Ross Scott

I think Ross has said that he won't be skipping any parts of Half-Life, beyond some cheats to get around game mechanics such as hoisting himself up on a wall light to get over the electrified fence or pulling himself up onto a ledge that ordinarily you can't climb up. Otherwise, it's the game straight through without breaks.

I think I've only skipped the complete common-sense areas where a pullup is the only thing causing a circumvention and would be the natural impulse to do in the situation.

 

Only 5 episodes have been done since the fundraiser, you really gonna get finished this year?

I don't want to see more comments along these lines in the forums unless people are literally willing to bet money against me that I won't do it (and I won't cheat making half-assed episodes).

http://www.moddb.com/mods/steam-tracks-trouble-riddles/downloads

 

I play the voice of the main robot (after being run through a synthesized filter). I wasn't involved with the dialogue or design of this, I was just a voice actor for hire, with Peter directing me on the tone he was after for the lines. I'm embarrassed I haven't had a chance to play the mod myself since I've been busy churning out my own content (next FM coming before too long!), but I can say that the creator has put a ton of effort into this, so if you like puzzles and free games, I can't think of a reason not to check it out.

 

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Can't wait for the next episode, you left it on a hell of a cliff hanger!

The resolution to the cliffhanger will be about as interesting as the build up.

More Game Dungeons? I love RGD, but you do realize how much of Half-Life is left, right? If you failed to complete Half-Life by the end of the year, I would take it as an honest mistake and wouldn't hold it against you, but I'm not sure if I can say the same for the vast bulk of your viewers. I wouldn't want you to hurt your source of income; you're already running out of time.

You can't stop the Freeman.

 

 

(Downloadable copy will be up later)

 

Freeman's Mind continues! This episode got delayed more than I intended, but I've been working ahead as well. I hope #60 isn't too far behind.

 

I made some adjustments to this episode based on how the last one went. The first is I increased the field of vision, something I should have done in the last episode, but didn't notice it being a problem until it was a little too late. For some reason, it never registered in my brain, even though I knew something was wrong. This episode has been adjusted from the default 90 degrees for Uplink to 106, so it should more closely match the previous ones from HL: Source.

 

The other big change made is based on the feedback from the last episode, I decided to drop Freeman's morphine tripping as many people were finding it annoying. While I try my best, I see no reason to adhere to consistency if it hurts the overall impact of the show, so this episode is much more the standard Freeman you're probably used to. Afterall, it wouldn't be the first inconsistency. Speaking of which, this episode has another consistency shortcoming because of an invisible wall, but I didn't want to re-record the whole episode because of it, so you can think of it as an easter egg. While I never plan to sacrifice the writing or voice acting quality, in general my attitude towards bugs and other errors in the show is to just keep moving forward.

 

On that note, more Freeman's Mind is coming, though I may try to squeeze in some more Game Dungeons if I can, it will be a bit of juggling act. In the meantime, this episode has one of my favorite endings in a while.

 

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I don't know if it's just me, but I would be totally o.k. with FM finished in 2015. The main thing is that you do make videos, whether it's Game Dungeon or Freeman's mind, they are both fun.

Yeah, but I think the majority of the audience wants to see more Freeman's Mind and I wouldn't have promised to finish it this year if I didn't think I would deliver. Besides, if I didn't finish it, I'd be tempted to just keep doing Game Dungeon and postpone it indefinitely.

Hey everyone, there's been a longer than expected delay since the last video, so I wanted to give a bit of an update. Right now I'm done with the voicework for Freeman's Mind episode 59 AND 60 and I'm currently working on episode 61. The sound editing help has ended up being a bit of a hold up, but I plan to get it resolved as soon as possible. I still want to keep the pace pretty relentless on FM since I promised to finish it this year, although at the rate it's going, I may risk trying some more Game Dungeons in between Freeman's Mind, I'll have to see. More videos coming soon!

 

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My opinion: If I had an offer of $2.5 BILLION to stop working on something that had become a chore, I'd take it too.

Well I don't want to be too hard on Notch since he's a fan of the videos actually, but I think everybody making the "of course I would sell" argument doesn't already have 600 million dollars in the first place. There's not a whole hell of a lot you can't do with 600 million that you can with over a billion when you have that kind of money to begin with. I was thinking about it actually, if I had that kind of money, I would feel some sort of responsibility to try and better humanity in some way, it's just an incredible sum. I actually sent Notch an email telling him I respect his decision if he turns around and uses the money to start a cult.

