNNERS:
Zac Moore:
This has exactly the sort of subtlety to it that I like and that maybe something more sinister is going on in this neighborhood
Bob Builder:
I was somehow envisoning some sort of psychopath whose business with the cow still wasn't done.
People sent me a lot of ragdoll glitches, but I'm not sure any came close to the body horror that this one is.
Jax Kenobi:
Great pic that raises lots of questions. You can tell he's deep in thought.
RUNNNER-UPS:
Shark Tooth Bubs:
I'm really envisioning a crazy homeless person who has no qualms about stabbing you for trying to steal his brain.
Ville "jipostus" Lahtinen:
There's some dark stuff going on in this town.
Calvin Rieta:
Veni, vidi, vici.
LambdaPyro:
I may be biased on this one, but the timing seems to perfect, like the scientist never saw it coming, nor should he have expected that to begin with.
z z:
It's a little corny, but I enjoyed it.
Presence:
I actually didn't realize the significance when I first saw the screenshot and thought it looked interesting on its own. Finding out later that this is default gameplay gives a little more boost.
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I totally disagree on this for multiple reasons:As for companies, well i get where you are coming from, but truth be told- if your idea would be enforced, it actually would hurt industry badly, especially indie developers who might not have resources or time to get end-plan in. And there would be lot less AAA titles..-If an indie developer doesn't have much in the way of resources, they're probably not creating a game that requires authentication from a central server to begin with. Afterall, that central server costs money for them to run.
-Even if they are, an end-of-life plan doesn't have to be expensive at all. Releasing as much of the relevant source code would count.
-This would not stop AAA development. AAA spends tens of millions or much more on games, an end of life plan would be a small fraction of the cost. All it would require would be to actually plan for it to begin with, instead of doing absolutely nothing and letting games die the way the industry standard currently is.
-Again, not as extreme, but the "it would hurt the industry badly" mentality was the same argument used by business owners for using child labor in coal mines, enforcing safety regulations, requiring overtime pay for over 40 hours, etc. Not only in this case do I not think it would be true at all, but this is a practice that should simply stop. I don't know of any wealth of games we would have lost if companies had planned to do SOMETHING for the players in the event they had to shut down the central server.
-Now this is speculative, but it's entirely possible this practice could INCREASE sales if it was marketed properly. Letting players know they are GUARANTEED to always be able to play their game could be promoted as a feature, especially once we see more and more die.
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Not really, but I think I was harsher on the fact that this was for $10 normally (10 Euros in Europe). I left out a line actually that I would have valued it at about $2 myself being a cheapass. I feel like it comes up short for a $10 game. For a lot of the older games, that's less of an issue. Plus I worked security. They got the most fundamental aspect of security work wrong.Big fan of all the transparency, Ross. Enjoyed the review as well - do you think you might have been more harsh because you didn't want it to seem like they bought you by giving you a free copy? I hear that reviewers tend to have that problem. -
I know, Youtube needs time to process it to 1080p. I post the video here unlisted as soon as it's processed at 360p early sometimes.Ross FYI, this video is unlisted on your channel -
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Subtitles: English
More Game Dungeon! This is an episode I didn't have planned at all until a couple weeks ago, but it fits in with having spookier games for October, so I decided to throw it in. I wasn't even sure this game was going to be proper Game Dungeon material, but after playing through it, it certainly seemed to fit the bill. I actually cut out a chunk of this episode since I felt like it was going on a little long considering the length of the game. The part I omitted was about me asking questions of the developer directly concerning the timer. It wasn't anything especially fascinating, so I'll probably include it when I eventually do a follow-up episode.
In the meantime, I'll be working around the clock to have the Halloween episode out ASAP, there's still a lot left to do. This unfortunately means I'm going to have to neglect many messages and emails, but I'll try and make it up in November.
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SCREENSHOT CONTEST
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This is very short notice, but the developers gave me 3 extra copies of the game, so I'm having a small screenshot contest if you want to try and win a free copy! Here are the rules:
-Post or submit a screenshot (up to a maximum of 3) from any game.
-You can either post your entry in the forum thread to this episode here, or email it to me (rosswscott (at) gmail.com). If you email it, I highly prefer a link instead to an attachment.
-Only one copy of the game can be won per person.
-The deadline is roughly midnight of Oct. 29th PST. I will announce the winners the next day on the 30th. You can try and submit something late, but you risk not making it.
-I'll pick the winners by whichever screenshots I like best. So whoever has the most interesting or funny ones will likely win a copy of the game.
