Follow the adventures of Mr. Guy Montag, a Fire Mage in the world of World of Warcraft. See him go from level 80 to 85, all the while mouthing off to everyone and everything that crosses his path.
Damn I wanted to write that title in ALLCAPS, I'm just that excited about finally finishing my blog series. Even though I only did 30% of all the content that I was aiming for, this Interactive Youtube Machiname Adventurehas turned out just great! It's got:
28 different movie scenes
17 choices to make
6 different endings
over 20 minutes of machinema film
plenty of nerd-humor
So get ready to view this movie! Note that after your first choice you will be redirected to Youtube for the rest of the show.
By the way: be sure to report any broken parts (hopefully there are none) in the comments folks!
Right, and with that my machinema blog has officially come to an end! It's time to move to a new and perhaps even more insane nerd-project :D. It has been fun! Last but not least: thanks to all my fans!!
This blog is haunting me. As in: I really want and need it to have a finale. After finally finishing that crappy Dragon Age sequel (razorfistx even warned me), I had some time off to finally start work on Burning Man 10: The Finale!
So here I am, with new teaser material. I've been working a whole afternoon on the story, with Cyrelle and Ygdrasil sitting behind me, trying to get a sneak preview. I've got two screenshots in store for my fans: one of the storyboard (but zoomed out: it's a teaser after all!) and one of the corresponding legend.
What does this mean? Well, for starters: I will have to get another month's worth of playing time. For added fun this coincides with Patch 4.2 "Firelands", giving me extra value for my money. However, even more important: I get to socialize with my guildies again! They are very quiet at our lovely new website, so they must be very active in-game.
Anyhow, hopefully within a month or so: the final episode!
This will be my sixth post without an actual comic or a machinema movie. Nonetheless, it brings good news! With the end of my subscription time nearing at warp speed, I finally felt enough pressure to start working on the finale. So I'm here to entertain my fans (you still out there? :D) with an official announcement of the final film.
At this early stage of course I can't reveal any details yet. But: you won't CTRL-F4 this blog empty-handed! Because I both proudly and ashamedly present: The Burning Man "Grand Finale" Concept Art:
That's all folks! And while you're at it browsing the web for World of Warcraft sites, don't forget the lovely new Vengeance Guild site too!
Yes, I'm still here. And if anyone could enlighten me: what happened since I stopped posting meaningful stuff on my blog? This pageviews plugin must(?) be broken:
Let me also take this post as an opportunity to admit that lotro may in fact slightly delay my final movie ;)
And there it was. Today, a week earlier than I remembered it would come, the game presented me with a tough situation: "Your game time has expired".
However, my current way of playing WoW is (relatively) with extreme moderation. This made me decide to add some game time after all. I enjoy the occasional heroic-achieves run, score some VP now and then, and hang around /G a bit of the time. Heck I may even try to hop in on a raid that's got an open spot some time soon again.
To anyone still listening in on this blog: I still intend to make a final machinema, and will let you know when I get around to it. For now: I'm off for some gaming. Dawn of War 2, that is...
Alas, yesterday I skipped making a comic. I feel ashamed, and also tempted to explain why. Well, actually I should say I want to rationalize why. I had one of those days where you think it's a different day. So all Wednesday I actually worked and lived under the impression it was Tuesday. Hence, I 'forgot' to post.
Also, seeing as I'm somewhat losing my interest in WoW, I'm thinking of replacing this blog-project with a new project. I have some ideas, but any input is highly welcome!
Rest assured I will (try to) go out with a bang, though I'm not sure whether that will be done this Sunday or perhaps a little later. When it's done I'll be sure to let all my lurker-fans know through the available channel!
Oh, and apart from rationalizing, I was caught in the Stumble-o-sphere all Wednesday. Thinking of making a petition to make StumbleUpon illegal, it's just plain evil technology!
Bored with WoW itself, I figured it'd be fun to introduce Guy Montag to some other games. Excited about the WoW model viewer program, I figured this would be easy. However, as it turns out, the program is a typical free-time open source project. Very commendable (in fact even: awesome) that people put their free time into the project, but the quality is not so great.
I had a great idea to work a model into an actual level of Super Mario Bros 1, but after five hours of work all I had was this animated GIF:
So I'm leaving you, my faithful few viewers, with this sad, small animated GIF. Be careful though, those lists of animated gifs can be awfully addictive.
