I did say that I would not hold any deadlines to when I post these things, but I still feel as I should have told you about the documentary I made sometime near the end of last year. Its about the stolen generation in Australia, and we split up into groups; I was the designated editor. Expand your knowledge here.

Also, more related to Farblade because no update has been made to that recently, progress has been trodding along. We recently planned to submit a part of it for a competition called ICT explorers, which gives fabulous prizes if we win. Because that actually has a deadline, every second Friday we get together and go to a place were we borrow out some computers, and its really pushing us forward.

We all made twitter feeds about our development. Feel free to follow me and my teammates here. This is mostly about encouraging us all by getting status reports; it’ll also help for a variety of other reasons.

Finally, we accept a new artist into the team. I’m not sure if he likes his name revealed, but he has a twitter feed.

Finally. I managed to fix the frames where Avid was throwing a hissy fit at exporting, so now MY music video is on YouTube after about a month sitting in a folder on one of the Avids. I hopefully will be able to get things running faster next time, it’s just Mr Mccarthy was pretty much away that whole time and the sub had no real idea how to edit. The wait ends here.

Also, I am going to announce that the Let’s Play Tribunal Neverwinter Nights 2 has been cancelled. It’s a pretty big pain, and it’s really large. Also, it would be more suited for an entirely different channel. We’re thinking about doing another let’s play, but I’m not sure.

I also might be doing a minecraft machinima soon; it’s a lot easier to set up and film, but it’s been done A LOT before, so I sort of want an original idea before I go right in. For now, I’m concentrating on getting the materials for the other two media projects.

Because I haven’t updated in a while, but also because I was mostly conflicted with what to actually post for a while, this is a bit of an update as to how Farblade is going.

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Last Friday we had a core developer meeting to try to organize what we wanted from Farblade in a little more concrete detail. We got through some good topics, and afterwards I added it all to the design document. Programming will probably start earlier than expected, but we are worried at the amount of artwork that will need to be done. Thus, we are considering adding a few more people to the team, primarily someone to work solely on textures. We have a few ideas, but we’re just talking about it until programming actually starts.

As for the slight sidetrack, I have begun to record a Let’s Play series of Neverwinter Nights 2 with Josh. This will probably go on for a while, so this will be the only time I mention it. Admire the mustache here.

Bad news; my music video is being stupid and not exporting from the Avid machines, so sadly that won’t come until AFTER the holidays and I get Mr Mccarthy to give the machine a stern talking to, or at least give me his copy.

Instead, I have a promotional video for my Terraria server that I made to share with you all. It was little more than a doodle, but I enjoyed both filming it and editing it. Good memories found here.

David has had the video I acted in, Angry man, uploaded for a while, but I’ve been waiting for a moment where I can release all music videos at once. Also, I am certainly not answering any questions whether I am actually pissing or not. The anger-filled legendary tale starts here.

Rory has fairly recently put up the video that I acted in, which is slightly more serious, involving a doctor who tries to save his dying wife himself. The song itself is supposed to involve Frankenstein, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this is similar, except instead of raising her from the dead nothing happens. Or I assume so. Was too busy worrying about why my wife is throwing up piss. Get your modern steampunk on here.

So I have a lot less to post about then I thought I would. I didn’t end up programming with Rory, but I will be next weekend. I finished my music video today, and I should be getting that in hopefully a week; same goes with the ones I acted in.

I am particularly proud of Angry Man, something I acted in, which was extremely circumstantial in it’s happening, and Mr. Mccarthy said, “I have to show you all David’s Angry Man video, it’s out of control…”. I haven’t seen the finished product myself, and I must say I’m interested.

I may as well post an update for Farblade:

+ It’s pretty clear that we’re using OGRE, although UDK is a small possibility.

+ All the setup is done and now both programmers are capable of creating an OGRE program. Rory is working on getting familiar with the engine while I deal with some writing and the some responsabilities as a team leader.

+ The Design Document is also under construction.

Terraria has spurred quite a bit of controversy over the short time it has been out. Some of you have probably seen this kind of review before about Terraria, so I’ll try to keep it a little short. The premise for all the conflict comes from the hardcore fans of Minecraft. Terraria is, quite honestly, a spinoff of Minecraft (although that doesn’t mean it plays the same, read below), and the fans have been abusing their keyboards about it ever since the game came out.

