I know I’ve said it before, but the general rule around here is that the more busy we are, the quieter we tend to be. Coming up on the twelfth episode of Season 2 is no exception. With Daniel still out of town and gallivanting around movie sets like some cinema cowboy, we’re left scrambling to finish the season. But it’s a good kind of scramble. Like eggs.

It’s hard to believe there are just a couple more episodes left, but that’s the way we roll, I guess. Thanks to you dudes that have stuck it out so far for this absurd machinima. Anywho, here are some screenshots from the next episode.

That last one is a major tease, am I right?

A huge thanks to all of you TLW-ites who watched and commented on Episode 10, Wake Me Up Before You Go. Some mighty wild things happened in that episode, things we’ve been planning for quite some time. We’ll hopefully get into that more in the next couple of days (once a few more of you have had a chance to watch it), and have some cool character discussions.

Daniel’s out of town right now, but Nick and I have been working diligently to keep the machine moving. Currently, we’re in the midst of several things such as faceposing, Hammer-ing and editing Episode 11. Also, I’m working on getting a final draft for Episode 12. It’s certainly both madness and Sparta, but I think it helps that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The next episode is interesting in that it’s kind of the “Council of Elrond” episode. Lots of information. Maybe you understand that nerdy reference, maybe you don’t. Either way, here are some screenshots.

Spooky, scary. In other news, I plan to get some outtakes done soon, but the last couple of episodes have been faceposer/Hammer heavy, and I figured you would all appreciate me helping get the episodes out faster rather than working on those. And yes, those things are mutually exclusive.

If you follow us on twitter, then you’d know that Episode 10 is shaping up to be a beast of a different sort. Imagine a hulking brute that spits acid and isn’t intimidated by Nick’s beard and then you know what you’re dealing with. It is unruly and grotesque. In a good way.

Anywho, part of the reason for this is that it has quite a humongous action sequence in it, and before I get carried away with superlatives, I will just say that it might own you. We’re big fans of action films (if you can’t tell), so this is always a treat for us. By the way, the picture is from Die Hard, so if you haven’t seen it, I might ban you. Welcome to the party, pal.

Here are some screenshots from Episode 10. I had to work very hard to find ones that don’t give anything away. There’s just way too much to spoil.

Hope you enjoy the tease.

I’d like to thank everyone for the encouraging words regarding our announcement about the end of TLW after this season (and an awesome movie). We’ve been suspecting that this might go down for a couple of months, but it only became set in stone recently. It’s good to have it out in the open, and even better when nobody goes ballistic and throws things at us. You know, like e-rocks.

Since the questions are rolling in, I wanted to clarify a few things:

• Daniel is not leaving yet. He actually won’t be gone for about 5 months or so. In that time our goal is to finish the season, party like man-imals, and then make a sweet movie. We don’t know how long the movie will be, minutes-wise.
• The show is not over yet. We’re still going to do the second half of the season. For those of you wondering, it will be just a bit shorter than last season. 
• Without Daniel, we won’t be continuing Web Zeroes regularly. Since he’s kind of in it and also the director, there’s no way it could happen. We’d still like to do an episode or two before he goes, and there might be an occasional episode if he comes in town for a weekend, but that’s it.
• Nick and I will keep making stuff after TLW is over, but we’re not replacing one crazy big workload for another crazy big workload. Whatever we work on next (be it G.R.I.E.F. or one of our other ideas), it won’t be as regular or as big as The Leet World.

Anything not answered there is something we don’t know the answers to or can’t really address at this point. There’s a lot that we still don’t know, but I thought I’d do my best to answer the things we could. 

Episode 8 will be out at some point this week. I’m excited to start this half of the season. It’s seriously going to be wild.

Production on Season 2, Episode 8 is rolling along pretty smoothly. It’s always funny when we do a big monster episode like Tempest and then things settle down a bit, making the episode much easier to film. The episode itself is going to be a shorter one, but that doesn’t mean it’s not chock full of goodness.

Sometime in the next few days you should expect some outtakes from Episodes 5-7. They will contain a couple of rofls, I hope. While we have gotten better about recording our stuff without many goof-ups, it’s three episodes worth of content, so it should balance out.

