Less Angry and Exhausted

Yeah I'm actually not angry about anything this week. All is well now that I have finished those edits and I can't remember what else I was angry about. In other news, my memory is still terrible. I keep saying that will get better when I'm less busy, but either I'm never less busy or my memory is just permanently awful. Okay it's all right in some respects. Sure I can't remember my appointments or meetings, but I can remember every line of Arrogant Worm's History is Made by Stupid People and silly flash videos I watched ten years ago. TOTALLY USEFUL.

I can't even remember why I started this post. God.

Updates I suppose. Bioshock 2 and Far Cry 3 co-op are almost complete. I have a handful of video left for both of them. The Far Cry 3 stuff is particularly aggravating as Michael and I spent a long time suffering at the hands of that final mission. Bioshock 2 is equally aggravating and amusing. I would highly recommend watching the last couple of videos I posted (Suddenly We're in Doom) as there is some really messed up stuff in it. Dead Space 2 will continue for awhile (especially since I haven't even finished recording it yet). Life is Strange Episode 4 is supposed to be out soon-ish. I thought it was actually out this past week. I might do something with Banished as I have been playing that quite a bit the last few days.

I think Delta has slowly been posting the Saint's Row 3 stuff I gave him, but it's going to run out fairly soon. I think more Tera is in order in the near future as well. Guild Wars 1 is going to sit around awhile longer. I ran Gauntlet on Normal with Nick. Not sure if/when I'll post those recordings, though there was a lot of silliness (mostly involving me getting him killed). We'll be running Trine 2 in the near future. Murdered Soul Suspect and Bioshock Infinite are on the queue for LPs with Shauna, but I'm likely to produce more Sherlock video first.

Also got to love the music some company arbitrarily decided to block a video with music from Assassin's Creed 4 in my country after having it sitting there for at least two years with no ramifications. Took me about five seconds to find another version (extended which is even better). Nah nah.

Nothing like telling someone they can't have something. Only makes them want it more.

I still can't get over how much this bothers me. Companies fighting over sound or visual content in my LPs, which is fair use at this point in time, for SCRAPS. Apparently a few cents a month at most is worth fighting for. And I'm the kind of person who will openly admit to using other people's music or content in my videos and accept those claims on my videos...if it's something that was under my control. If it's built into a game and I have no control over what plays when, then I don't think you should be filing claims on my content. Don't give me the line "oh well you can turn the music off in game then." No. Just no. Keep fighting over that petty cash gentlemen.

THANKS GOOGLE

Ugh. Just spent an hour getting angry, then upset, then REALLY upset over YouTube's new uploading shtick. I woke up this morning and stumbled over to my computer to see that both uploads that I had started, had failed. The reason? Unsupported file format.

Wait. What?

Apparently, as of yesterday, .mkv files are no longer supported. I encode everything in .mkv format. For the past three years, I have encoded all of my videos, everything I've posted, everything I have not posted, in .mkv format. There are very few exceptions. Why is this a problem? Well, .mkv is a container. It is very difficult to covert the files back into a format I can work with and edit. This is additionally a problem because I delete the raw Fraps files as soon as I have encoded the videos properly to save space.

Beginning to see an issue here?

Let me show you something. This, is my computer:

This, is an example of one of the drives I use for recording:

And this is how much space an hour and a half of recording your average game takes up:

I have added two internals and purchased two external drives for this hobby. I know people who have more drives with larger storage capacity to do exactly what I do. This is why I encode in .mkv format. One of those .mkv files takes 134GB of video and turns it into 3GB.

All the videos you see on this page are in .mkv save one. This is where the bad and good news comes in. Here's the bad news first. All those videos in the top middle, were videos I had prepared in advance for YouTube. I'm leaving for two weeks...in a week. These were intended to keep my channel updated while I was gone. I cannot use them now. All those Dragonborn videos need to be converted. I do not have the raw files anymore. I deleted them two days ago. So I need to figure out a way to convert them if I want to post them, which will most likely mean a drop in quality. I will consult someone about this. The good news is I can start encoding in .mp4 format. Seems to have little difference in file size and the quality seems fine. I can start encoding all of the videos for YouTube that way. Life moves on. I'm over it now.

What I'm not over is that in my rage, I made the mistake of posting my complaint in the wrong place. I actually debated it knowing that a select few would be pricks about it, but I ultimately did it because it was cathartic. I then proceed to be lectured on how my problems meant nothing and that people are currently dying of disease and war in other parts of the world right now. A completely fair point. That said, I have control over my emotions, control over what's going on in my life, control over what I care about. This person didn't bother to ask what I do or think or care about in these situations. He just assumed I was being a selfish asshole. Yeah, maybe I was. For a single hour of a single day I dared to be angry about something relatively trivial in the grand scheme of the universe. Of course it means hours of work on something I don't have, especially when I've made promises to other people to make things for them. I can handle strangers being jerks. Most of the time if just makes me laugh. When it's someone I know personally, that hurts a lot more, because there is more meaning behind the comments besides being an asshole for the sake of making people mad. I'm over this, but now I get to feel like a terrible human being for the rest of the day, no matter what I tell myself or how much I care about what's going on in other places.

This is why I post videos. This is why I do LPs. Everywhere I go, everything I do, I feel like very few people take me seriously. Everyone else is more important, has worse shit to deal with, has a louder voice. I can sit, and talk and enjoy a game, for a few hours of my day, and not have to worry about the more pressing issues in my life and around the world in other people's lives. It helps me deal with confidence issues, depression, anxiety and all the abuse, names, bullying and manipulation I have been at the receiving end of for at least fifteen years (and why I am extremely lucky to know legitimately decent people these days). That was why YouTube's decision was a big deal to me, because for a moment I felt like something extremely important to my well-being was threatened, and I panicked. No one ever stops for the full story though.