 

I think the controversy comes from selling it to Microsoft. Like I'm making up numbers here, but I bet if he sold it to Valve or Riot Games for 1.5 billion, I doubt there would be too much controversy and he still would have made out like a bandit on top of having already made out like a bandit to begin with.

The ventriloquist line was brilliant.

Yeah, there's only so many bugs I can fix. Stuff like this is why I'm trying to retire from source and get proficient in another engine.

Yeah I think the FOV may have been a bit screwed for this one now that I look back at it, sorry about that, I can try and experiment with the next one and see if it translates to the demo file.

 

Actually the holstering is the result of r_drawviewmodel, just maybe not how you think

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here »

 

 

 

(Downloadable copy will be up later)

 

Subtitles: English

 

The next Freeman's Mind episode is out, after a much-longer-than-expected delay! I'm guessing some people guessed the content of this episode was next, but probably not everyone. Due to this episode being filmed in a different engine, on a technical level, it was actually the most difficult one since the original, maybe even moreso in some ways. I had to invent some new tricks to make the visuals semi-consistent with the previous episodes. My apologies about the delay, this one didn't get started on until July and while the voicework has been done on this one for a few weeks, the sound editing took way more work than usual and I was working on other things while Otto finished this one off.

 

Some of you may be concerned I won't get to finishing Half-Life 1 this year at this rate, and if every episode was going to take this long, you'd be right. However, Freeman's Mind has been shifting to become a priority and I have confidence I'll be able to get Half-Life completed this year. What I don't know is if I'll have any holiday-related Game Dungeon episodes or the DOTA 2 voice pack redo before FM is done, I'll just have to see how things go.

 

While the next episode will likely take longer than average, it absolutely won't take as long as the gap between 57 and 58.

 

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tbh if its as hot as there as it is here (30C)

It is. Having to keep the door shut for acoustics during recording doesn't do wonders for the experience either. In a way I'm glad I dumped water on my system last year since it forced me to get a worthy cooler for the CPU, haven't had any system instability yet.

 

Speaking of Gorilla Gong, I just went there and the site told me to disable my adblocker although I haven't activated it at all. Did they run out of ads to display?

No, it's something I've been asking the guy who helps run it to change for months now.

 

I was thinking of the Arcade America video today. I just wanted to say if you can get to Hell in Super Meat Boy, (ie, you beat the salt factory) you've definitely got enough skill potential to beat the whole normal mode game. Maybe even the game to total completion. Some of the "no death" achievements are beyond some people (including me), but I don't think any of the others are.

I was noticing a pretty much pure linear line in difficulty. I think I hit a wall around the 4th level, I'd recognize it if I saw it. I'm definitely not a platforming master however

Hey guys, I don't know what happened, but the rule of "no images in signatures" is still in effect, even if its enforcement seems to be disrupted. I still find them very distracting, especially animated ones. This will hopefully be disabled again soon, but I just wanted to make an official statement on that in case anyone's wondering what the situation is.

Hey everyone, no new video yet, I just thought I'd disprove theories that I'm dead, since they pop up a lot. Believe it or not, I haven't been spending this whole month screwing around, I only did that for a few days. I've been working on the next Freeman's Mind, plus I have some new stuff coming to Gorilla Gong, I'll have more info on that later on. I can't predict when the next episode is going to come out as it's going to involve more work than usual on the audio front, which Otto Beumelburg is tackling. I anticipate being done with the voicework within the next few days however, once that happens, I'll just move on to episode 59. If he's still not done, I'll move on to episode 60. The Freeman's Mind train is gearing up, there just may be some delay before the videos are released.

 

Right now, I want to make good on my promise to get through HL1 this year, so Freeman's Mind is going to take priority for quite some time. I'm going to TRY to make time to get the DOTA 2 voice pack resubmitted and later on get some more Game Dungeons done, but it's pretty much nothing but Freeman's Mind for a while. Also I'll give a spoiler and say the next episode will involve shooting guns, so you know it's legit.

 

I may be moving within the next couple weeks to try and find an apartment with lower rent and less ninjas, but so far it's all up in the air. I don't think it will cause a huge disruption as it won't be a long-distance one. In any event, remember I'm not dead unless I say so.

 

EDIT:

Voice acting on the next episode is done, will be starting on #59 soon.

 

 

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I recently found this article too:

 

http://truth-out.org/news/item/24876-monsantos-herbicide-linked-to-fatal-kidney-disease-epidemic-will-ckdu-topple-monsanto

 

Just going to leave this here too.

