Accursed Farms

May videochat with fans. Had some followup commentary on the Games as a service video, and several good questions afterward. More normal videos coming!

Since I've made the "Games as a Service" video, several US attorneys have weighed in on the legal portions of my video. There's not a total consensus and in some cases there was minor misunderstanding, but the conclusions all point in the same direction: GAAS is either not fraud or else extremely difficult to prove it's fraud. Furthermore, even if it was established as fraud, it would be on such a minor level under the law, that it may not even carry a penalty. Barring new information, I'm leaning towards declaring the USA a lost cause on this manner and focusing on countries with stronger consumer protection laws. Anyway, here's a list of the legal analyses, and some additional appearances I had in responding. I recommend not watching these unless you're bored or doing something else as most are quite long: "YouTuber Law" video analysis I think this is the best one (also the 2nd shortest). He grasped my arguments well and gave a realistic look at the situation. Leonard French long video analysis A longer look at the laws in the video, I also had some audio appearances in this one where I asked more questions. Leonard French short video analysis A quick look at the laws in the video, he made some conclusions that weren't quite applicable, which prompted the longer analysis Hoeg Law video analysis I thought his legal portion was relatively good, though there was a small misinterpretation on the legal portion and a major misinterpretation on my stance. Hoeg Law audio discussion / debate I appeared with Hoeg Law to go over his rebuttal and debate was was said in the previous video. Discussed the larger issue also and not just the law in this one. Nick Rekieta Law discussion A more casual discussion, he takes a differing view than most other attorneys, but still comes to a similar conclusion, that working within the confines of existing law is unlikely to work in USA. We talk about various other things too. Anyway, sorry to flood the site with all this legal analysis, I swear that's not the long-term direction things are taking, more regular videos coming! ADHD version: Ross was right on some things, wrong on some things, doesn't matter for USA; the situation there is basically hopeless on legal protection against destroying games.

Ask questions or topics to discuss here for the next videochat with fans on 5:00pm UTC on May 5th at twitch.tv/rossbroadcast. This one may be longer than usual since the "games as a service" video made a pretty big splash, so I'm guessing there may be more questions on that.

My ultimate video on "games as a service"! This video is more fact-heavy than the vast majority of ones I make, but it's on a topic that I think is the largest problem in gaming today. As you'll see in the video, this is my declaration of war on "games as a service." I've been meaning to make this video since at least last year, there's been a lot leading up to this. It's quite long and dryer than my usual stuff, you may want to watch it in chunks, or just skip straight to the ending. In the past, I've made "Dead Game News" videos as a way to shine a light on how bad the practice of destroying games is. That hasn't been enough to curtail the practice in any way whatsoever; on the contrary, the practice continues to accelerate. This video is essentially what "Dead Game News" was leading up to. I was hoping to raise enough awareness on the topic to take some sort of real action against it. Most of the video is a "deprogramming" of the industry narrative as to what "games as a service" is, similar to how you would try to treat a rescued cult member, hence the reason it's so long. The end goal of this video is to lead to some sort of legal action against the industry (details on that in the video). Now that I've learned enough about the topic to see that this could actually be possible, I think it's the only chance for saving many games in the future. I honestly have zero idea if this video will lead to real action being taken or if things will completely fizzle out. Either way, I felt compelled to make it, like it wasn't even in my control. This video is very much a "It's better to regret something you have done, than regret something you haven't done" situation. This did take time away from my other usual videos, my apologies about that, but it also served as an exorcism for me so that I don't have to keep obsessing on this topic in the future. It's in fate's hands now, I've done what I can, we'll just see what happens. Anyway, more fun videos are coming for the future, which is what I'd rather be making anyway!

Here's the latest videochat with fans. I talk some about the next video coming up, plus answered questions as usual. The topics of AI learning, Stadia, and Watch Dogs came up. More videos coming this month!

I've mostly recovered from being sick! Ask questions or topics to discuss here for the next videochat with fans on 5:00pm UTC on April 7th at twitch.tv/rossbroadcast. My sickness skewed production some, but I've got some big videos coming for April. This is just a detour, Freeman's Mind is still coming! Also, since the chats have been getting longer and longer, this time I'm trying something new and am only going to answer the top 20 voted questions. After that, I'll skip the others unless I think they're pretty good topics + ones from live chat to keep the length of these down a little bit.

Just a quick update, I've been sick with some sort of virus (probably flu) for the past week and a half. It's affected my voice and means all recording is currently suspended until I'm better. I have been working on supplemental material for the videos in the meantime, though going is slower since I'm still in an ongoing "blah" state. I'm also cancelling the playsession with fans this month on the 23rd. I'm anticipating I'll be good enough to do the videochat with fans in April, but I'll post an update if not. This will definitely delay the release of the next videos since I can't record yet, but may not impact the total time much for them all coming out since I'm still working on all of them. I have some neat stuff coming!