So thank you for putting up with my rant. I'm over it and on to figuring out the .mkv issue. It's a challenge and I like those most the time.

Also, I'm going to attempt to bake cookies for a friend as she is leaving for grad school. This will end one of two ways: I will make a passable cookie...or I will burn the house down. Though, in reality, I'll probably just forget a vital ingredient again. I'm a terrible baker.


EDIT: The house is still standing and I have made a passable cookie.

SECOND EDIT: I have heard rumors of other people having similar issues and that it is a bug. I am praying this is true. Either way, I have spent the entire day being upset over essentially nothing. On the bright side, I now know that a) I say some dumb things and over-react when these things happen and b) I made a very good decision in 2009. I will leave it at that.

FINAL EDIT: It's fixed. Sigh...well this is a good lesson for when something like this happens again. Thanks to the people who put up with me yesterday and helped me feel better. You know who you are =p

Blargh

Where did you put the feed YouTube? I can't flood people with completely useless updates anymore. How am I supposed to spam people now? I will have to be mildly displeased with you until you bring it back. Then again, this is like...the 500th time it's disappeared randomly. I shall stare eagerly at the screen until it returns. If I do not post again it's because I have starved to death. Please retrieve my body, place it on a wooden Viking ship (a SHIP not a boat), light it on fire and send me out to sea. There I can expect it to crash unceremoniously into a flock of seagulls and therefore have a flaming, squawking send-off to the underworld. That or Ragnerok will hit first. It is in a couple days after all. 

My arm is itchy. Clearly a sign of the apocalypse.  

The Next LP

New LP going to start going up tonight. I would have started uploading last night, but others using internet in my household did not appreciate the poor quality of video on their Netflix program and I fell asleep before they did. Regardless, this LP should go up fairly fast as the audio and video worked the way it should (for once) and I have decided to do a voice commentary on it only.

I originally intended to have more Half Life videos up, but I have run into a couple of problems in its production. I will get them uploaded as soon as possible.

Lots to Upload

For once. I guess that's what happens when you only have a couple of shifts a week. The frequency of uploads may change when I get a full time job, but for now I just have to worry about flooding people's feeds.

Hit 200 subscribers yesterday, which is a pretty awesome feeling. I make and post videos as a hobby, but I put a lot of effort into it, and the fact that people are actually interested in watching, as small as it is, is a real honour and makes every minute spent playing, recording, editing, encoding and uploading worth it. I've never been interested in making money off of my channel or attracting a huge amount of subscribers, so having a small viewer group is all I could really ask for. As for joining groups or partnerships, I will only do so if it is a group of people I know, have worked with them in the past, and share a lot of the same interests. Anyhow, I want to thank everyone who watches my videos!

On that note, I should be done uploading Outlast by Monday or Tuesday depending on my connection. I have everything encoded and ready to upload, and I've had Billy Joel's "Piano Man" stuck in my head on loop for the last three days because of this LP, but it's done. I was much more freaked out during this game than I was playing Amnesia. As for A Machine for Pigs, I'm not sure what the plan is for that LP. Shauna and I looked at it the day it came out, and there's this strange blue filter on it that wasn't present on any of the trailers or gameplay previews. I wasn't too concerned about it, though I must admit it doesn't look that great. Regardless, I believe we plan on making an LP of that in the future.

Diablo 1 and Half Life 1 will continue to alternate in uploads until they are finished. I expect Diablo 1 to be fully uploaded by the end of next week (unless I take a day or two off to give my network a break) and Half Life 1 will be finished and completely uploaded probably the week after. I still haven't finished Half Life 1, but I will say that there are some incredibly silly moments ahead concerning some soldiers and the ninja assassin fellows.

As for future LPs, I have had requests to play through Diablo 2 and Black Mesa. I will probably leave Black Mesa to just before the New Year as I want a bit of a break after Half Life 1. I don't know how similar the two are, but it would be weird playing essentially the same game back to back. What would be interesting would be to compare the two. As for Diablo 2, I have my reservations about it. I may do this LP as with 1 to 2 other people who have expressed interest in playing. My first worry is that the game will not record well as I've had problems with that in the past. Fraps and the quality of my computer, however, have been improved in the last 5 years. My second issue is that I have had...bad experiences with the game in the past, partially of my doing and I am not eager to repeat that experience. My greatest fear is that there will be conflict of interest and the LP will fall apart, but these people seem like decent fellows, and I'm much more mature than I was 5 years ago.

I also plan on maybe LPing Overlord and Overlord 2, working my way down the list of my favourite games to play. Another few options would be games I have never played before: Miasmata, the Thief series, Bastion, Torchlight, Torchlight 2 and Deus Ex. If there are any other suggestions of games you would like to see me LP, leave a comment here or on my channel and I'll do my best to fulfill those requests. There are very few games I will refuse to record/LP.

Phew

Just had a massive scare on account of my external hard drive. This drive has been a little flaky lately anyways, but currently it's the only one that has enough space to do any significant recording. My 3 hour encode was 97% complete and I think I tripped something up by disconnecting another hard drive. My hard drive for some reason, had something go wrong and then I got error messages about the video files, which made frameserver crash, which made Vegas crash and suddenly the drive was no longer on, yet it was still registering on my computer. I open the drive, and nothing is in it. So I start to panic. I go to the drive, unplug it from everything, and then plug it back in. It made no noise when it turned on, so I looked in the folder and everything was back. That said, I may want to look into backing up a few more of my files, though, thankfully uploading to YouTube provides a back-up copy for a lot of video.

