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!

To download this episode, visit Revision3.

Somehow over the course of recording the dialogue for the Season Finale (we recorded parts 1 and 2 together, then part 3 a couple of weeks later), the mysterious burro became the brunt of many jokes. Were he real, I assure you his tears would fall like so much chubby rain. Or worse yet, sideways rain.

Anywho, as I said in the last update, there were well over 50 audio tracks to sort out, so the outtakes are about twice as long as usual. Hopefully you have as much fun listening to them as we did being goofballs. Right click and select “save as” to download it.

Warning: Definitely some NSFW tomfoolery on here.

  (Direct Link)

Enjoy. The first commentaries should be hitting the site next week.

It’s been a wild ride. Thanks for sticking with us through our first season. We’ve learned a ton over the last year, and we hope to put it to good use in future episodes of The Leet World and beyond.

Also, stick around between seasons. There’s more going on than I even listed in our Announcements. For instance, outtakes are coming next week and a ‘making-of” feature is on its way in the near future. And who knows, maybe a special video or two to bridge the story between seasons… You won’t regret staying around.

Read comments at your own risk- there are bound to be full of spoilers.

That should be tomorrow, by the way. I can’t promise a particular time, it could be morning, it could be later on. But it won’t be today, so lay off the F5 juice.

The final running time is somewhere around 18 minutes, and it’s an action packed mofo on top of all of that. We will spend most of the evening and into the morning hours toiling away, and then Nick leaves me to fly to California for a (much-needed) vacation.

Happy waiting. If you haven’t yet, check out our Announcements about what’s going to be coming after the season is over. Cool stuff.

EDIT: Good lord, dudes, chill. Yesterday I said it would be out at “some point” TODAY. It could be out tonight for all we know. Don’t expect it until much later in the day (it’s early morning right now). And if you don’t what time of day that is for you, google it.

Here’s the stuff in the works…

• The Leet World Season One Soundtrack. Sometime after the release of the Season Finale, we’ll finally be adding a section to our website for you to purchase a soundtrack inspired by music from our first season of The Leet World. Jace has been hard at work on this for a bit now, and is choosing a number of his favorite tunes from the course of the season to re-record and fill out as full songs, rather than the 20-30 second bits you hear in the show. We can’t talk details of pricing and such as of yet, but rest assured, it will be reasonable. And trust me, it’ll be worth every penny. Besides, if you just want one song, you can buy it individually.
• G.R.I.E.F. This is a short Halo mini-series that we plan on doing a few episodes of. I don’t want to say too much about what the actual concept is, but it’s essentially a parody of super-hero teams and should make for a good time. Lots of action, lots of comedy.
• Web Zeroes. Our pride and joy. A live action mockumentary starring Smooth Few Films, filmed in HD. That’s all I’ll say at the moment. We’re extremely excited about this.
• New sites! While we enjoy our website and value the way it’s been able to carry us through the season, it really is kind of busting at the seams, mainly because we didn’t anticipate the kind of use it would be seeing after just one year’s time. A re-design is already in the works for this site, as well as a brand new site that will act as the Smooth Few Films hub for all of our projects.

So there you have it. Some of these things are a bit off, and some of them are rather close, but I really wanted to put this out there before Season One was over, so you know that more stuff is coming from Smooth Few Films during the gap between seasons. There will also be some Leet World related shorts (think the Christmas special) that I can’t talk about too much without giving stuff away.

Part 3 of the Finale is coming in a few days. If you’re wondering why it’s taking longer than we thought, word on the street is that it’s nearing 18 minutes in length. Wow.

EDIT: By the way, tomorrow’s my birthday. Big 25.

Unfortunately, with Daniel gone, part 3 of the Finale is taking longer than it was originally going to, meaning that it’s going to get pushed to next week. With the three-day weekend because of Will Smith Day (some would call it Independence Day), we really want to take advantage of that extra time and make sure that this final video of the Season is the way that it should be. Anytime sooner and it just wouldn’t be up to par.

Believe me, if anyone is disappointed, it’s us, because we were gunning to get all three parts up when we said we would. However, all of that was said before we went down a man, and as Chet would say, shit’s changed. Sorry dudes. But know that the finale will be better for it.

For you fellow Americans, don’t get too crazy tomorrow and blow off any of your fingers.

Downloadable versions are on their way in the morning. If you missed Part One, you can view it here.

Enjoy!

By the way, be careful when reading comments- there are bound to be some spoilers in there.

Next week, we’ll be making some fun announcements. Be here.

Oh, and Part Two will be up tomorrow morning. And no, refreshing your browser all night won’t make it come any sooner, you crazy nutters.

After this, all that’s left is Part Three. Wild.

A couple of updates. First, the Season Finale: Part Two will be up later this week. Missing a team member is slowing down overall production, though Nick and I have achieved some kind of apotheosis of creativity, working at previously unseen levels of efficiency, whirlwinds of pure ass-kickery. Yes, there has been kicking and/or chopping as we work the episode kung-fu.

Much thanks to Mystfit for helping us with some model issues that will make completing the filming of Part Three much simpler. Also, while you’re in the mood for some good machinima, check out Young Street Productions, some new guys that have made what I find to be some pretty funny and clever stuff. Subscribe to both of those dudes. You won’t regret it.

Lastly, I present to you a poll. Voice your thoughts. Register and log-in to vote! By the way, I suppose I need to add that this doesn’t affect the show in any way – the ending is set in stone already. I’m just curious to see what people think is going down.