Ross Scott

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here » 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: twitch.tv/rossbroadcast 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. COMMENTS

Yeah that's fine.

Maybe i've played too many ragdoll games, but i wasn't all that impressed by it... http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/901007559696697210/90C271B1ED8B732EDAC987B1902C3D83AD334D85/ http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/34097131330886031/9A4A0CC26A840411D22CA4FBDBBDC14B08FA516E/ http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/50986086031780326/0BBAEEE604C42EDB699B92A5EE07CC4A808B5BD1/ http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/902101705462243470/E6311181E54CCB22FA39627E3A3AB2E75566E2D6/ ...then again, maybe it's because i've played Medal of Honour: Airborne. Those are pretty damn good. Reminds of the awesome Battlefield 3 in real life videos:

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.

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

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

I totally disagree on this for multiple reasons: -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.

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.

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.

This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here » 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. = = = SCREENSHOT CONTEST = = = 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. COMMENTS

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

Sorry, not this year. You'll get a little bit of Dagon this month though.

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. 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.

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

Look, I don't really want to get into this further, but I'll just say this much: -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.

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. 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. 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. 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. Thanks, I have a bunch of stuff coming for this month. 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.

You wouldn't be the baby. His expression resembles my own to what you're saying. VTM Bloodlines is a longer game than Half-Life. It's possible, but I didn't like how it had to be done as a service, which affects my taxes, plus the additional fees + their recent public perception after being hacked didn't help either. Besides, if people really don't want to use Paypal, they can always email me or I have the bitcoin option too. It's like the video said, my heart really isn't into business stuff, I look at it as a means to an end. I only want money to the point I don't have to worry about it.

Prepare to be disappointed. I'm expecting there will be so many comments that I'll probably be 5-10 minutes behind what people are writing and I highly doubt I'll get to everyone for the first livestream. I haven't settled on what service I'll be using, but if you're expecting an answer as soon as you type it, you may be competing with thousands of others. This will be semi-anarchy at first, but I'm thinking over time we'll get a better semblance of order going.