Also, here are some screenshots from Episode 8 for you to chew on.

Enjoy!

Today is a very special day for Daniel, director, and voice of Ellis and Adam Sizzler in The Leet World. He turns 28 years of age. Yikes. I hope he doesn’t break a hip or something. Wish him a good one, he deserves it.

Production has started again on the show as of this weekend, and we are slicing that thing up like raptors in Jurassic Park. That is to say, the attack will come from the side, from the raptor you didn’t even know was there. The second half of this season is kind of awesome, so we’re looking forward to getting on with it. I’ll have some screenshots for you dudes later on in the week, I hope.

I randomly watched a lot of Season 1 yesterday, for the first time in several months. While watching some battle sequences, it came upon me to ask you dudes which gunfight/battle you’ve liked best so far in The Leet World. So, answer away. What’s your favorite?

Making a series like TLW takes a crap-ton of time. So whenever we get a reprieve from the insanity of this absurd Counter-Strike: Source machinima, we tend to live it up. I’ve been playing a stupid amount of video games, particularly Halo Wars, Resident Evil 5, and some Killzone 2 for good measure. We even started up a game of D&D with some friends, which I’ve never done before. Nick is a Dwarven Paladin named John Smotetrain, Daniel is an Avenger named Cortez Cardinal, and I’m a Wizard named Tom Shanks. We are questers of the most badass sort.

However, all that free time is gone as of this coming weekend, as we kick up production on Episode 8. We’ll hopefully have a camera there filming the process as we move through some of the episode, and hope to release our “making of” video at some point in the next month or so.

Speaking of, do you guys have any particular piece of the TLW production process that you’re most interested in hearing about? Besides whether or not Nick’s Beard (it must be capitalized out of honor) hinders our ability to puppeteer. Let us know!

Owned.

Sorry, I just had to say it. We’ve been waiting to drop some of the plot bombs seen in Episode 7 for quite awhile now. As a writer, I tend to geek out over those things. Nick and Daniel always tease me that I would end every episode “Lost” style with the resounding thud coupled with the TLW logo. It’s true. There would also be yetis with gatling guns. Damn Source engine and its limitations.

While today is April Fool’s, we don’t have any plans lined up. We thought about it a couple of times, but time working on these fake projects would detract from our break, which is going awesomely at the moment.

Interestingly enough, yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the Matrix. Kind of odd to think about. Doesn’t feel like 10 years at all. That’s one of those movies that I could watch over and over, without really caring. There’s a few of those on my list. Serenity, The Last Crusade, Fellowship of the Ring, Apollo 13, etc. What about you guys? What movie can you watch again and again?

So it looks like the next few weeks of my life will be absorbed by either Hammer or Faceposer. No, I can’t tell you why. But here’s a hint: it’s for TLW. In case you missed the update, Episodes 6 and 7 are going to mark the halfway point for Season 2. Stuff is about to go down. For real.

Anywho, we’ve got a new TLW based short coming out this weekend, and Episode 6 will be dropping sometime next week. Get excited. There are a lot of fun elements in every aspect of production for the next two episodes, ranging from sound design to color correcting and Hammer work. I’m just pumped about how the end products are going to turn out.

There’s a chance many of you have already seen Cortez’s cameo in Source Wars, made by Xanatos and crew, but if you haven’t, you should give it a watch. Xanatos did this with our permission, and he’s a bud of ours, so I was happy to lend my voice. It’s pretty goofy, but definitely good for some laughs.

Thanks for all the comments on Episode 5. Like I’ve said before, we’re really getting into the swing of things this season. It is getting rather served, as some friendly folks are wont to say.

The story is just starting to get to the good stuff. Two more episodes, and we’ll be sitting on the half way mark of the season. How I wish you dudes knew what was marching relentlessly towards you…

I’ve been playing the junk out of Civilization Revolution lately. For a console RTS, the controls aren’t bad, and it’s actually surprisingly fun. Also, for those of you that played Mass Effect, there is a sequel coming, and the teaser rules.

The last episode ended on a bit of an ominous note. The storm is coming, and we’ve even got a few screenshots to prove it.

Enjoy!