Ross Scott

Hey everyone, I have another interview I did not long ago that recently went up here: Interview link It was for the podcast "My So Called 8 Bit Life" where he covers various topics related to videogames or whatever else he wants. Some of the questions have been in other interviews I've done, though there was some more about my background that I haven't been asked before. There was also some stuff related to Machinima.com, but it's nothing that's not in my "Escape From Machinima" posts. I also screwed up the audio for this since Skype was secretly adding a 20dB boost to my recording volume without my realizing it until after the interview was over, so my apologies about that. I try to avoid this sort of thing at all costs in the videos, but I apparently met my match with Skype. As for the videos, the next Game Dungeon should be out in a couple days at the most, then I have another one planned not long after that. Freeman's Mind won't be returning until next month however. LINK TO FORUM COMMENTS

Yeah this is great, actually Simcity 2000 is one I'm hoping I can get some MIDI experts on board with doing a conversion for.

Those rhythms put me in a mood, couldn't help it. Hope someone enjoys (not going to be everyone's cup of tea, sorry). d3v9TFoNQ0E This is badass. While I admit I liked the saw waves of the original, I seriously can't find a problem with your version, it nails the tone they were going for in the original. I eventually plan to do a follow-up episode to the games covered so far, I'll definitely include your mix when I do, you nailed it.

Here's the next game dungeon! This is the oldest game covered on the show so far, going back to 1984. I still intend to cover some more modern games, they're just not on the top of my list. Due to its age, you may not want to watch this episode in full screen unless you sit a good distance from the screen, the resolution is low enough that it's a bit overwhelming up close. I'm glad I didn't announce when this episode was going to go up, since I honestly thought I was going to have it done last weekend with another one coming up now. That totally did not happen. Unfortunately the next episode is going to be delayed further as I'm going to be gone from the 12th to the 15th on spy business. This means I won't have replies to anything until Monday at the earliest. I hope to type up replies to many, MANY emails during that time however and send them once I get back. Finally, if you didn't get your fill of pigeons and classy music playing watching this video, be sure to check out my old short, . LINK TO FORUM COMMENTS

Damn, I guess I remembered it completely wrong then. I'll mention that when I do a large follow-up episode later (I plan to do one after I cover 10 episodes).

I still think it ranges from anarchy to developing nations at best. All the power in the Fallout world feels fragile and has many exceptions beyond its influence. This isn't really the sign of a developed society. I say anarchy because in real anarchy, you DO have pockets of organization with different idealogies, because anarchy in itself is a temporary state. Like in Fallout 1. The ghouls are a giant cult, there are large groups of wandering bandits, you have small farming villages, you have small closed-knit communities like Junktown, you have a small theocracy with the brotherhood of steel, you have merchants doing whatever in the hub. Everybody is doing their own thing, that's anarchy. In later games, some larger groups emerging, but they're warring and their hold isn't secure at all, nobody has obvious overall control, that may not be anarchy, but it's not really society either. It's more like warring tribes with more technology. As for the water thing, in addition to no almost no area in any of the games looking like it has remotely enough food and water to last for more than a few weeks, in Fallout 3 they say the water is radioactive and plant life basically can't grow, yet somehow this has lasted hundreds of years without everyone dead. To me that's just lazy writing. Anyway, I don't really want to go further into a Fallout debate, but I'll say that Fallout feels squarely post apocalyptic, rather than dystopian. Strife to me feels dystopian. Post apocalyptic to me is Fallout, The Road, Road Warrior, Book of Eli, Walking Dead. Civilization has collapsed and hasn't really rebuilt yet. Dystopian is 1984, Brave New World, Soylent Green, Equilibrium, Hunger Games. Established society exists, but has clear oppression and / or very hollow or twisted values along with it.

First, at that point of the game you are not supposed to know what exactly it is; Second, even when using the original's limited vertical look (as seen here: ), you can clearly see it in detail. That guy is using an engine port, the colors for his map screen aren't the original's. EDIT: On his episode 1, he says he's using Zdoom. I mean it's possible my memory's completely off, but I remember TRYING to see what was there in the original, and I couldn't beyond just the very bottom pixels. Keep in mind, the port isn't necessarily 100% accurate to original Strife, just really damn close.