That adventure over, I am re-encoding the last few hours of Dungeon Siege 3 right now. The LP will probably be fully uploaded by Friday or Saturday this week depending on how reliable encoding and my internet connection is. Meanwhile, I have started my next LP, Diablo 1.

The last time I played Diablo 1 in full was when I was in high school. Like Dungeon Siege, this was one of the games that made up my childhood along with Dungeon Keeper 2, Age of Empires 2, Warcraft 2 (lol sequels) and a bunch of much more obscure games. As I've mentioned before, I never owned a console until I was 16, so all of my games were on the PC. I played this game A LOT between the ages of 7 to 9, which is hilarious because I was terrified of Disney villains, even at this age. That said, the furthest I ever got when I was a kid was probably around the start of the Hell levels, if that. I watched my father play the harder parts, but even he never finished the game.

I will be playing a Sorcerer, which should be interesting as I've heard it's difficult to start the game as one. I have no idea how long the LP will be, but I'm already to the third level of the catacombs so, we'll see. Also, the files take up hardly any space at all on my drive. I will be LPing another game at the same time, but I will leave that a surprise.

Travel

As of Thursday, I will be gone for a month and a half. I'm trying to get a lot of videos uploaded before then, but I won't have Dungeon Siege 3 fully recorded, encoded and uploaded before I go unfortunately. I won't be taking my laptop or external drives with me as they are too heavy and I don't want to risk them getting broken, lost or stolen (I can't really afford to let that happen). And so, I will try and post some updates here and perhaps have some videos prepared for when I return at the beginning of August.

I am done school, graduated and ready to work full time for the rest of my life. Good news is, I will probably have MORE time to record with no homework or papers to worry about. I'm actually going to miss school though. I'm a nerd.

So, I will be around for a few more days. After that, if you never hear from me again, I probably fell victim to one of the following:

-kidnapped by trolls
-got hopelessly lost and starved to death
-got eaten by a bear or a giant rabid moose or a grue
-got assaulted by a killer rabbit or beaver or a combination of the two
-executed my leap of faith incorrectly and missed the haystack
-got hit by a runaway scooter
-sacrificed myself to disarm a bomb that would have been sent to the earth's core in a desperate attempt to destroy the world
-choked on a crepe
-went crazy after being bitten by a cave spider
-got run over by a street cleaner
-got slapped in the face with a cod
-got trapped in an invisible box by mimes
-engaged in an epic battle with one of my many doppelgangers, eventually destroying us both
-encountered a giant robot minotaur in a labyrinth where I became lost after being kidnapped and taken there by trolls

Or something along those lines.

Nostalgia Wins

So after thinking a long time on what I'd like to do next after Dungeon Siege 3, I realized that most people watching my videos seem to like watching content from the old games a lot more than the new games. I'm not sure if that's because there are more videos of the new games out there, or people just like watching older games for nostalgic reasons. That or there are reasons I don't quite comprehend or haven't thought of, which is probably the case.

My point here is that I know what I will be doing an LP of next. I will leave it a surprise. In the meantime, I will finish Dungeon Siege 3 and continue to post a series of micro videos highlighting my adventures playing an MMO. I don't play MMOs very often. When I do, I get bored fast. I have two great people to play with, and I find having them play is motivation enough to keep up in levels and look for better items. We've been playing the Neverwinter open beta, as mentioned in another post I believe, and it has been decent all around. So far, the difficult dungeons and PvP have been the most fun for me. I don't really care about items or getting my hands on the best stuff. The only reason I want decent items is so I can take on more challenging opponents. The best are those equally matched with myself. That way I don't feel bad about winning and I don't get frustrated for losing.

Anyhow, I picked out some of the clips that amused me the most, and hopefully they'll amuse you too. I worry sometimes that my humour is too strange or stupid for anyone to care for the jokes. And in some cases...they're really awful.

Like REALLY awful.

Like so awful that you want to rip out your own eyeballs with your bare hands and offer up your soul to the highest bidder because you have no use for its tattered remains.

That bad.

Because Nintendo Wasn't Making Enough Money

They decided to cash in a little more:

http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/nintendo-takes-legal-action-against-its-own-community-claims-rights-over-yo

I haven't LPed any Nintendo games in the past, and wasn't planning to LP any in the near future, but this seems a little ridiculous to me. The article practically sums up my thoughts on the matter, but I figured I'd spread the word (as small as my audience is) and let other LPers know what was going on. I must say I am upset, especially because I really like a lot of Nintendo games (cough cough FIRE EMBLEM), but I certainly am not interested in LPing any of their games if this is the way they are going to act towards people that actually end up promoting their games at the end of the day.


Oh crap, I just realized the sound effects and possibly some music from my videos would technically fall under this category. Wonder if I'll be seeing some notices in the near future. Hmmmm

Drifting

All my marks are in from school, so now all I need to do is put on a silly robe, pick up a couple of pieces of paper and wait around for three hours while I wait for other people with silly robes to pick up their slips of paper. In the meantime, I will continue making LPs and other videos for YouTube.

