May Update and Some Frequently Asked Questions

Hello friends! Jeff here. I know it’s been quiet around here recently (unless you’ve been following the comments on Eddy’s most recent post), but today we’ve got a quick video update for you as well as answers to some Frequently Asked Questions.

First up, here’s the video:

Now that you’ve watched that, I’m sure you’re just bursting with questions, so I’ve answered some of the most frequently asked after the jump.

Is season three still happening?

Yep. We’re still working on season three, but it’s taking much longer than we could ever have imagined. When we started working on season three two years ago(!), we were pretty sure we’d be done by now. Unfortunately, we missed the mark, and we apologize for that.

What’s the new release date?

TBD. We don’t want to estimate a new release date just to blow past it again. For now we’re going to hold off on providing a new release date until we are 100% confident we can deliver on that date.

Shouldn’t it only take X days/weeks/months to make an episode?

Not necessarily. If we were producing The Leet World at an actual studio with all of the resources we need, it might be possible for us to stick to a production schedule, but even big studios can have production setbacks and delays.

In our case, we’re still learning as we go AND we’re really only working on the show in our (limited) free time. When real life intrudes like it has for several of us recently, that means our free time goes right out the window and production on the Leet World slows to a crawl or stops entirely.

We know it’s frustrating for you to hear that things are moving so slowly, but trust me when I say that it’s more frustrating for us because we desperately want to share what we’ve been working on for so long.

If you want to share it, why don’t you just post episodes as soon as they’re done?

We’ve made the creative choice to only begin releasing the episodes once we know that we can stick to a schedule.

We feel very strongly that releasing one or two episodes and then forcing you to wait for an unknown amount of time until the next episode is released would completely kill the show’s momentum and ruin the story we’re trying to tell.

We’re not going to change our minds on this one. We’ll release the episodes when they’re ready, and not a day sooner.

You said that you guys do this in your free time for absolutely no money. Why don’t you start up a crowdfunding campaign or begin accepting donations?

As far as crowdfunding campaigns go, it’s really not that simple. Crowdfunding takes a lot of work. Not only do you have to spend time fulfilling backer rewards and releasing content specifically for backers, you also have to worry about taxes on the back-end.

Donations would be a little simpler to manage, but they would mostly just make us feel warm and fuzzy inside. The amount of money we’d receive wouldn’t have any concrete impact on our ability to produce the show.

See, the real problem is that we all have full-time jobs that we need to keep so that we can pay our bills. If we started a crowdfunding campaign and it was somehow wildly successful, it would probably only be enough to support one of the SFF crew going part-time on their primary gig. I’m honestly not sure how much that would even help.

It’s way more likely that crowdfunding would only produce a small amount of regular funds. That amount wouldn’t be significant enough to help us with production and it would create a whole new headache to manage.

Long story short, we’d rather not open that particular can of worms right now.

Why haven’t you provided an update in X months?

I know this sucks, but our reasoning here was that we didn’t have anything to share with you guys, so we didn’t want to post an update to reiterate that we didn’t have anything to share. We’re only posting this update now to address a lot of the questions we’ve been receiving.

I mean, which one of these options would be less frustrating for you as a fan?

  1. No updates when we have nothing to share.
  2. Regular updates to confirm that we have nothing to share.

Sound off in the comments on this one!

If you have any questions that I haven’t addressed in this post, please feel free to leave them in the comments, but remember that you are speaking to humans with real human emotions here and please keep things respectful.

As always, we thank you for your patience and devotion.

Stay Smooth!

43 thoughts on “May Update and Some Frequently Asked Questions

  1. Daniel Sheehan / Rocoro

    I am glad you guys are still good on your promise, and I am very happy that you’re not pulling a George R.R. Martin. You owe us all nada and I expect nothing but one kick ass season. You are all busy with your lives and all that other jazz.

    Eddy looks different.

    Still keeping it smooth for you. Your biggest fan is not impatient!

  2. CrazyIvan1745

    I agree it would be frustrating to get constant updates of no progress, but I also found it a little sad to not see any updates at all for such a long period.

    I think it would help if there were more text updates, even if it’s not directly related to progress. Something to let us all know you are all still alive. Another option is to kind of some up with a progress meter on the website. Even if it barely ever moves or even goes stagnant for awhile, I would be thrilled to log on one day and see a 1% increase in progress. Of course that takes a good amount of work on the web end as well.

    All in all, I’m not upset about the lack of updates. Quite frankly, I think I’d be more annoyed if I felt you guys were spending more time updating us than using the free time to keep working on Leet World.