No, I consider Fallout a little different. Fallout is a state of anarchy, not a stabilized feudal societal. Also, I am overthinking this, but I always thought of Fallout as a totally implausible scenario even with mutants and robots, etc. (except maybe the first) because everything is so dry it's just not sustainable for anything more than a short period of time. Food production just doesn't work for that in the long term. I mean hell, everyone living in the southwest is only doing that because diverting water flow from the colorado river. You need SOME pockets of real agrarian development in order for people to live out in the desert. I played the original up through that point, you can BARELY make out the pixels of SOMETHING that is there looking up, it wasn't obvious to me what it was at all.

As a warning, I did spoil some of the locations and best lines in the game, but you have some big suprises in the story that I didn't mention. I guess I repressed the memories, I was working around the clock to get that one done in time. I'll just drop RGD for a while and do nothing but FM later on if it gets too close.

Well I totally screwed up my estimates as to how long this episode was going to take. I ended up needing about 250% the time I thought I would. In my defense though, this is actually the longest video I've made to date, clocking in a little over 30 minutes, so you may want to watch it in chunks. I tried to edit it down to just the stuff I wanted to say, but there was a lot of it. Besides Strife, I also cover some of Doom, MIDI music, FPS design and control in general, so there's a lot in here. In any event, if you like the other Game Dungeon episodes, you should like this one too. I think the pacing on it is pretty good, despite the length. Seeing as how my time estimates were as bad as usual, I'm giving no estimate on the next episode other than I'll get to it as soon as I can. I plan on making a few more Game Dungeon episodes, then I'll be returning to Freeman's Mind. If you're coming only for Freeman's Mind, maybe check back in a month? Also I'm going to do everything I can to get completely caught up on email sometime this month, I'm still woefully behind on that. More stuff coming! EDIT: I'm wrong, CarnEvil was longer than this, but not a lot. LINK TO FORUM COMMENTS

I think the ONLY episode I was in a rush to get subtitled was FM27. There's really no rush at all from me, don't worry about it.

I actually haven't done any drugs, though I have known many stoners. I was basing this on morphine being a depressant and sometimes creating a euphoria feeling, but not necessarily impeding higher brain functioning. I have had weed incidentally before when I was fixing a friend's computer at the same time he was hotboxing the room with it with his friends. I actually hated the experience, it made me much more aggressive. I could FEEL myself become dumber and found it very frustrating. I remember thinking that if I never knew what it was like to feel smarter than this, it might not be so bad, but as it was, I found it horrible.

I figure Freeman has experience.

(Downloadable copy will be up later) Subtitles: English More Freeman's Mind! I'm mostly happy with how this episode turned out, it's a longer one, Freeman covers a lot of ground in this one. This one also has a particularly good jumping off point I wanted to get to. On that note, some of you will be disappointed, but I'm taking a break from FM for a little while as I want to catch up on Game Dungeon. I've already started on it and hope to have it out in about a week, possibly sooner. More coming after that! EDIT: Could be a little longer than a week for the next game dungeon, it's going to be a long one. LINK TO FORUM COMMENTS

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

I may make an official post on this later, but I wanted to give everyone here the first shot at this. Since we've made the migration to the new site code, we can better support additional reviewers for Gorilla Gong now. What this means is essentially any good machinima video (or some non-machinima, more on that below) you find, you could submit to the site, do a short write-up on, then you would be credited with having selected it. We want to get as much good machinima on the site as possible. Alternately, while this isn't as big a priority to us, if you're familiar with lots of non-machinima gaming content (live-action, particularly entertaining let's plays, or reviews, etc.) we can also add that to our "Banana Pit" section, although that won't be appearing on the front page. Our focus is still machinima first and foremost. Here are the requirements for being a reviewer: -Have good video taste (this is subjective, but we still want to try to keep standards up) -Ability to follow simple directions when submitting a video -Ability to write up a couple sentences (or longer if you want) on any video you submit, particularly what it's about and why you chose it. -Be okay with the fact that I'm essentially boycotting any content that has the Machinima.com watermark on it (we don't block the videos/creators themselves, just the branding) -Send me links of at least 5 of machinimas you like so we can get an idea of your tastes. To lower bias, try to send me ones that I have NOT put up on GG myself. We're looking for videos that have some quality to them. These don't have to be the best videos you've ever seen, but they should have some appeal to watch for one reason or another. This reviewer offer extends to anyone who is a fan of machinima and wants to see the format grow. If you're interested, go ahead and email me at rosswscott@gmail.