I will be gone for a month and a half this summer, so I'm not sure how much time I'll have to start new LPs after I complete Dungeon Siege 3. I am estimating that I'm a little over half done DS3, but it's been a long time since I was last at the part I'm thinking of AND I never actually finished the game last time. I got very mad about this one battle, which I am sure will make me very mad again. I have a ton of ideas for new LPs however.

1) Single Player LPs:

I am thinking of LPs I can do on my own time in the next while. I may return to the Dungeon Siege series to complete additional quests or do a showcase of pets and recipes, but ultimately I want to move on to new games.

My top options for LPs at the moment are: Half Life 1 (the original, not the overhaul it got last year), Diablo 1 (of which I have only completed once), Baldur's Gate (of which I already have three videos) and Overlord 1 (of which I started a text LP and then promptly gave up on it).

2) Multiplayer LPs:

I have a lot more Left 4 Dead 2 videos I can post, which people seem less interested in watching. My brother and I play most of them, but I have some friends join us in other campaigns, including another LPer, IskatuMesk, which I unfortunately didn't get the entire recording of the campaign for. Shauna and I are still debating whether we will do an Amnesia: Machine for Pigs LP, but you can guarantee that we will be doing more LPs, probably horror survival related, in the future. We are also contemplating joining up with another friend of hers to do a Neverwinter LP, but we haven't got the details of that one worked out yet. I also have multiplayer videos of Dungeon Siege 1, but I'm not sure what videos of that one are going to be produced.

3) Reviews, Compilation videos and Music:

I currently have a review of Amnesia: The Dark Descent done by Shauna and myself encoding on my computer. I plan to upload it tonight (if it cooperates. It is an hour and 7 minutes long, and would probably only target a few people, but I feel we give an in-depth analysis of the game. It's the first time I've done a video review and I may move on to do reviews of the Dungeon Siege series and perhaps some Fire Emblem games. I am not sure how these reviews will work yet, or even if it's worth doing. I'll have to see if people are interested in seeing them. As for compilation videos, I have another Left 3 Dead 2 one planned that I need to review a lot of video for. I currently don't have enough footage for another "Five Years of Flails" type video yet, so that will be a long time coming. As for music, I plan on making some more continuous tracks for video games, but I am not sure which ones yet. Probably Dungeon Siege 2 or and extended version of the Dungeon Siege 1 version.


Overall, I have a lot to work on. I will be asking any viewers interested what they'd like to see as an LP. If no one really cares, I'll do whatever the hell I want and hope for the best.

Live Stream

So, I have a live stream account now on twitch.tv which I will probably use mostly for broadcasting Skyrim and other Elder Scrolls games. Essentially, anything that does not have a set beginning and an end, I will not be doing an LP for it. Instead, I'll do live streams of the games (that way I don't need to record them on my hard drive, which also frees up space for actual LPs).

DrSchwa

As for uploads, I've something special being uploaded tomorrow. Would have been today, only I'm an idiot and was trying to encode the video with the wrong settings. Anyway, keep an eye out for new videos.

11%

Is how much my free space my hard drives had IN TOTAL last night. Now, after the deletion of some raw video files that had been worked with already...I have a significant amount more. I am currently on my reading week which means I will probably be working late into the night and wake up late in the day (with the exception of some mornings). My plan is to get a significant amount of Broken World recording and videos uploaded, work on the third and final Left 4 Dead 2 Clip show, encode the last few full episodes of L4D2, organize all the random little clips I have on my hard drives and delete the ones I'm not going to use anymore, begin work on the larger video project I have going and prepare for recording Dungeon Siege 3, because that day is fast approaching.

This week I also hope to update this blog a little bit with screen shots from Dungeon Siege 2, because I haven't done that in a long while. Skyrim DLC is also out, which I purchased yesterday, so you can be sure that a lot of hours will be going into that. I also need to update my Dungeons and Dragons logs, do a little mid-winter cleaning, get some writing done...oh yeah and school work. I'm sure I have a little of that too.

In addition, I have posted it a few times on the YouTube page, but I've been starting to play a bit of Dungeon Siege multiplayer with some interested parties. If anyone is interested in trying it or joining, please send a message my YouTube account. That is all.

Snapshots of the Past

More pictures and old memories found on my hard drives. It's amazing how much has happened, and how much I've changed over the past few years. I have no regrets. I think everything that happened, good and bad, happened for a reason, and I've learned so much by trying things and meeting new people, even if those aspects of my life never worked out.

Back in the FFR days. "0 Members and growing!"

This is one of the only screen shots I have from before I got my own computer. There is very little in the way of pictures and documents that I transferred between the family computer and my laptop.

I loved this game back in high school and early university. It wasn't one I played constantly (that was saved for games like Age of Empires 2 and my consoles...and of course my multiplayer endeavours in Startcraft, DotA and Warcraft 3). Note the typo in "twelve"...which they still haven't noticed or fixed. It makes me lol.

And of course the good old YouTube days. Back when I did all my text LPs of Dungeon Keeper 2. To tell you the truth, I kind of miss the old YouTube layout. So nostalgic.

At least the uploader is somewhat functional now.

But...some things never change at all.

Back in high school I started to get an interest in LPs, video production and recording my games, but I never really got into it until I had my own personal computer in University. I learned a lot about video production and style from a friend of mine, which helped me to refine basic skills I was teaching myself. Looking back on it, my videos and productions now, while they are still on the crude side, are much more sophisticated than when I first started out (especially since the very first video I produced for YouTube was done with my VIDEO CAMERA).

Incidentally, that video was of Oblivion, a game which I had been interested in for a long, long time. These screen shots also gave me a short history of a lot of the games I've played in the past few years. For instance...

