Concerned-ish

My name is Aaron Fowkes and I’m producer and director of Fortressbusters. It is my understanding that there was a promised pilot for the show that was to be released several months ago. This didn’t happen and I can only apologise. The original idea of Fortressbusters was to incorporate live action segments with in-game footage and I should clarify more on how this will work.

Fortressbusters will be exhibiting a similar format to the show by Australian producers”Beyond” known as “Mythbusters” incorporating segments filmed to camera explaining the myths and, eventually, talking about the results. Other sections in the Fortressbusters show that is proposed is having a similar format by plowing through Steam forums and common server folklore in order to find acceptable myths for use in the show. During this, the myth will be explained, we’ll have a brief outline shown in the Source Engine game “Garry’s Mod” and will mix in-game footage with live action footage by way of behind-the-scenes work and bluescreen. There are various technical issues related to this that I would like to explain.

The show was never going to be easy to make. This was originally going to just be an internal community show that was made for fun for the Control Point community at deadworkers.com/tf2 and we would at least get a link. During this time, we haven’t had adequate equipment in order to facilitate the technical ideas we want to put on film. This is only made harder by the complicated nature of having a cross-Atlantic project with a host/director/producer in Birmingham, a title maker on the Isle of Wright, a narrator in Oregon, U.S. etc. We have hardware breakages, hardware that isn’t sufficient to our needs, game updates that break demos (which has now been somewhat alleviated by a recent update from the creators of the game, thankfully) and many other problems. We also have to contend with hosts that are never in the same room together. However, we have managed ways to get around this problem and are willing to work with the problems in order to deliver an entertainment product that is sufficient to the wants of the public. We don’t want to produce a piece of entertainment that is substandard for the reason that we rushed it. However we can say that we are confident that, as soon as we get the right equipment, work can start on the project in full time.

In terms of technical information, we are looking to produce 15 to 20 minute episodes to be released weekly in series. Each series will have approximately 20 episodes before the show takes a small break for the production of further series. We are more than willing to consider other related games if the need arises (such as “Counter-Strike” or “Half Life”) but we will attempt to stay faithful to “Team Fortress 2″ as much as we can. The show will be released first on blip.tv on the Fortressbusters channel (most likely release will be on Fridays or Saturdays) and will be then released on Dominant Miscourse; the video site for Concerned-ish, linked on Twitter and also mentioned on the Dead Workers Party forums. We would like to take this moment to say that we aren’t affiliated with the Dead Workers Party in any way, but they are old friends of ours and we think that this would interest their community of Team Fortress 2 players (especially as the community members often assist in Fortressbusters-related works such as assisting). We will regularly need test subjects to help test bigger myths and this will be promoted on Twitter (@fortressbusters) and on the Dead Workers Party forums at deadworkers.com/community. As for the problems delaying us right now, we are waiting on problems with equipment. We are looking to releasing episodes soon. Keep looking at the Twitter feed for more information.

As a followup to Ben, let me just talk about what is going on.

Dominant Miscourse

Yes. It’s broken due to a conflict with other software. This means I have to repost everything again which has left me annoyed. We also are in the process of making new videos. Unfortunately this takes time. I’m looking into publishing three over the next week from myself and maybe one or two from additional content creators. We need more content creators for Dominant Miscourse. If you have an idea for a show, make a video and leave a link in the comments. We are also looking for people who can make themes for WordPress for a massive redesign of all areas of the site. Any contributors welcome.

Podcasts

We are taking EB in our stride and continuing. This is a free service but it would be great if you could throw in a dollar or two for new equipment. You don’t have to or anything, but it would really help. At the moment, we are using baked bean tins attached with string to record and we really need to by some tin openers because bean juice keeps coming out of the hole at the bottom. There is a donate link on the podcast website.

And that’s all I have to say. New content coming soon.

So here I am, scrawling away on my iPod with my head filled with nothing but Miss R and the sounds of The Beatles completely and utterly scared of what tomorrow will bring. OK. Some are scared of the economy, some of the year 2012 and some of their second home allowances going south of the border down Mexico way. Whilst my complaints are somewhat less important than an oil spill in the Gulf, these are legitimate fears. These are further shown by the fact that this is being typed on an iPod with the world’s smallest Bluetooth keyboard at 2am in the dark. The first worry is simple, and you are involved. I signed up to work on Obscure Studios on short notice and I quickly became one of the core parts of keeping the site going. I’m officially listed as the community manager but I do too many things to count. I”m head admin, director of video content and the VP of jelly baby dispersal to name a few. I am pretty involved in the company and a lot of what happens is on my ass at the end of the day.