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Go to hell, everybody! This is a game I almost covered last year, but I think it fits especially well after Construction Bob. Some may be disappointed that this is just a casual game, but not only are the next episodes this month going to be more substantial games, but I think this might have one of my favorite endings for the Game Dungeon so far. I don't have much more to say other than that I'll be busy working on the next two episode to get done by Halloween. On that note, I have received a TON of emails and I'll try my best to respond to everyone, but you may have to wait until November for a lot of them just so I can get the videos done in time. More stuff coming!
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Sorry, not this year. You'll get a little bit of Dagon this month though.There are... a LOT of games were you visit Hell. I'm still holding out hope for Dark Corners of the Earth to get covered this October (you visit a metaphorical Hell... underwater... shut up). If not, well, there's always next October. -
I'll tally the requests list at some point and make something based off that. Right now the most requests are probably for Fallout, Nox, VTM Bloodlines, or The Neverhood.First up glad the fund raising is going well for you Ross! You always deliver quality content that I'm happy to consume, and so it's nice to see you getting your due.As for things you can do prize wise, have you thought of offering something to do with game dungeon?
Perhaps after x amount of dollars have been reached give us a poll with a certain number of games on it, and let us vote for the one we'd like to see next?
Or maybe even take it further, and allow someone who went above, and beyond on donating pick a game to be reviewed for it (with restrictions of course to make it more in line with normal GD reviews. Like short game, obscure, and so on)
That way it's stuff that wouldn't take much time/effort on your part?
Edit: I also realized I was not enlightened on whether, or not I could defeat you in Kombat. No sweep kicking in corners.
Also bonus donation dollars for referencing Vampire: Masq. It's probably one of, if not my favorite game of all time to be honest. The modding community keeps it alive, and I end up replaying it, and then remodding it probably every 6 months.
Well maybe. I feel like me just repeating what everyone else is saying probably wouldn't be as popular as you might think. Additionally, I don't play these games until years later half the time, it would require me being ahead of the curve, for which there is a lot of competition. Plus, I think the extra numbers I got would evaporate more rapidly too, whereas I really appreciate long-term fans who come back to check in on the videos. It's more fun for me to cover games I have opinions about that not a lot of people have heard of. Ultimately, I'd most like to make just original videos and storylines, but that takes way more production work, so the videogame coverage is a more enjoyable balance.Hey, Ross! First, let me apologize for my english in advance
I want to give you some advice - one of the problem is that you don't make any content that can be really massively popular. Your popular videos are - either HL-HL2 related or about a bit obscure games, like in the GameDungeon. Well, HL is pretty popular game, but its popularity is declining, and it isnt what it used to be, say, back in 2007. So, you have to start one more series, that will have a potential to become a view-attracting machine to your channel - review new games! Or, do anything at all, but with New, Hot games that are on #1 popularity right now.Ok, I may sound like i'm over-confident in what I'm saying - but theres a reason for that, I have a pretty big experience in internet and social media marketing, although in Russian market, but internet and its inhabitants are pretty the same everywhere.
And, I don't wont to sund like what you do right now is bad - no, it's super good, and I like your content a lot, but sometimes, in order to make money, you have to do not what's best, but just what is popular.
PS you've got my 20$
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More Game Dungeon! I was hoping to have this out earlier in the month, but the whole last 2 months has been defined by me making things I meant to do weeks ago. This episode is pretty typical for Game Dungeon, though I'm going to do my best to get as many out as I can this month. I might be attempting too many, but I hope to get 3 more out this month. One short one, one similar to this, and one longer one. We'll see what happens! Also thanks again to everyone who has donated, it's been really fantastic. I'm still trying to respond to everyone, but I've been flooded with emails on top of everything else. It may take a little while to get back to you!
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Look, I don't really want to get into this further, but I'll just say this much:I assume that you don't have a detailed managers plan on paper.-I already have a project manager who has been very helpful.
-I've received many volunteer offers, whom I've been reviewing and my project manager is helping to take care of, however I'll ask for additional help as I need it. There's not a lot of sense in hunting for animators when you don't have any models for them to work with and may not for another year and a half or longer.
-The way you talk suggests you don't understand all that's involved with an extensive machinima project. I think Unreal will be better, but Source was a nightmare. The engine had so many bugs that had no explanation, some were so devastating they almost tanked the episode until I could invent a workaround. Valve themselves INTRODUCED a bug between Episode 1 and 2 that they haven't fixed to this day. What percentage of done is fixing a bug that has no known cause and holds up the entire project? One bug like this may take 15 minutes to workaround. Another one may take 6 weeks. Source Filmmaker when it was released (and still not by default, best I know) doesn't support physics, sprites, or global map-light realtime shadows. Why accrue extra accountability for your percentages that were based off not knowing that information? I'd rather just not give a percentage, than state 10% for 6 months, then suddenly change the number to 1% because of previously unknown variables. Stuff like that is terrible for morale.