    I do really wish there was someway I could actively contribute though. I have a decent amount of knowledge in sound effect design, and modding in a few game engines, but all that was learned at an age where I had more free-time myself. I can entirely empathize with the frustration of wanting to get something you love done, but have next to no time to do it. Someone build a damn time machine.

    Stay smooth guys! You’ll get it done. (eventually)

  3. adamsizzler

    Thank you for the update guys.
    As I myself have gotten to the point in life where spare time is a luxury, I can more then relate to you guys! I was literally way more concerned of your well beings considered the silence.
    I checked all your twitter accounts, just to make sure you guys were all well.
    (I know, kind of stalkish, don’t worry, I live in Europe 😉 )

    For me, you guys would become the dude who brought WebZeroes and Leetworld to life and ended up bringing loads of laughs, entertainment og catchfraises I still use (“If the moon was made of spareribs.. Would you have some?)

    Besides Adam Sizzler have been my gaming Alias since 2008, even to the point of me trying to buy GetSomeHax.com

    But the sales guys had way too high hope for that (or I was just too poor 😉 )

    I chatter to much..

    You guys take your time!

    When you are ready I am ready.
    Take care if yourselves, your family and loved one.

    Peace Adam Sizzler 😉

    1. Daniel Sheehan / Rocoro

      Hey I looked that up and if you use namecheap.com, getsomehax.com is available for $10.69 usd a month.

          1. Karl0

            Hey,Leetworld

            Firstly,i would liko to say,and it pleases me to say that your show is one of my favourite shows i have ever watched.But i know it’s taking so long to release episodes,but i am patient.After the SRS Update i waited for sooo long for new updates.I checked your youtube channel every day to see if you uploaded something new.But,will be patient to wait for the new season beacuse I’m so hyped for it 🙂 So,because of the lack of updates,
            some fans aren’t so paitent.It would be really good to have constant updates to tell your fans that you arent dead yet.SmoothFewFilms,if you
            readed this,i love you all <3 (No Homo)
            Take your time and don't listen to people that aren't patient.Real fans are patient ^_^
            Oh yeah and,
            Stay Smooth!

  4. Cheeki Breeki

    Why won’t you just release a screenshot? You were releasing them before, why not now? No-spoily simple screenshot. I were really happy to see familiar faces before, and could rest with it for too long with no updates. We still haven’t seen Ahmad and Ellis on set though…

  5. Psy.c0

    I’ve been waiting years for another season I can wait a few more months or another one if I have to

  6. adamsizzler

    Haha lovely! Though I am not sure I will buy it now 😉
    That was a couple of years ago if not 5 😉
    But thanks you! Maybe some day I will need to get some hax 😉

  7. Punished Snake

    Can’t you guys post a non-spoilery screenshot from the new season every month or so? That little would be enough to keep the hype up and going.

    I really miss SFF. Wish you guys did a stream and just talked about random stuff.

    1. Jeff Post author

      See my response to Cheeki Breeki above. I’d like to provide more regular updates (even if just to confirm that we’re still working on the show), but I won’t promise screenshots. You guys don’t know what is and isn’t a spoiler. We do.

  8. Paolo Paul

    Well, if you know what isn’t a spoiler and what is, it will be easier for you to choose which screenshot to show us 🙂

    1. Jeff Post author

      Correct. We’ve already chosen. You’ve already seen those screenshots. You’re welcome!

      The screenshots question is closed for now, guys. Any more comments about screenshots go straight to the trash. Thanks!

  9. Anthony

    Hey there guys.

    Firstly I’d like to say I’ve been a fan of yours since 2008 and I’m very excited to see Leet World return.

    That being said, I realize I’m quite late to the party but in one of your update videos you said you’re looking for a UI Designer. I’m a Digital Designer and if you are still looking for help it’d be an honour to be a part of the project.

    If I’m too late to the party that’s understandable and I’ll be patiently waiting for Season 3.

    1. Jeff Post author

      We don’t need anything at the moment, but we’ll definitely reach out later if something comes up. Thanks, dude!

  10. yoba

    I kinda miss the old style animation, where characters could only do what you can do in the game.

    When it comes to SFM, it looks good only in these thw scenarios: you either goof off as if it’s garry’s mode youtube poop video, or you’re using at least well-spread animation p[resets, if not kinect-like things.

    First 2 seasons was kinda letting you abstract from animation and stick more to the scenario. In last videos I cannot help but look for imperfections, which were granted before, in fact, those limitations created the whole style and blurred the border between game and reality show.

    IMHO.

    1. Jeff Post author

      I mean, if you prefer the old style of animation, you can always go back and watch the old seasons. They won’t ever go away. We also won’t ever do animation like that again. It was a production nightmare, trust me.