Yeah I mentioned it in another thread, but I'm definitely looking forward to Unity, the teaser trailer suggests they'll represent the French Revolution well. The setting alone has the potential to be so badass.

Well a dictatorship has its advantages. Basically, not acting civil can get people banned. I'm not going to purge anyone based on their opinions, but if people can't act like adults, I get enough of that elsewhere on the internet.

Oh I don't feel GUILTY about the money, I was just concerned when I made it that it would alienate fans. Thankfully, it didn't. Hell I can put the money to use, I'd have to be loaded before I started feeling guilty about it, and even then, I would do something about it. Even with the donations, my income is below the median and average income for the USA, unless I was exploiting people, guilt doesn't enter into it. And more Game Dungeon coming! A lot of it!

Sorry for the late reply, had a busy month or so. I'm not sure we would have a civil war so much as some sort of revolution. If it was a civil war, who would the sides be? Yeah sadly, this is pretty much my conclusion. I think you could theoretically have some sort of peaceful separation on a small scale, but I think trying to remedy our biggest problems through legal channels is mostly impossible nowadays. Big money infiltrates interests on local and state levels also when they see issues with the potential to threaten them, it just requires more work and money than concentrating on the federal level. Yeah honestly I see this as the most likely outcome in the event of a revolution. There's a REASON I find the French Revolution so interesting, they overthrew the ruling class without a clear plan or focus and it was just violence and anarchy until a dictator with a plan to solve problems stepped up (with military force). You know, I can't help but think of my struggle with Machinima.com and my video rights. I am convinced there was literally NOTHING I could say to them that would make them see the reason of what I was trying to do (and what they agreed to via contract). The ONLY thing that worked was threat of legal action against them. Some people simply don't respond to reason. I've actually contemplated this dilemma a long time and came to the conclusion that in order to increase the odds of a society prospering in the long term, you would have to test for and identify sociopaths and prevent them from obtaining positions of power, or at least have extra, rigorous, morality training for them. The thing is, anyone can make horrible mistakes and cause a lot of damage. But any sane person with a conscience won't do it OVER and OVER and OVER again with zero remorse. Sociopaths without proper moral training are essentially saboteurs to any society. Yes and no. The USA is nowhere near the state some of the revolutions other countries have had, but at the same time, our system is so thoroughly corrupt now, it can no longer be fixed. So it's like we're clearly driving over a cliff and we can no longer break or swerve away in time before we go over it. It does, but it's all interconnected. The same forces that have corrupted our government have also gutted our education as well. I'm convinced another cornerstone of a long lasting society would be to have education and culture that instills productive, moral, and sustainable values. A lot of you guys seem to be ganging up on BTGBullseye, but I totally understand his perspective on the revolution part. I don't think his message is "violence will solve this" which is what people seem to be attacking him. To be clear, widespread violence is nothing to welcome at all, but the question to be asking is "What's the alternative?" We both feel the legal system can not remedy this, it's too far gone. I think massive cooperation among people to fix this is impossible, we're too divided and brainwashed as a nation. I personally think a radical solution might be possible with no bloodshed, but they're all shots in the dark and likely pipe dreams. This quote of his says it all guys: I think you guys view him as a warmonger and he probably views many of your opinions as pie-in-the-sky thinking. I think it's just a matter of a logical conclusion based on the assumed truths. Again, what would be the alternative to fix our society in its current state?

Damnit, I have a Civil Protection script that covers this EXACT scenario, it's just been shelved for a long time due to the time involved with animating.