Now to think of a nice and proper final 10th video for this blog (suggestions highly welcome)...
When I started my blog I intended to make my comics and movies mainly about Guy Montag being rude to other characters. For so far I have accomplished that goal it was mainly through making fun of druids. So why stop now?
Ygdrasil rightfully commented it should've been shot from the side or 'en profil' to make it look more like Manneken Pis from Brussels. Alas I asked her opinion too late (when I was near finished) so I hope readers still got the clue without having to read the rest of the post.
Of course a big thank you to the druid that was willing to pose for this week's comic. Not sure if (s)he wants to be in the credits with full character name, but nonetheless: lovely and timely help, muchos gracias!
In other yet non-druid related news: Guy Montag is now level 81! Ding!!
No epic storyline this week, but more a short machinema to show my mental state concerning WoW at this moment. It did allow me to play with the WoW Model Viewer. Took a little while to get used to the program (not to mention finding your way through the maze of available downloads), so the result is short:
The model viewer thing is pretty fun actually. Next week I think I'll try to figure out how to chain animation sequences in it.
Oh right, and perhaps I should actually play Guy some this week as well.
Edit: oh WoW, my link to the Throne of the Four Winds "Strategy Guide" on Wowhead has been deleted without notice. I should make more movies that get downrated, removed and generate hate-mail :D.
The afternoons are sunnier than they've been for long, hurray! I already tried to get "Spring's here" retweeted two weeks ago, but when is spring finally really here?
Not sure if it's the winter gloom, but I'm kicked off WoW a little at the moment. I do like the occasional guild heroic run or raid, but apart from that I'm not online much. Well except of course to create comics and machinema :D.
Last night I got Dead Space on Steam, to see if installment 2 will be worth it too in a bit. The commercial for Dead Space 2 was hilarious, either way. Great game so far, although the game did make me a little dizzy (literally) at times.
The (not so serious) "break 1" movie drew quite a few reactions as I posted it as a "Strategy video" on Wowhead. Seeing I'm pressed for time this weekend, I decided to quickly throw together a Blinkjump tutorial.
Can't help it, but I think this is the most awesome Mage ability :).
Anyone reckon that new MMORPG will ever be made? There's been plenty of talk about it... just none by Blizzard.
Shame I've kinda stopped playing Starcraft, really. Scared to go back now, surely in the Gold league I would get my ass kicked (if you think being a "clicker" in WoW's bad, try SC2).
Either way, WoW's quickly losing its attractiveness too. I still enjoy our Guild chat, the occasional raid or heroic, but I'm tempted to try a few other games too. See many folks play Magicka lately, but would you recommend it to someone who hates Diablo II?
Damn! I was busted by a faithful commenter last post. No use denying anymore then: I was late. But, better late than never! I guess seeing it's past midnight and I'll be posting this on Tuesday it deserves its own entry.
I'm very happy about the speed at which I'm learning this new stuff. Today I played around with Audacity too, just for the sake of it. However, I'm still not quite satisfied with the quality of my machinema scripts. But on that subject I'll take the great Oxhorn's advice: It can happen that you have a bad streak of machinma. Don't worry, it happens. The trick is to just keep making 'em. So here goes nothing:
Either way, I am very satisfied with my few but fanatic fans implicitly veto-ing the Archeology guide (/phew!) and wanting the others. I'm not sure yet how to meet Barnacles' request of "All of em, at the same time", but we'll see...
Stay tuned for more folks! I know I will :D
PS. Yeah, I know. The cursor is showing in my footage :(. Installed a new version of Fraps, and I didn't notice until it was too late. Oh well...
Muhahaha, I have the most devious plan! Worthy of someone playing Guy Montag . I'll just post this on Sunday, and when I replace this on Monday with my real post and movie it'll still look like I kept my promiss of a movie every week on Sunday!
(In the mean time, I can highly recommend this Japanese-style-gameshow machinema. Scary high quality, wouldn't even dare start comparing my own creations with such a masterpiece.)
Honestly, this happened more than once, even in our "serious" raiding guild. And even though I may giggle when it happens, Guy seems to be less enthusiastic about this wowbash material:
Originally I had a plan of actually using the good ole' HTML Image Map to link the abilities to Wowhead, but then I decided to invest over an hour trying to make as many subtle inside-jokes and references in the chat window as possible (find all 19 of em!).