      SFM is the only reason we were ever even willing to begin production on a third season, and even that is taking far more work than we could ever have imagined.

      We’ve never promised that a show we make in our free time will look as good as animation created by a professional studio, but you’re also judging it on a few minutes of some of the earliest work we did on the season.

      Long story short, your mileage may vary, but maybe don’t pre-judge the animation at this point in the process.

      1. yoba

        Never meant to offend someone’s work, but it’s just that first seasons was the only source-based thing I’ve seen, that wasn’t trying to impress with graphics or animation, you rather told “screw that, we do it simple way” and it was awesome. CS1.6 was becoming outdated even then, so it was not the animation quality that caught the eye. I just wanted to point this one fact that I liked very much about the show during s1 and s2.

        Now that you’re starting to master SFM and you try to do some quality stuff, it’s awesome too, and it will be really handy opportunity for you to show characters more natural way. It’s not bad, I never meant that, it’s just me being nostalgic about good ol’ days that can never come back. It’s 2016 after all, it’s purely logical to use modern tools and I’m not demanding anything.

        I’m only saying that no special animation is one thing, and fully custom moves is other and the show may change very much because of this. I’m sure you’ll keep as much humor in show as it was before, as it was the main point of the show. But I’m also interested what will become of the whole project now that it moved to being quality-graphical.

        Eagerly waiting for new season, I’m sure that your skill evolved during all that time to impress us once again.

  11. Forkswarth

    Right, you didn’t owe us the best animation back there in 2015, but as far as the time goes expectations are growing.

    It was kinda sudden when you became quite after BZ video. Yes, the animation were not good there, but why to redo the whole season? We’re not asking you to make it perfect, previous seasons were not ideal too, but with time you’ve grown episodes became better and better.

    I’m not judging you guys, I’m very happy for the return of my favourite show. But I just don’t see any other excuse for that long hiatus)

    1. Jeff Post author

      Let me just manage some expectations here: the delays aren’t because we’re re-doing existing work to make it better. That happens naturally as part of the creative process, but we definitely did not have something ready to release that we’re spending all of this time re-doing. The episodes weren’t ready yet, so we didn’t release them. Plain and simple.

      The delays happened for a number of reasons, including (but not limited to): we are adults with busy lives, significant others, job commitments, children, etc. that weren’t in the mix ten years ago; also, we wildly underestimated how much work this would be, even with the help of Source Filmmaker.

  12. Rac

    We’re still waiting – and we’re still patient. I hope everything is going well in all of your home lives and careers. Looking forward to the season in due time. <3

  13. RandomDude24

    Thank you so much guys, now i feel like i got the patience of a tibetan Guru. Though genuinely, prioritize your family and real work, our own lives here are enough to keep us busy.

    1. Daniel Sheehan / Rocoro

      ^ This. We’re still here and can’t wait for something awesome from you guys, just don’t make this your #1 priority!

  14. Roman Grand

    Can you inform us about the progress (or that the sequel is not yet soon) by some video or at least answering it? Just really want to know that you are alive and hope that the development at least somehow goes

    1. Jeff Post author

      We’re still alive, and we’re still working on the new season. We’ve just been keeping our heads down and working. Hopefully we can provide a new update before too much longer.

  15. Daniel Sheehan / Rocoro

    I am starting to think that SFF got banned by Mulligan and the Bury Squad. We can get Smooth Few Films back.

    We need to put our request to have SFF back in an envelope on a trash can tagged with the “Digg” logo… and never watch.

    1. Jeff Post author

      Haha man… it’s weird thinking about how Digg was such a huge deal back in the day. I actually like the current version of Digg better than I ever liked the original site (and its community), but it’s basically irrelevant as far as the wider world is concerned.

      1. Daniel Sheehan / Rocoro

        Hey Jeff!

        Yeah it was a reference to an episode of Web Zeroes back in 2009 when Digg was still relevant. I think that website brought itself down, really.

        I guess today Digg is much smaller and more of an “exclusive” community of people who were around back in it’s heyday and chose not to leave, or new people who join out of interest to have a nostalgic hobby.

        Today it’s a site not really tailored for transients. It’s kind of cool imho.

        1. Jeff Post author

          Haha don’t worry, I caught the reference. I recently had to update all of the Web Zeroes episode pages because the Revision3 website is no more and I was just thinking about how poorly the Digg references have aged.

          1. Daniel Sheehan / Rocoro

            Well the references and jokes didn’t age but I doubt anyone really knew that a site as big as Digg could falter like it did. It was relevant for it’s time, and I laughed my ass off and understood what it meant.

            Reddit is a better alternative, imho.

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