..."panting, gets off next to the wall."

NUMBERS.

And of course so many awkward Fire Emblem moments...oh Fire Emblem...

2007-2013

The search, the experience and the game continues.

Happy Apocalypse!

THE END IS NIGH

If I survive this one, I can officially say that I've survived about 4 or 5 apocalypses. Man I must be Superwoman or something.

So while all this BS dies down I'll be uploading the next few segments of Broken World. I also have about 10 hours worth of Left 4 Dead 2 videos that I played with my brother (lamax42) that I plan on uploading in the near future as well.

I'm not going to get Broken World done by the 25th unfortunately, but I will try my hardest to keep uploading videos in a timely manner. In the meantime, here's some screenshots I found on my hard drive. Enjoy:

What the What?

This has been an interesting weekend. To start off with, my beloved laptop, Gary, aged 5 and a half, tragically died of a fried hard drive on Friday evening. He had just finished allowing me to play an exciting game of Age of Empires III when he suddenly came down with the Blue Screen of Death. Never have I seen BSOD like this as white lines shot through the blue and random text and numbers flashed rapidly. I tried to save him, but unfortunately, through repeated tries at booting, he would not respond. If he fails to boot from an external hard drive, Gary will be laid to rest in the local Staples recycling bin sometime in the near future.

In all seriousness though, I'm going to try and save my laptop, as it has sentimental value, but I think Gary is way past his prime. It's almost not worth saving, though, I really lament the loss. It was me first personal computer (having used a family computer the years before) and it got me through most of my university career. I wrote 175 pages of WMRR on it, stayed on all through the night as I wrote my papers at the last minute, traveled with me to places including London, Lake Winnipeg, Hawaii and Florida, uploaded all of my videos diligently while I slept, helped me play hundreds of hours of games, and helped me to produce my very first videos. Gary will be missed. <3


In other news, I have been working on making Murphy a high-use computer. Before I mostly used him to play games and encode video, but now he will be taking on many other roles. In the meantime, I will be borrowing a laptop to use for my writing and school work. I am just glad I didn't start Broken World on Gary, which I was debating doing on Murphy anyways. That sounds...awkwardly sexual.

Speaking of Broken World, I have installed it on Murphy and am now ready to start the LP. I will be doing some sound tests in the next couple of days here, and will probably start the LP on the 11th (which is the last day of my exams). The game was...strange to install though. I installed DS2 with no trouble, but when I went to install Broken World, the installer froze, which then proceeded to freeze windows explorer. Pissed off (and quite tired as I have been working all weekend) I waited about five minutes before forcing a restart. I tried again when it had booted up again and the same thing happened. Fed up I figured I would just work on it tomorrow after I got home and just ignored the failing programs to talk on msn before I went to bed.

Suddenly, after about 10 minutes, Broken World just decided to...work, and it installed in about 30 seconds after I put in the CD key (which I had to dig around for as it was on the booklet...and the booklet was not in the case). Then about 8 windows popped up from when I was trying to get ANYTHING to work in windows explorer. Whatever. Broken World is installed and it works.

Guess this is what happens when you call your computer Murphy.

Finally, as Gary died and I don't have a recent enough back-up, I will be playing a new set of characters for Broken World. I kind of wanted to do it that way anyways. We shall make this silly.

Big Plans

I'm officially finished my Dungeon Siege 2 LP and am almost ready to start Broken World. I may still add Dungeon Siege 2 videos in the future (ie quests I've missed or need other characters for, and the secret quest), but I have no idea when I'll do that. As for Broken World, I plan to start the game early December and then really get into it by December 12 (day after my final exams). I will not have any time to make videos between now and the 26th though, because I have a 15 page paper due next week that I haven't started and a few assignments that I need 100% on because of my...less than adequate midterm mark...

In the meantime, I have something entirely random, but super fun to post while you wait for the new videos. I mainly played the game to test out recording and audio on the computer I'll be using from now on for LPs (well...apart from Broken World maybe...haven't decided yet). The audio...was tricky. My voice ended up drowned out in a lot of segments, so I apologise for the bad audio. I may consider recording audio separately (ie not with FRAPS), but I'm worried about audio syncing as a friend of mine has had countless issues with that in his LPs in the past. In addition, I'm not an expert at this. I still have a lot to learn to make these videos higher quality.

By the New Year, I'd like to begin Dungeon Siege 3 (which is what I'm doing most the tests for) and start thinking about what sort of series I could LP next. I did Dungeon Siege because a) I love the games and b) because I've had a degree of past experience with them. Nothing like looking like a total spaz in front of an audience, which has happened in failed videos. Regardless, I may just play a few random games as I have a ton on Steam that I've purchased on sales...and the after-Christmas sales (boxing day/week for us Canadian and British folk), I may have more.

Anyway, stay tuned, I got a lot of inanity coming your way.

Future Recording Plans

Man I watched Iron Man and now I have about 3 parodies of the theme song stuck in my head...

So I thought about recording quite a bit and I've decided that I would like to continue making Let's Plays, starting with finishing Dungeon Siege 2 of course. I will do Broken World and Dungeon Siege 3 before I move on to other series, but I'm not sure what I'd like to do yet. I'm thinking it's between Half Life, Torchlight (Blind) and Diablo 1. I'm leaning mostly towards Torchlight because I haven't done a completely blind LP. I'm not counting Legends of Aranna, Broken World or Dungeon Keeper 1 (another YouTube account) because each one of those was done with a great deal of knowledge of the game beforehand or I had played a bit. All I know about Torchlight is it's a lot like Diablo (which makes sense because it's made by the same people who worked on the first two Diablo games). Regardless, if there are any suggestions on what I should do or which games to look at next, I'm all ears. There's always new ways for me to fail at gaming!

