Man, I’m terrible. I’ve waited since August to answer some of your questions. Hopefully you don’t all hate me for that, but I think I’ve given you plenty of other reasons to loathe me before this oversight.

Because it’s Christmas and I’m feeling charitable, I figured it was finally time to give you guys a few answers. As I said last time, feel free to leave more questions in the comments, especially if I didn’t get to your question this time.

And now, Q’s plus A’s:

1) What all have you been up to since the hiatus?

GamerSushi! Nick, Jeff and I help run the video game blog and even recorded a few podcasts. We’ve been on a bit of a break from that (for reasons I’m about to list below), but they’re a good time and worth a listen. We’ve got a video podcast going up soon if Nick can ever pull himself from his beard long enough to do things.

In terms of other stuff going on, Daniel and Nick have both been out in Los Angeles, working for the man and making some money with various productions. They are currently working on a pilot for Dan Harmon’s Channel 101, an original piece they crafted with Jace called Street Justice. I’ve seen the script and I think it’s going to be awesome. As soon as it’s online, I’ll direct you guys over to it. Daniel’s also been updating a design blog, Done Well Is So Much Better, at times. It’s neat.

As for me, I’ve been working on the second draft of my novel. I’ve also taken a freelance writing gig with Rooster Teeth to help on Season 10 of Red Vs Blue. It’s kind of cool. I wrote a tad more about it on my blog, if you’re interested.

2) Do you guys miss working on content for Smooth Few Films?

Yes and no. I don’t think any of us miss the exercise in tedium that was Leet World, or the ridiculous daily grind that made up Web Zeroes. Much less doing all that work for no pay. The experience taught us a lot about ourselves and about what we like to do, but we’re not itching to go back to that formula of lots of work and no lives for no compensation.

That being said, we do get that itch and miss out on the fun part of storytelling. There’s nothing quite like writing or producing something and knowing that thousands of people are going to see what you’re working on, and soon. Everything else since then has felt like working in a vacuum. So yeah, we get nostalgic about the platform that we had to show people our stuff. But that’s about it.

3) Will you guys make anything in Counter-Strike: GO?

This is a tricky one. I don’t want to say never, but I don’t want to make any promises I can’t keep either. As of right now, I’m not in love with the character models of CS: GO, and I’m not sure it would translate all that well for a fun little updated TLW short.

In addition, I’m not even sure what kind of machinima opportunities would even be available with the updated engine. It’s one of those things where I’d have to play it for awhile and see if there was anything we could do. And on top of that, we’d all have to want to do it.

I think my big worry would be releasing a one-off short, and then having people go nuts and demanding more. That’s a good problem to have, to be sure. But it’s still an issue to consider.

4) I was thinking of using Roxio Game Capture for the PC to capture footage, do you think this piece of hardware is a good buy? Or should I use an actual capture card?

I’m not the expert here (that would be Daniel and Nick), but I’d recommend a dedicated capture card when you can, if your concern is maintaining the quality of the original. I’m guessing going through a box like that is adding a stop for the footage, which just gives it another spot to lose quality. Also, I haven’t read great reviews of that particular piece of Roxio hardware. If nothing else, and you decide that you don’t want to invest the kind of money in a dedicated card, I’d always recommend hardware over software.

5) Can I make TLW DVDs for my own personal use?

Go for it. The reason we never made them is because we can’t sell them. Download the episodes and go nuts! You can’t sell them either, by the way. So don’t do that.

Our first round of answers:

1) We still got lots of questions about Season 3 of Leet World. This kind of surprises me, because as much as I know people loved the show, it has in fact been over for 2 years. People have done some pretty cool things on the Internet since then, and I highly recommend checking some of them out. Such as this nifty Portal 2 machinima. The writing’s not fantastic, but I’m impressed with what they pulled off, technically speaking. And there’s always Red Vs Blue, which has gone into a stratosphere that no other machinima creators can hope to touch.

2) If you ask us if you can be the one to continue Leet World, my answer will always be that nobody can stop you from doing what you want, but you’re not going to get our blessing. I’d encourage you to make your own thing, in your own way. Because I’m tyrannical like that.