 

And this:http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/07388551.2013.823595

The problem with any topic of controversy is there can be misinformation campaigns that completely obfuscate what the truth is or not. When that happens, I try to look at studies / source that have the most compelling evidence. Posting your source is a good step in that direciton, although it costs $54 to view the paper with only the abstract. I don't know the sample size, what research it was looking at, the reasoning behind their conclusions, etc, so it's hard to take that at face value. This study below, however can be looked at for free, and has passed multiple rounds of scientific peer review:

 

http://www.enveurope.com/content/26/1/14

 

The conclusion I would draw based on this is assuming both studies are valid and carried out competently (which I can't tell without seeing the paper), is that some strains of GMO are potentially harmful, others aren't. GMO is a big territory, there's a world of difference between golden rice v. Monsanto corn.

 

I hate pseudoscience as much as anyone, but there are extremes on both sides. On one side you have groups that think EVERYTHING unnatural is wrong and therefore it should all be stopped, which just comes across as dogmatic to me. On the other side, there are MAJOR corporations with a ton of money that have a strong financial interest in making sure there products are perceived as safe. For me personally, I tend to fall on the side that the extremists may be right about some things, wrong about others, and any studies funded by corporations I am highly suspect of. I think GMO products likely needs much more research than it has been given so far as there is a high profit incentive to declaring them safe. While I doubt it's as black and white, the easiest parallel I can think of is the tobacco industry and its studies. It took a LONG TIME for the public perception of smoking being harmful to your health to change and I think GMO is a much blurrier and more complex issue than that.

The utilitarian principle is stupid simple to remember and won't steer anyone wrong in real life situations. For reference, whatever causes the most happiness for the most people is good. Yes, you can talk about when the ends justify the means, the difficulty of predicting outcomes, and you can even get into thought experiments about organ harvesting and unpleasant sexual advances on the comatose. But outside of fantasy scenario land, in real life day to day stuff, utilitarianism is very easy and very reliable.

The only thing I would add to that would be "that's sustainable over a long time". Heroin can make people incredibly happy, but only in the short term. But yeah, it gets stupid simple once you start talking about things like base needs to survive. Many people don't realize just how happy they are until they don't have food, shelter, water, etc.

Guys, guys, here, this sums it all up if you haven't seen it already:

 

 

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To be fair, even according to that study, the problems in rats do seem to be caused by the herbicide and not by the GM crop itself.

Actually, it showed up in both the Roundup studies and ones WITHOUT it:

 

http://www.alternet.org/food/major-study-demonstrates-monsanto-gmo-corn-product-can-cause-damage-liver-and-kidneys-and?paging=off&current_page=1

 

Keep in mind that GMOs have also been credited with saving over a billion lives in the past century from famine.

Absolutely true, and steroids have saved a lot of patients when used properly. While it's not 1:1, a decent rule of thumb is if the GMO products are being released in 3rd world countries for free, they're probably saving a ton of lives. If they're released for profit in 1st world countries, it's highly probably they could be harmful.

 

That, and there has been no scientific evidence to support GMOs causing any sort of negative interaction in humans

Well, they've caused a lot of problems in RATS, namely liver and kidney damage and more frequent appearance of tumors. In addition to being able to read the study yourself, it's been re-released to address criticisms and has survived multiple rounds of scientific peer review:

Same link as above

Just wondering, what Parish are you from Ross?

I was living in Baton Rouge when I was there.

If video 3 hadn't featured that quick shot of Christian Erickson, I'd have traveled to Poland to personally revoke your gamer license.

Yeah, I could have talked more about that, but I was just trying to get the thing done. I guess the developers were fans of Megarace. I feel like I've seen another character name ripoff before in a game, but I can't remember it. I know FEAR and Deus Ex 2 both had a Jankowski, but that might have been a coincidence.

In part one, 8:00, I think the guy said "...from the PLUMBER's Local union..." Its a plumber's crack joke. He's saying he needs to pull his pants up because his butt crack is too visible.

Yeah, a bunch of people said that, I feel dumb that I didn't hear it. I added that to the annotations, I actually think that's pretty funny then since Joey is a little too lax even by plumber's standards.

 

Loved the episode(s) Ross. The only problem I have with it is that in all of the recent episodes you don't do the one or two second cutaways. You know, like in Tyrian where you say "I have a ship that's a carrot."

Stuff like that only happens when I spend more time on the video or it occurs to me. I tried to do the shark attack scene where I was screaming, but Joey was screaming instead and his was already pretty good. Basically the more time I spend on the video, the more polished it becomes and I felt rushed on the past two.