Anyway, recording and video editing can be a lot of work, but I enjoy it and I need an excuse not to do my work at school...I mean...

BATMAN

I'm back, and I have stuff recorded...I just have to extract my desktop from beneath layers of paper, sawdust and shit from my closet. In the meantime, I was sent this:

WHEEEEEE

Made me laugh and pretty much outlines the majority of the plot holes I picked out myself.

Act 3 will be started tonight in all likelihood.

Break

So, two weeks since my last video post. I am having a great deal of difficulty with recording as of late. I explain it a bit on the WMRR blog, but I will restate it here. 

1) My laptop is not cooperating. The CD drive is not working again. I fixed it once, but I'm not sure if I can do it again. At this point I have two options: no CDpatch/iso or move the entire operation to my fully functioning computer. Downside to the former is that the laptop is unpredictable and random components tend to break. Downside to the latter is the sound and settings are completely different on the other machine.

2) I have no time. I am balancing 2 jobs and editing, writing, family commitments and having a decent social life with my hobbies including playing video games and recording. I need a pocket of time during the week were I can record in silence, uninterrupted and at a time where I'm not waking up my entire household by swearing at armour regenerating trees.

3) I'm having a tough time getting motivated to record and encode. I love making videos. I love playing video games. Naturally, I love recording video games that I play. The problem is I also love a lot of other activities and I just don't have the time for it. I feel terrible if I haven't produced a video in weeks, but that's mostly because I know that some people are waiting to watch the next instalment. I can't take my time when life gets busy or when I feel like doing something else for a bit. I haven't written much in months. I haven't read a book in god knows how long. I miss activities like that.

Conclusions? I may delay the production of Broken World and DS3. I know I was excited about these, but I need a little time to just...get everything sorted out on my end. I will finish Dungeon Siege 2 as soon as I can. Maybe in producing the last Act (and the last bits of Act II) will spark my addiction to making more videos, but the truth is I'm just tired at the moment. These problems coupled by the few people who have given rather irritating feedback on my videos (mostly the Carmen San Diego one) indicating nothing beyond how much I "suck," have really killed my desire to continue for the time being. I have yet to decide on this, but I know that I need to give something up for awhile. So I will think about it and come up with an answer soon.

My Top Ten Favourite Games

This was...difficult. I have too many favourite games. I was sitting in the car on the way to Canmore and I began to think seriously about what games I would pick as my top 10. Picking out the games that have had the most influence on me would be way easier, but that would make up another list entirely. So I decided to think of what games I have invested the most time and interest in and came up with this list. I will warn you that if you haven't played the games before and don't want anything ruined, these will contain some spoilers. I plan on posting some of my other lists in the near future, but for now...

*PS - Sorry for any bad grammar or typos. I'll look over this later...I'm just really tired right now.

 10 Lost Kingdoms (Gamecube)

This one was hard, because a lot of games could have taken this slot. I had to think a long time about it, but I decided to go with Lost Kingdoms, a game I discovered by renting. When I browsed rental stores (and now game stores), I look for art or concepts that pop out at me. This game was one of those. I had it for five days when I rented it in my teenage years and I played it A LOT. The concept behind the game is that a princess, Katia, must fight off the monsters and find her father. To do this, she uses cards that summon monsters to fight (insert YuGiOh joke here). The game leaves a lot of room for strategy and appeals to my pack-rat, collector side. The night it had to go back I was on the final boss, which nearly drove me to insanity. I had to try so many times to beat that boss, but I finally did it just before the game had to be returned. A couple years later, I played the sequel to the game, which was decent, but not the same experience as this game by far. At this point, I decided that I had to have the game, and immediately search all my local game stores, pawn shops and second-hand stores. I couldn't find it, so I went to e-bay. I eventually found good combos for a deck (and a way to break the final boss), which pleased me greatly. I chose this game because I constantly replay the game and enjoy every minute of it.

9 Dungeon Keeper 2 (PC)

The first copy I owned of this game was a burned copy given to me by my dad's friend back when I was about 7 or 8 (seems to be the age of enlightenment for me in terms of video games). I played a lot of this game at that age, mostly the “My Pet Dungeons” where I had all the time I needed to build perfect dungeons filled with heaps of cash and spells and happy evil creatures. This is one reason why I haven't tried minecraft. I poured hours into this game, playing little of the campaign and more of the free-play dungeons. I remember I got stuck on the third pet dungeon because I couldn't figure out how to group creatures during possession, so my 8-year-old brain deduced that the only way to beat the level was to buy hundreds of alarm traps for the points. It took me a very long time to get enough points and I nearly ran out of money. I returned to this game later on when I got my laptop and played through the entire campaign. I found this extremely entertaining and really got into fighting off other keepers and heroes for what was rightfully mine. This game has that fantastic dark humour that I just love. Something about savagely murdering the heroes of “Lovesong” and “Smilesville” that's just so satisfying. I know that a lot of people love the first Dungeon Keeper, but I never played it until recently, and I just didn't find it as immersive. It's a good game, but I can't compare it to a game I grew up with and loved for many years.   