Terraria is a 2D game centered on exploring and creating things, in that order. A lot of the latter parts are very similar to Minecraft; of course, as to be expected as that game has pretty much defined the genre at this point. You start by cutting down trees (and goddamn swarms of slimes), which you use to craft tools and weapons, and build a house, get a family – and by that I mean NPCs like a merchant who sells you stuff that I have never needed after I got my first full set of armour. What primarily defines Terraria is its exploration and combat elements, particularly in the multiplayer aspect.

In short, Terraria had a huge edge on Minecraft when it comes to content. With one less dimension, things are much easier to just whip out on the fly. Terraria is, as a result, more detailed overall; FAR wider range of equipment to make/find, more biomes, and the maps are larger (vertically). It feels quite a bit like a RPG in this respect, especially with multiplayer. I got a server running (with quite little trouble, besides the infamous port forwarding catastrophe that I can now finally feast on its dead corpse for as long as possible) and had immense fun running about in caves with my friends as we shared loot that we find. You explore to find items only found exploring, building your character, which gives a broad feeling of progression and accomplishment. Also, let me say that the multiplayer works much, much smoother in Terraria, and PvP is an absolute blast.

If I could stop comparing Terraria to Minecraft for a moment, I have criticisms for it as a game. The amount of content is satisfactory, but I think that it’d be nice to have a bit further to go. I got max health and mana about three quarters through my career with a character, which although I think are at levels which would become ridiculous if they got higher, I just did it too quickly. There are bosses, which are fun, but there are only 3, and although at the moment I cannot solo them, it seems all my other friends can, and with others they become quite a breeze. Same goes with other events; the first blood moon I had was absolutely fantastic, mostly because it was with multiple people running around (throwing grenades, which now that I think about it was half the trouble with that encounter), but that was quite early game and I graduated that incredibly fast, and it’d be good to have other events that could challenge high levels.

You’re all probably waiting for my verdict: Which one is better? Well, I can’t answer. I’d say they both have their advantages, but to me I think Minecraft would last longer due to its wider range of possibilities. Of course, assuming the makers of Terraria can make content quickly, I imagine they could keep it fresh. But Terraria is much more fun as an action RPG than Minecraft, which isn’t a fair judgement to make since Minecraft is barely an action RPG at all. If I had to judge them on a common property, I’d say Minecraft has better creative prospects, although right now I am making a Castlevania like castle which I can’t really picture in Minecraft. This isn’t comparing two similar games, like Serious Sam and Duke Nukem. Which, by the way, has blown my mind that it is out. But that’s for another time.

They’re barely comparable to each other. Anyways, probably Monday I’ll have a bunch of new content to add. I’m going to be programming with Rory, so we should by then decide at least what engine we’re using for the project we have codenamed ‘Farblade’ for now. I should also be able to link to a pair of music videos I acted in, and sometime next week I’ll be able to post the music video I wrote, directed, and edited, realised was crap, re-wrote, re-directed and re-edited.

Interested in joining my Terraria or Minecraft server? Contact me in real life and I’ll let you in, although Minecraft is ruled by a council who all must approve of the joining.

Whether you’re here because you found me and think I’m a pretty cool guy, you’re one of my friends or I sent you here, this is just a blog that’s going to cover my proffesional recordings and anything relating to that; for now that limits it to gaming and film. To answer a quick question for those who are interested, I probably won’t be using my old blog any more, this is the spot now.

Also, do not expect me to feel obligated to update this regularly. I will certainly post any developments in the game I’m programming, and probably links to Media productions, but otherwise don’t expect me to do anything. If everyone asks me very nicely I’ll end up doing a review, but I don’t play the wide range of games I used to back in ye olde days of my previous blog.

So this isn’t really a post, I might actually copy it into the description sometime. However, I have some posts in mind coming up, which I’ll do if I get the time; these days are pretty busy for me though.

This is an example of Drof, or as some know him, Wraith. Whatever you care the fluff for, I’m setting this as my picture for a bit until a get a proper, not complete crap photo of myself.