-I simply can't afford to hire people except for specific jobs I can't do myself and there really is no substitute for from a volunteer pool. While I have raised a lot of money, I need to make it last a long time. Minimum wage comes to about 15k a year and specialized work is worth more than that. I couldn't even hire one person full time.
-Volunteers are notorious for flaking out. I've received over 100 emails before of people offering to help, giving me their past experience, examples, I say great, ask them to help on a simple thing to start out, I never hear from them again (I call them "the suicide note"). I want to say the "flake out" ratio on volunteers is something close to 80% or higher. Typically, the more complex the skillset, the more likely the person is to disappear randomly. So much of what you're saying is more akin to what you would expect from EMPLOYEES, not volunteers. I think the attitude you're suggesting can be potentially disastrous the more complex a volunteer project you have. Imagine every person you're assigning something can leave anytime he or she feels like it, and you may not have a substitute for them. I don't mean this in an unfriendly way, but your planning sounds like the classic scenario of a mod that's started and announced, but never sees the light of day (which is the majority of them).
Another way to look at it: Black Mesa has been in development since 2004, has had more interest and volunteer resources than practically any mod in the industry and STILL isn't done. They took 8 years to get the first portion out, I'm sure I'll be a lot faster than that for the whole project.
-The thing to take away from this is I'm the last line of defense. I have enough experience with volunteers and planning that I'll be able to handle whatever help I do end up getting (stable or not), but if anyone leaves, the movie will still get made. I've produced over a dozen fully-animated machinimas, which were akin to making small mods. I can't promise speedy operations, but I will get it made eventually. I guess you'll just have to trust me (or not) when I say that I've likely already thought about everything you're talking about years ahead of time and do have a plan that I think has the highest odds for success for my budget / situation.
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I can say that I pay about 1,034 zloty a month (little under $300, depending on exchange rate) in social security and health coverage in Poland each month. That's going to be the same for pretty much anyone self-employed. Beyond that, I don't think my girlfriend would be comfortable with me revealing everything else, plus some expenses fluctuate.What taxes do you pay and what social security or health coverage you have ?
Imagining project percentage updates is kind of meaningless. I'm years off. That's the best way to look at it. This is going to be the longest video I've made and in a different engine. I have a lot of experience making machinimas and I have done some things in Unreal, so I have an idea of what's needed, but trying to accurately assume projected deadlines just isn't very realistic right now. All numbers would have to get shifted every time I make a new Game Dungeon, or have to spend half the day downtown taking care of paperwork. Here's something worth keeping in mind: Out of successfully funded kickstarter games that come to market, virtually ALL are over deadline. You're talking like I've never planned anything out. I have lots of things planned already, but frequent status reports would only slow things down and be inaccurate. I really doubt the movie is going to come out before 2017 and it's highly possible it will be after that. I got setback a lot this year due to various things, but I'm going to keep working on the movie regardless.Here I'm going to ask you for a plan.
Sorry, but it won't happen, that would be an issue with copyright from Valve, you'll just have to live with being able to download them for free.Also, I was re-watching this and I know Ross said he's not much of a buisness person but I had an idea, I'm sure im not the first person to say this but couldn't you do something like physical DVDs, especially for The Movie. I would definatly buy a Freeman's Mind DVD box set. I know there are usually extras or something but in all reality, just being able to plop a DVD into a player would be awesome. Only other web series I can think of that did this was Red vs. Blue, but seriously, it would be awesome.Though if you wouldn't do a DVD box set for Freeman's mind I would without a doubt suggest doing it for The Movie. Like have it free digitally, but if you want a physical copy, you're gonna have to either download the movie and burn it to a DVD yourself OR you could pay $10 plus shipping to get the DVDS, some extras, and maybe even DVD cover and box art. You'd still have everything for free online, just a little more for the physical thing.
Yeah, that's my main concern. Here's a good way to look at things: I ABSOLUTELY will try my best to get the movie done faster than Freeman's Mind was.no matter how clear he was on it just being a prediction, would turn into a "Hey you promised the movie at this time, and you're not done!" thing.
Thanks, I have a bunch of stuff coming for this month.Keep up the great work
Thanks, but I really meant all I said in the video, I see this whole thing as pressing my luck, people have no OBLIGATION to watch the ads, if I really expected people to cough up money, I'd put it behind a paywall or something. I'd like as many people to see the videos as are interested and if I can find someway to stay afloat, then mission accomplished.Ross: your content is awesome and I'm really happy to see so many people are willing to agree with their wallets. I hope the donations are removing some of the burden from your shoulders! I know I work better when I've got less stress. Any time I find myself with a few £££ spare I'll be throwing them in. I've watched your stuff for years, almost all of it with an ad-blocker enabled, so I figure I owe you anyway.
Upcoming video appearance for a charity thing
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