8 Dungeon Siege (PC)

Dungeon Siege was one of those games that I constantly replayed and I had no idea why. The game itself was cheesy with its over-the-top dialogue and story, but after doing and LP of it, I think I realized why I kept returning. The game is silly, but it makes an effort to create a huge, unique world with creatures not seen in other games. Granted there are many similarities, but the environments and creatures encountered were so varied that every chapter had something new in store for the player. The game was also a challenge on hard mode. I have no idea how many times my characters died, how often I had crisis when running out of potions and the amount of difficult mobs that I fought. I was forced to try harder, think of solutions and play better than I would in a lot of other games. This game gave me a challenge, and I accepted it with gusto. Dungeon Siege 2, in my opinion, was another fantastic game, but not quite as good as the second. The game was bigger and focused more on items and parties and abilities while the first one was more story and adventure oriented. Nostalgia plays a huge role in making a lot of choices that I made, including Dungeon Siege.

7 Assassin's Creed 2 (PS3)

Oh Ezio, why are you just so God damned loveable? One of my favourite characters from one of my favourite games, so naturally I needed to place this game on the list. I played Assassin's Creed 1 in university months before AC2 was released for the PS3. Despite the extremely laggy area between towns, the random game-ending glitches and slightly monotonous gameplay, I loved playing this game. My favourite parts were when you had assassinated someone and had to run from an entire city as it was on alert for you. The story was good, the concepts and plot was interesting and engaging and I really loved the creativity (especially with the assassinations). This is why I was super excited for its sequel, and boy did it deliver. Most of what the first game did wrong, the second one did right. The gameplay was smoother, the moves were more refined, the graphics and environments were epic, the quests and tasks were far more varied and there were some intense twists. I got to care about the characters, have a few good laughs and leap off of rooftops onto unsuspecting victims. It was delicious. I enjoy the sequels (expansions? mu?) Brotherhood and Revelations a great deal, but I almost found them to have too many gadgets and that Ezio had too much experience. While I was entertained by the new environments and seeing the continuation of Ezio's life, I've been ready for something new for some time. I was never really into the multiplayer either so...the games were basically just add-ons for me. Assassin's Creed 2 had a great mix of story and fun gameplay, which keeps on bringing me back to play more. It also has a kick-ass soundtrack. Just putting that out there.  

6 Age of Empires 2 (PC)

This series successfully mixes two of my favourite pastimes: history and video games. I love that these games are based on history and give the player a chance to re-enact stories and legends I had heard about. I have never been good at RTS games. As I have mentioned time after time, I just don't have the focus or micromanagement skills. This is one RTS that I absolutely loved, and thought I was pretty good at it. I didn't play with too many people (as the multiplayer is a pain to get to work), but I found so many ways to fight and achieve my objectives. I also tended to be a little bit silly and mass units like battering rams or fire ships and just troll the people I was playing with (or against). I also loved to build my own maps and scenarios with the editor. I liked to make up stories of fortresses and champions and heroes and legions of demonic monkeys. I'd normally give the hero a few pet wolves for good measure. I played through a lot of the campaigns, even when I was younger. I wasn't always good at them, but I found they gave me a challenge and I enjoyed seeing history unfold before my eyes. Age of Empires 2 was a game that I played constantly from when I was quite young to this day. Granted I haven't been playing AoE2 too much lately because I can't find the CD, but it's around somewhere...I'll find it.

5 Infamous (PS3)

I downloaded this game for free off the PSN after they went down for a month when awhile back. I was just happy to get a few free games, but what I didn't expect was one of the best games I've ever played. I got hooked on this game really quickly as it had a fun concept, a lot of fun moves and a good story to go with it. When Infamous 2 came out, I was super excited to get it, more than I have been for a lot of other games (except maybe Skyrim). What added to that excitement was the fact that I had no money, so I had to WAIT until I did before I got it (no one got it for me for Christmas...). I picked Infamous 1 over its sequel, however, because I felt that the story was more tight and complete. There is a huge plot hole in Infamous 2, which I really don't want to get into here because it's on the verge of becoming a paradox and I honestly don't want to make this explanation four times as long. While Infamous 2 had a lot of new, shiny abilities, a good story, some crazy plot twists and an awesome sandbox environment, I still have to say the first one is my favourite. I got so engaged that I'd feel bad about some of the decisions I made, or angry when I was betrayed, or shocked when I found out the truth about the game's antagonist. I just found that the game had a more significant impact on me than the second one. Both are fantastic games though, taking this fifth spot on my list. Electrocution for the win.

4 Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Genesis)

Sonic the Hedgehog and I have a long history. One of the first console games I ever played (that wasn't on Colecovision or Commodore 64) was Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on my uncle's genesis. Whenever we went to his house, I would ask him to set up the game for me on his tv. He often declined because the only tv in the house was the one where everyone was sitting and visiting, but occasionally he would set it up for me. I LOVED this game as a kid. I played this game and Sonic Spinball every chance I got. The one problem was my poor 4-year-old self couldn't get past Stage 2 in the Chemical Plant Zone. The rising chemical water part would always kill me. My uncle would sometimes play for me, but I only ever saw him get to the Aquatic Ruin Zone. Years later after my uncle lost (and then later dug out of storage for me) the genesis, I got my Gamecube. This was my first console (as in I owned it and not someone else). One of the games I got for it was the Sonic Mega Collection, which had Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on it. I played it and on my first try I got past this level that stumped me as a kid. I was so excited that I continued to play, seeing all these levels I hadn't seen when I was younger. I played this game for hours as a teenager, and eventually beat it after playing one of the most difficult final levels and final boss sequences I've encountered in a game. One of my favourite games (and a close second for this spot) would have been Sonic Adventure Battle 2, which was one of my first games for Gamecube. My Sonic Phase re-emerged in high school and I ended up playing this game for hours. It also has a fairly tough final boss, which still gives me a bit of trouble when I play (though I am REALLY out of practice). I have played and enjoyed a lot of other Sonic games (I was super hyped for Sonic the Hedgehog 2006, which I couldn't play because I didn't own a console that could play it...turns out it's rather silly), but never as much as Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Regardless, the game and the character have a special place in my heart.