This leads to the first concern of mine; is the site the best it can possibly be? I don’t mean from a graphics and design point of view or anything. I mean things such as “is this entertaining?” and “is this funny?”. I get stressed about the site so often that over two years, I have probably lost 5 off my life expectancy. We’ve been fucked around by so many third parties that it is ridiculous to even continue talking about them here. They don’t deserve the space here in this rant of mine. I normally like name-dropping on here and I’m not afraid to rant at an organisation, but the people I talk about now are barbaric pieces of shit that don’t deserve my time. Back on track, the problem is waking up one day and realising that you have wasted two years of your life on something that has flopped. This was the biggest problem with previous podcasts that we did as a group. I hated pretty much every episode. I despise the sound of my own voice, some of the jokes are really forced and the subject matter was as about as interesting as wallpaper paste at times. We were new, but we were so goddamn awful that it was a horrible experience for me. Unsurprisingly, no one listened to the podcast and we didn’t give a shit either. It made me feel so enraged and upset that it was a horrible experience for me to feel. We can regulate as much as we want with what is covered and what shows are allowed on the site, but in the end, I am still regulating stuff that I don’t like. I hate myself for it and shut myself away from the outside world and then you just start to question “is this all worth it?”. I’m not paid or anything, so what is the incentive? The fact is that the whole system now relies on me knowing the passwords to the system. So many things have failed on this site that I can’t name them all. The only reason I’m still here is that I know the passwords to everything. Resignation is always an option, but it still isn’t enough to push me away from here. I need pull factors as well as push. So I go to bed at night thinking “what have I accomplished?”. I then reply “nothing”.

This is a real worry I have constantly in my head about things in my life. Am I doing all I can here? Is something like this going to pay off? As director of video content, for example, I control shows that make it on here. But there are some shows in which we have no idea if they will work or not. Everyone wants success, but not everyone deserves it. Do we deserve success? Is this going to be successful? There is only one way to find out… I have many other niggles and things that make my throat close up in pure fear, but I may get onto those another time when I have more actual need to. Plus, it’s late. And I have a big day of sport ahead of me.

This is Aaron, the community manager, again to tell you about Concerned-ish’s footprint on the web.

First of all, we have Twitter. Whenever a new blog post is put up on here, within the hour it will be Tweeted and linked. Also, if we run maintenance on the site or we want to get you people involved with something, we will post about it on Twitter. Follow the Twitter feed over at @concernedish.

Next we have the forums. Yes. The forums are going to be more centred around the articles than general gaming discussion that we have tried to have in the past. This means that discussion is centred and people actually visit the forums without feeling overwhelmed. Also, by visiting often and doing certain things, you can earn achievements and forum gamer score which can be exchanged at a later date for certain benefits (such as money off items if we ever open a store). Go and sign up at the forums.

Dominant Miscourse is our video site and we are going to be running pilots for new shows soon. We are also looking into content providers posting their series to the site. Digimon Abridged is confirmed as running there plus a new show called “This Is Not A Music Show”. These will be posted to the site in bulk and (like I said) we are looking for content providers who want to get involved. The site is open to new content providers and your video series (whether it be “Lets Play”, reviews, sketches etc) will be up on the site for all to see. Dominant Miscourse; opening soon. And follow on Twitter for when videos are posted over at @dommiscourse.

Both Concerned-ish and Dominant Miscourse have Facebook pages too. We are trying to interact more with social media, so you can Like and Digg and Tweet about EVERY video on Dominant Miscourse, so go over to Facebook and become fans!

Thanks everyone, and expect a new review from me soon!

Aaron Fowkes is a freelance writer that writes for Disgruntled, ThatGuyWithTheGlasses, Concerned-ish, This is Not A Music Show, Fortressbusters and Digimon: Abridged. He also does some voice acting and general acting, but that isn’t really relevant here. His Twitter account is@aaronfowkes