3) All of us have recently rewatched The Leet World for the first time in a very, very long time, and I’ve got to say… I’m still baffled we did it. There’s a lot of technical stuff going on in a lot of those scenes that a lot of effort went into, and in some ways nobody can ever truly appreciate it but us. Weird to think that we pulled it off with all of the hurtles we had to overcome.

4) Not to make light of a serious situation, But I think Player is ready for the London riots. Seriously though, stay safe out there you guys.

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.

  (Direct Link)

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.

Listen. Enjoy. Feel epic.

  (Direct Link)

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.

I’d write a big thing about my thoughts about the year since, but I’d rather hear more of what you guys think. What are some of the highlights and lowlights of you for TLW? I’ve got a few of my own.

Highlights: Mendoza’s arc. Both season finales. The “can of worms / Council of Elrond” episode, S2E11, where most of the mysteries were spilled (still feel like we pulled that off decently). S1E7, because I feel like it was the first episode where we “got it” and the formula and quality for all subsequent episodes clicked.

Lowlights: I know a lot of people will boo me for this, but S1E1. The fact that we introduced Mendoza so late. Probably the only true “filler” episode we did, S1E6. The faceposing in Season 1. Not having the time to utilize the comrades/SWAT Bras more fully.

Go ahead and share yours.

In other news, we’ve been told from a Canadian friend that Day in the Life of a Turret was shown/referenced on TV there. While we’re unsure of the network (though it might have been G4), it seems the context wasn’t entirely positive. Still, we’re curious if anyone saw this?

Also, if you were planning on checking out Daniel’s panel appearance on Rooster Teeth’s Best of Machinima Panel this weekend at Fantastic Fest, that has been officially moved to Sunday at 2:30 PM. This is a bummer for me, because I was going to drive down for it on Saturday, but now I can’t. Sad. Face.

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.

It’s funny thinking back to those first few weeks. We’ve told the story several times in a variety of different ways, but we honestly thought we would only make a few episodes and then stop the whole thing. It was unplanned, partially spontaneous, and then the support for what we were doing was ludicrously overwhelming, which helped us through some of the more brutal production runs. Interesting fact: we came this (imagine me holding my finger and thumb really close together) close to quitting during the production of Episode 11 of Season 1. Two series and a few years later bring a bit of perspective, and it’s been a mostly nice ride, though it’s had its own share of bumps. Which is why the current break is rocking our faces.

Anyway, I’m curious: of the people left that are still faithfully checking this site (thanks so much, by the way), how many of you were here since the very beginning? If not, when did you first stumble across our humble abode on the Intertubez? Answer away, commenters and lurkers.

P.S. Stay tuned for more free tracks of the TLW Season 1 soundtrack.

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.

The short of it is this: we’re not quite sure what’s next. That’s not for a lack of ideas at all. In fact, we actually have a surplus of them. The tricky part is narrowing it down, which will only come with time to weight out their pros and cons, and also time to chill out a bit. For real, we’re just starting to get used to having our weekends back for the first time in several years, and we’re going to enjoy that for a bit before we throw ourselves onto the content skillet again. It is a hot and buttery place. OK, that metaphor got kind of weird.

Anyway, the only thing I can really tell you is this. Our next ideas aren’t exactly small potatoes. They’re big. Orca fat, I guess you could say. Up until now, we’ve done everything without a budget and without a huge supply of time. Everything has been quick, free and dirty. The last episode of Web Zeroes is something we were able to throw a bunch of time at, and I think the effort really shows. As a result, we’re going to make sure that whatever we do next we tackle with both time and money. Just think: if we’ve pulled off the stuff we’ve done so far without a budget or ample time, it’s tough to imagine what we could do with just a little of both. Or a lot of both, which would be preferable.

And no, these do not include TLW. In conjunction with wanting to do our next project with the aforementioned time and money, we also want to be able to own it. TLW is the opposite of that, as we’ve discussed on many a fine occasion.

So, stay tuned. I promise more info is coming, along with regular updates. Some things that we’re hoping to have on the docket in the next few weeks include more lost TLW factoids, some Web Zeroes features and other cool things I can’t say just yet. In the meantime, check out GamerSushi, where we’ve got cool gaming news and podcasts.

In other machinima news, have you seen this Gears of War 3 trailer created by a variety of producers including The Duo Group, Treadster Media, Kootra and Sound Wizardry. I love it.

Discuss, gents.