Damn, there's a thousand things I want to try with Sony Vegas, and hundreds of ideas for movies. But there was no creative spark. Following the mantra "Creativity comes from Constraint" I decided to ask for your input this week.
So I hereby ask my (small, but loving/lovely) fan-base to put on the constraint: which of these three projects will be done next week? Put your favorite in the poll on the right-hand side. But be informed first:
It had been duly noted that the Cataclysm Profession was the last poll's winner, but I'm giving you a last chance this week to see the error of your ways and not choose it! The competition is fierce, and I ask you all to choose wisely! Either way: thanks for your cooperation.
Woa, first Wednesday missed there. But where was Guy when he should've been making comics?
How appropriate though: after my break-episode last Sunday we're having a break episode this Wednesday (well, Thursday now) too. Thanks to my boss, who was kind enough to supply me with a damn-near endless supply of one of the greatest beers available.
After having to work both 01:00-03:00 last night, and another hour this morning at 08:00 I wasn't quite in the mood to fulfill my grand new idea for an episode of The Burning Man. So I decided to bring you an all new "Break Episode", sharing some random or old footage.
This break episode features film from our guild-run to The Throne of Four Winds (what's in a name?). Can I say that I love the way our guild raids? Do note that we did also get a few decent tries in ;).
Without further ado, let's jump to the footage. Be sure to check out my new music-contest below the video.
So, about the music prize questions. Apparently my quizzes were too hard (boo-hoo!). First week you guys came close, guessing Sim City and all sorts of Tycoon games. However, the Vashj'ir commercial episode had for a sound track... Leisure Suit Larry (installment 6, "Fat City" track). The credit roll for last week's Uldum Grind featured the main title to Hitman 2, which by the way is an awesome game!
This week's Prize Question
This week we have a new prize question, divided in three. Hopefully I satisfied your requests for easier questions. First to leave a comment with the correct answer will receive his/her price ingame, same restrictions as earlier matches.
Easy Question: What game does the music in this break episode come from? (Prize: 1 fortune cookie)
Medium Question: What installment of the game does it come from? (Prize: mega-pack Starfire Espresso)
Hard Question: What particular 'level' does it come from? (Prize: wine and flowers)
If I follow the results from my own poll, I should send Guy Montag out to level using Archeology. Seriously folks: what are you thinking? Although... Guy may be crazy enough to try it.
Either way, this week Guy's getting some advice while roaming around the new zone portals:
I love the /silly emote in game, unless it's the long-ass human one being spammed over and over. Cataclysm also had some surprises for me when it came to emotes, as there seem to be a few new ones with voice-overs.
Next up for Sunday I hope to get to giving you (yes: YOU!) a chance to decide Guy's fate. Stay tuned!
PS. Still zero comments on my last post, no one venturing a guess at the song?
Anyhow, not every week can be great, I suppose. This week I took Borislava's advise: "real" friends are more important than WoW. Right he was. Even more so if you get to play WoW together.
I did learn some great things about transitions in Vegas though. Hopefully next week I can actually use them in a good script.
Oh and although I love my (limited number of) fans, I'm quite disappointed last week's bonus question wasn't answered. Not for lack of trying though, I must admit. Folks: it was Leisure Suit Larry (installment 6 "Fat City" track, to be precise). So, I decided for an easier bonus question this week: what game is the song during the Credits taken from?
For me, WoW-hours usually are the evening hours. I may start in the late afternoon, where I can combine some real-life cooking with a quest or two. With some intermezzo's, this can go on until late at night...
I imagine everyone has different playing hours, and different pets to interrupt them. So: what hours do you play? And what interruptions do you suffer?
After exploring Hyjal last week, we'll take a look at the other starting zone today: Vashj'ir. Surely after this Guy Montag will be able to decide which starting zone to pick for leveling?
Also: a 100 gold prize will be awarded to the first commenter to guess what 'classic' the music was taken from. (Participation restricted to Alliance chars on Darkmoon Faire EU. Leave your character name in the comment or PM me.)
Yet again today I managed to upload the movie Sunday, as intended! Nonetheless, I yet again wasn't finished until after midnight. Oh well, everything for getting to level 85, right?
Until then, at least I don't have to worry about what spec to choose, and let others figure that out for me.