 

I feel like it was supposed to be a kid's game, but the deranged animation is a bit too much for Cartoon Network, if you get my drift. I think only kids could have liked this.

It's really in a weird grey zone. I mean you have the blood trail, the pin-up girl is drawn in a semi-revealing way and says some slightly racy stuff, there are bystanders mooning you in Florida, Joey moons the audience, you can run over people in your car, and the omitted Oklahoma scene goes beyond what you're likely to see in kid's shows.

 

Damn "Creative" Labs. You should talk about Aureal at some point. They were the last serious competitor Creative Labs had in the consumer sound card market, back when there was such a thing. They were actually starting to innovate and add cool new features that games were supporting. Then Creative Labs sued them, lost, but destroyed them with legal fees and then got to buy all their patents. Creative labs is the gaming industry's Monsanto.

Well that's sadly more standard practice in business. The Daniel K incident was so blatantly anti-consumer however, that stuff shouldn't be forgotten. I recommend Asus Xonar cards if you want dedicated audio. I have one and it does sound better than motherboard sound (though it's a subtle difference).

 

I guess it's a good thing I'm not the person who was actually playing it.

Something I forgot to mention is the jump mechanics suck. You don't retain your momentum past a point. So if I jump to the left, it's like I hit a wall in the air then just fall instead of landing diagonally.

I made Ross food yesterday and today (and ordered some pizza too), so he would have strenght and time to finish this video on time

 

Oh, so Ross only gets to eat when he finishes a video? That's what I call discipline!

 

Regards

No I only get to SLEEP after finishing the video.

 

 

 

 

Happy 4th of July! I BARELY got this video done after working pretty much non-stop on it since the last one. I actually intended for this video to be about a third of the length it is, but it sort of snowballed into what you have now. I really started identifying with the protagonist of this video towards trhe end, and I'm convinced for the amount of hours I put into this you could probably drive across the USA, maybe even using Joey's insane route. I can say with certainty there's no way this video would have been done on time without the SSD drive, it was crucial for many phases.

 

Anyway, I'm happy with how this turned out, even if it's left me kind of a wreck. While I still have a lot of plans, I'm really going to have to scale back on Game Dungeon for the foreseeable future. Since I've publicly promised to finish Freeman's Mind for HL1 this year, that's going to have to take priority until I'm more comfortable with where things are at. Also I think I should never do another video with a deadline again unless it's 3 years in advance.

 

I'm afraid there won't be progress on it immediately however as I could really use a break. I've more or less been working every day for... years? Lately the pace has been so time consuming I've had almost no leisure time at all. Besides what you've seen on the videos, I haven't played a game in about 1-2 months, so I'd really like to have a few days to just relax for a little bit before I dive back into everything. This does mean that Freeman's Mind will take a little longer to come out, but it's the new priority.

 

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So. What constitutes an Independence Day episode? Not Independence Day, so... What else is there?

 

Some classic Duke Nukem? He's pretty all-American.

 

I somehow doubt Ross is reviewing Duke Nukem.

 

Also, he's not as all american as you think. For example, his hair is based off the hair of the extremely offensive Russian stereotype Rocky fights in his fourth racially-charged propaganda film. In fact, all of Duke's "character" is based off 80's action stars in general with no regard for their affiliation or how little sense it makes. Even his most overly-quoted line is stolen from They Live. He's not a super patriot, he's a 90's celebration of everything bad about 80's action films.

He stole lines from Army of Darkness too. And no, it's not Duke Nukem, but it's very American. I've finished editing it, but there's still a crapload to process. I should have it up in a few hours assuming nothing goes wrong.

http://trichrome.net/

Trichrome was created, designed and programmed by Sean M Puckett.

 

Back in the 90s, Sean created created the classic space shmup Galacta, as well as Helious and Pulse. Sean also created dozens of retail game, education and productivity titles in the 80s and 90s while working for Hi Tech Expressions.

 

You can reach out to Sean via email at [email protected].

 

Follow Sean on Twitter at @PhotoPuck.

 

It was easy to find him.

Yeah I already emailed him a few days ago, he liked the episode. I'll talk about him when I do a follow-up episode later on.

*Carmageddon- reincarnation (one of my childhood favourite games)

I love how they're getting the original actors back for Max Damage and Die Anna, they still look pretty good.

i agree.

i do have to ask though- is carmageddon (original one ofc) on your RGD list?

Not for a long time if I do cover it. A lot of people know about that one.