3 Half Life (PC)

I don't know how or why I watched this as a child. The game was released when I was 8 years old and I used to watch my dad play it all the time. He loved the survival aspect to it (I should really introduce him to Left4Dead) and how Dr. Gordon Freeman was on his own underground (though he didn't like the “random alien world” parts so much apparently). I only saw bits and pieces of this game when he played. I could usually only watch for a short while before I got too scared (I was still afraid of a lot of Disney villains at the time, so I really shouldn't be surprised), but I remember the game vividly. In my first year of university, I picked up the game again and installed it on my laptop. I wanted to see why it kept my dad's interest. I played through the game and since I have re-played it many times. I love this game and it's unique story-telling, suspense and all-around entertaining gameplay. This game encouraged me to buy the Orange Box and continue the story. I love Half Life 2, but there's something about the first one that really stands out as one of my favourites. This is the reason I have played these games, got interested in Portal, and am STILL waiting for Episode 3. I am planning to do an LP of this game...probably text as I will most likely be posting on the Dungeon Keeper YouTube page, but I really look forward to playing it, whatever I decide.

2 Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (Gamecube)

The first time I picked up this game was in a movie rental store back when I was still in high school. I had no idea what sort of game it was or what I was getting into. As I took it home and began to play, I was pleasantly surprised by its turn-based, board game-like style and interesting characters. I remember playing the third or fourth mission and had one of my characters die. I was surprised at the end of the mission that the character was actually dead and not just incapacitated. So I started the game over and made it my goal for all future Fire Emblem games to complete it without killing any of the characters. I just love the multiple strategies, the different ways to fight, figuring out which methods worked best and all the neat character conversations and dialogues. The game is legitimately a challenge for me and keeps my interest for hours. It also works great with my schedule and lifestyle as each level is anywhere between 10 mins to 1hr 30mins long. I think the longest I ever spent on a level was 2 hrs, and that's because I'm an idiot and really messed up with my characters. The game is set up so that if I have a period of time where I need to work or want to pull an all-nighter and marathon it, I have those options. My only complaint would be that there were no save points in the levels, so if you messed up, you had to start over from the beginning. On the other hand, that's one of the reasons why the game is so good. It can be extremely unforgiving and gives me that challenge I mentioned (that and the computers totally cheat...I get pissed off when the numbers don't quite add up to me...). I also like how out of all the Fire Emblem games, this game has a group of mercenaries as the protagonists, not the princes and princesses of a nation. The game deals with issues like war, slavery and racism as well, which is interesting. If I had to pick a second favourite from the series I'd choose Fire Emblem for GameBoy, because that game was excellently executed and has tons of gameplay options. I also like how the player ends up being a character as well.  

1 Oblivion (PC)

I can see a lot of people hating me for this, but I cannot deny the fact that I just love Oblivion. It seems like that black sheep in between Morrowind and Skyrim that most people declare was good, but not AS good. I honestly have to disagree. I love the Elder Scrolls series. I have to admit, I have not played the first two, so I have no opinion of those, but out of the other three, Oblivion has the most engaging story and quest lines for me. I can literally talk about this game for hours without getting bored. I have racked up over 700 hours playing it and have archived the save files for almost every single character I've played. I know a lot of the glitches, a lot of the exploits, where to find special items, how each of the quest lines end, which builds work best for me etc. What I haven't done is play a lot of the mods made for this game, which I will probably do once I exhaust my interest in the rest of the game. The only quest lines I haven't done really is the Arena, which I am currently working on right now with an Imperial Monk specializing in hand-to-hand. ANYWAY, before I digress more, I want to clarify what parts of the game are better than the others in the series. First off, I have to admit that Skyrim has much better graphics, more beautiful and varied landscape, better controls and a much more immersive world HOWEVER, my level of engagement is based on how much of myself I can put back into the game. I liked how a lot of the skills were handled in Morrowind and how doing anything in that game was more difficult and realistic than Oblivion, but a lot of its mechanics were too clunky for me to get used to fully. What it really comes down to for me is story and combat. Feed me a good story or a good fight and I can guarantee you'll have my interest, even if everything else is sub-par. The quest lines and guilds in this game were addictive, interesting and in some cases extremely intense. My favourite was the thieves' guild. Holy man was that an intense finale for me. As for the main quest line, it was long enough that I didn't feel like I was being ripped off and had a decent ending. Point is, I can role-play characters much easier in Oblivion and enjoy the story a lot more despite its glitchy, silly moments. While I have dumped a great deal of time and effort into the other two games, Oblivion is the one I keep coming back to over and over. It's a nasty addiction I call “Oblivion Phases” and they usually appear around exam time.  

*Runners Up: Haunted Mansion (for Gamecube...in which I'd say almost ties Lost Kingdoms for guilty pleasures, especially since I've played through it about 15 times now...thinking of doing an LP for this one), Portal 1 and 2 (PC), Diablo 1 (PC), Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (Gamecube...“Watch Out! Those testicles are powerful!”), Super Smash Brothers Melee/Brawl (Gamecube and Wii), Overlord (PC)*