Wanted to say a big thank you to all the supportive comments we received on that last post. There will probably be some changes coming to the site over the next few months, so stay tuned for that.

I mainly wanted to post a bit of music that Jace did. Basically, it’s the TLW theme in 8 bit. I kind of love it. I’m sure you will, too.

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Right click and save as to download. Happy listening.

Just wanted to stop in say it was great to see everyone’s comments on The Last Word. As I said before, I think Daniel did a spectacular job on it, and it shows. It’s a touching short, and something I’m particularly fond of.

Anyway, I promise there will be a couple of regular posts here in the next couple of weeks, including a range of topics that we still get asked a lot of questions about. I’ve been terribly busy with some other things going on personally, and that looks to clear up in the next week or two. But for now, enjoy another free track from the TLW soundtrack.

This one is the Domination Man’s theme from Episode 8 of TLW. You know, the one that plays during the entire cheesy GMod log fiasco and the zany antics surrounding that. I’m a big fan of what Jace did when he built this out for the soundtrack. I think you will be, too.

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One of the things people keep asking about is if there’s a way to still buy the soundtrack. Right now, the answer to that is no. Basically, sales had diminished over the last few months to where it was more expensive to keep the store going than it was to just take it down. If you hang around, we’ll just be releasing it every week for free from here on out.

In other news, who out there has played Black Ops? Thoughts? We reviewed it up on GamerSushi and I’ve been dying to play it.

For instance, I’ve been working on a monster of a book which I just finished in this past week. It’s a huge unwieldy fantasy story that needs a ton of editing that I can’t wait to get started on. Meanwhile, Daniel recently produced a short film with his bud Ryan Hargrave for a local art show. It’s called The Last Word, and I kind of love it. Different from the tone that you guys are used to from Daniel’s work to be sure, but that’s not a bad thing.

You’ll notice a few SFF regulars in there, including Alex, who played Pedro in WZ and also ran sound for that series as well. You’ll also see Ty, the lovable Bobby King. Music by Jace Ford, in what I think is one of his best pieces yet. Plus, Daniel plays a dude that chases people and beats them up. Anyway, take a gander to see what I mean, and give Daniel his props.

Another TLW soundtrack song coming next week!

Listen. Enjoy. Feel epic.

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Right click and save as to save that to your demon machines.

I saw a pretty cool review of Web Zeroes the other day, and I thought I would pass it along. Definitely nice when people recognize the hard work that went into the show, and the spirit of its geekitude, something we really strove for during its production.

And continuing on that cool stuff vibe, I’ve got a couple of more links for you guys. One, for all of you old school PC gamers out there, we got a retro feature up on GamerSushi the other day about how to make a Myst movie that doesn’t suck. Two, I’ve done a piece on my blog about my ridiculous fan nerd love of Final Fantasy 7 and how it changed me as a gamer.

Attack those at your leisure.

Thanks to everyone for all of the birthday wishes you gave us. It’s great that so many of you are still around from the earliest days. Also fairly flattering. A special thank you to all the lurkers that came out of hiding to utter a few words of gratitude. Another weird anniversary is coming right on the heels of that one: next week marks a year since TLW ended.

In terms of news, the main thing I have to offer is for those of you who live in Texas. Next weekend, a cool thing called Fantastic Fest will be going down in Austin. It’s a huge genre film festival, and from what I hear, it’s pretty rad. Anyway, Rooster Teeth organized themselves a machinima panel, and they invited one of us to sit in on it. Since Daniel won the fist fight (it’s the gangly arms), he gets to be on the panel with some other machinima dudes.

If you are anywhere nearby, the Best of Machinima screening will happen on Saturday, September 25 at 4 PM at the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar. They’ll be showing Day in the Life of a Turret. Stop by and troll Daniel.

Also, because I’m nice, here’s a free download of the Producer theme from the TLW soundtrack. Figured since the anniversary of his death is coming up and all, it only made sense. This is probably my favorite track on the whole thing. Enjoy!

  (Direct Link)

Right click and save as to download.

In other news, did anyone get Halo: Reach? I’m loving it. Also, check out the new GamerSushi. Loving that, too.

Anyway, last post I promised some cool content, and I’m here to deliver. You may have noticed that we decided to take down the TLW Store a bit back, or maybe you didn’t because you loathe stores of all kind. Either way, the TLW Soundtrack was being sold there for about two years running. Since so much time has passed, we thought we would be nice and give out a few of its tracks for free, starting with the TLW Theme Jam that you’ve heard on a couple of videos here and there. It’s basically the normal Leet World theme, but with some extra sauce from Jace. Anyway, it’s one of my favorite tracks on the album, so I hope you enjoy it.

  (Direct Link)

Right click and save as to download. More coming soon.

In other news, who’s seen Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World? I’m hearing fantastic things about it, and I can’t wait to see it.

Releasing stuff on the Internet, we get so used to just putting a video up and moving onto the next thing. Viewer reactions are just words on a screen, so it’s just a really nice break to see people face to face who love the show and to hear their laughter while we watch in a big group. Nice to know that there have been some folks enjoying it in that way at their own homes. Or at least, that’s the hope.

Anyway, we’ve put up a time lapse video of the entire series wrap party. Check it out. Many thanks to our buddy Ryan Johnson for putting it together. Music is by Jace, of course, and it gets pretty rocking by the end. He’s the one whose face appears about halfway through, by the way.

And yes, Ahmad and Leeroy are there in the fray. Happy hunting.

Earth Angel

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Web Zeroes Theme

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Techstrogen Theme

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We’re seriously getting tons of great messages about the finale so far, and we really appreciate all the support we’ve seen from all of you. Enjoy the awesome music.

Even though almost a year has gone by since the show’s end, we still receive plenty of inquiries about these features, so I thought I’d bring it back with even more tidbits that you guys never knew.

So let’s get started. Details are after the jump!

• The chip in Ahmad’s head.

In S2E10, Asher hints to Ahmad (and us) that our lovable noob had a chip in his head that the Producer used to communicate with him. This is probably the biggest dangling plot thread (along with the Comrades) that got left over from the storyline, and one of my bigger regrets. There was actually an explanation scene for this in the first Season 2, Ep 13 script, but we ultimately cut it because Ahmad’s return made this thread less important.

Here’s what the deal was: when Ahmad auditioned, he had a chip put into his head so that the Producer could communicate with him, since he was particularly impressionable. When he started taking hacks, the Producer spoke to him as Adam Sizzler, a figure he trusted, to get him to move the drama to new heights. Remember, it was Sizzler who told Ahmad where to go in S1E12. When Asher jammed the communications to the house in S2E9, the Producer had his “ace in the hole” that he could talk to — Ahmad. Basically, the Producer was responsible for his death.

Like I said, we ultimately cut this. Once we changed things around and decided to bring Ahmad back, the information was less pertinent. Oh, I’m sorry. That leads us into the next bullet point.

• Ahmad was supposed to stay dead.

Yup. All that stuff on the site that I posted about saying goodbye and putting characters into danger immediately following S2E10 wasn’t just me jerking you around the way Valve does to everyone about Half Life 2 Episode 3. It was the honest to goodness truth at the time, because Ahmad was supposed to be dead dead. We made the decision back in Season 1 to kill off a main character, and we designed Ahmad’s arc to see if we could make people loathe him and then love him.

So why did he come back? Simply put, fan service. Our Revision3 deal came up right in the middle of Episode 12/13 production. Once we committed to them, we knew that left a huge possibility for never being able to revisit the story in the movie, as we had wanted to do. Rather than risk leaving everyone on a humongous cliffhanger (seriously, the Season 2 ending was just mean), we went with what had always been our backup plan in case something crazy happened like Daniel moving or having Valve shut us down or any number of other things. That’s the ending you saw, and we figured, since everything was going to have a nice bow on it, let’s just tweak it and bring Ahmad back.

Does it cheapen what we wanted for the show overall? Yes and no. The original plan was going to be pretty cool, but I think we still delivered an ending we were proud of. Ending the season on that cliffhanger would have left people hating us forever. About that…

• The Season 2 ending.

  Along with Ahmad’s death, we had the Season 2 cliffhanger planned out since around S1E4, Dust 2 Dust. We even hinted at it a few times throughout the series. Remember the “Island of possibilities” line that the Producer dropped at the end of Season 1? Or Montrose saying he needed to find a nice beach to retire to after the show was over? All hints towards the end of Season 2.

  Let me set the stage: instead of blowing up in the Death Room, Player was going to detonate in the house, eradicating all of the bots and himself to save his friends. As his countdown is nearing zero, Leeroy rushes to his lair to copy his core, while the other characters run away in hopes of avoiding the explosion. Unfortunately for them, they don’t quite escape and get knocked out in the ensuing blast. The Producer’s soldiers would arrive to a destroyed TLW house. The cast is knocked out. Player is destroyed. Leeroy is missing. The Producer instructs his men to collect the cast.

  Cut to: a blue sky, the sound of waves crashing. Ellis wakes up, and looks around to see the other cast members, lying on a beach. Season 2 was going to end with our characters waking up on a stranded island.

You guys would have hated us for it. And we would have laughed silly, I think.

Anyway, there are a few more where those came from, such as what were the plans for Season 3, but I’ll save that for another time. As I said before, it would have been cool to make, but none of us regret that we couldn’t do it. We love Leet World (well, some of us), but we’re glad this is all behind us. Still, a part of me sometimes wonders how crazy everyone would have gone with that Season 2 cliffhanger.

So, got any more questions?

In other news, we just released another episode of our GamerSushi podcast, the E3 edition. Lots of fun, check it out!

However, in the absence of a good and proper new Web Zeroes episode, I’ll be releasing another post concerning some more Lost TLW Factoids, including the whole deal with Ahmad’s chip as well as some other lesser known gems. I think any Leet World fans out there will want to come take a look at it for sure.

Last week, I posted a cool fan video that re-created The Office intro with Web Zeroes clips. This week, I bring another similar treat in the form of the Law and Order intro re-made with Web Zeroes. This was a big hit with us during filming over the weekend, and we stopped shooting just to watch it once we saw that it was out. Much thanks. Stuff like this that you fans do is such a treat for us. The idea that anyone would spend time paying tribute to something I work on still baffles me.

In other news, this is E3 week, and we are covering it over on GamerSushi, so you should check it out. Nick has been tweeting the press conferences from the GamerSushi account, and it’s an absolute riot. In addition, we’ve recapped the Microsoft press conference, as well as the Sony and Nintendo conferences. The Sony one includes some Portal 2 information. Head on over to the site and join the community, it’s a great place.

What are you guys looking forward to from E3? Left4Dead 3? Lol j/k.