Here's the March videochat with fans with the usual rambling. I genuinely thought this was going to be a shorter session, but had too many questions to go through. I think in the future I'll have a cutoff point for how many I accept just to cut down some on the time. I also think I may have screwed up and started it too early, but it went on so long I'm not sure that changed much. Things happening with other videos in the meantime!

Here's the March videochat with fans with the usual rambling. I genuinely thought this was going to be a shorter session, but had too many questions to go through. I think in the future I'll have a cutoff point for how many I accept just to cut down some on the time. I also think I may have screwed up and started it too early, but it went on so long I'm not sure that changed much. Things happening with other videos in the meantime!

Ask questions or topics to discuss here for the next videochat with fans on 5:00pm UTC on March 2nd at twitch.tv/rossbroadcast. I'm currently having minor setbacks on FM that I'm getting modding help on, been working on other videos in the meantime.

Here's another blooper that happened in Freeman's Mind 2, completely unplanned. This one happened multiple times, but this is one I recorded from the demos. In addition to this, I also would get caught on something upon leaving the boat, being completely unable to move, but I could at least fight that one with noclip. Not this.

Here's another blooper that happened in Freeman's Mind 2, completely unplanned. This one happened multiple times, but this is one I recorded from the demos. In addition to this, I also would get caught on something upon leaving the boat, being completely unable to move, but I could at least fight that one with noclip. Not this. EDIT: Something weird is happening and the video isn't showing up here. Maybe it will resolve itself. Here's a link to it in the meantime.

Here's the next episode, late, but still faster than the last one! The boat created several issues for this one, but it ended up working well enough. One annoyance is when playing back a demo, the screen glitches out for a frame or two every single time Freeman enters or exits the boat, so that needs to be fixed in editing. There was also a more impressive bug I ran into which I'll post a blooper video of in a few days. This video was also my first attempt at outsourcing the volume balancing to someone else. I wasn't happy with the results, so I ended up doing it myself, which probably still isn't great, but is less not great than before. I plan to try again with volume balancing help for future videos until I hopefully find someone better at it than me. Next episode of FM2 is slowly underway!

For Saturday, I was going to attempt to play Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne with fans, since it recently got patched to support 24 people at a time. Unfortunately, if you own Warcraft 3, the process is rather convoluted. It used to be you installed the game, then installed the patch. Not anymore. I ran into so many problems trying to get the recent patch working, I almost thought I was going to have to cancel the event entirely. I found Blizzard's instructions to be utterly wrong and refer to links that simply didn't exist. I finally did figure out how to get it working, so if you own a copy of the game, the instructions are below. I can't promise they'll work for you, but this is what finally worked for me after MANY dead ends. This isn't an attempt to get people to buy the game, I just figured it was a popular game at the time and many people may still have a copy of it somewhere. Definitely don't go and buy the game just to play in this, it's possible it'll just be this one time I try a 24 person game of this, depends on how it goes. It should download automatically when we play, but if you want a head start, this is the map I was planning on us playing. INSTRUCTIONS FOR PEOPLE WHO OWN THE CD COPY: 1. Do NOT install Warcraft 3 from the CDs (It may not impact anything, but it certainly won't help). If you already have it installed this way, I advise uninstalling it and deleting the directory. 2. Download installer from here (it's for 1.30.2, but it will update). Best I can tell, Blizzard does not host the installer / patches anymore, a brilliant move. 3. Unzip the installer and run it with Windows XP compatibility mode on (right click on it, properties, compatibility tab). I couldn't get it to work properly without doing this. 4. Install the game. If it gives you trouble here, I may not have help for you aside from uninstalling it (if it lets you), deleting the directory it was installing to, and trying again. 5. After installing the game, don't launch it yet (you can if you want, but it will probably give you an error). Instead, go to your installed directory, make sure "Warcraft III.exe" is NOT in XP compatibility mode, then run it. 6. Enter in your CD keys for both Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos and Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne when prompted. 7. Launch the game, then click on Battle.net and create an account. Best I can tell, this is DIFFERENT from the Battle.net launcher used for Blizzard-Activition games like Overwatch, Hearthstone, etc., you'll need to create a new account entirely I think. So, yes, this is for battle.net, not battle.net. 8. After creating it, on the main menu, click on the magnifiying glass to change the gateway selection. Since fans will be playing globally, I'm thinking we'll try USA East as a compromise to have the lowest average ping for USA West and European players. 9. Join the stream at 5PM UTC on February 16th at twitch.tv/rossbroadcast so we can coordinate starting the game. You don't have to leave the stream running afterward if you don't want to. We'll wait a few minutes to let latecomers join in, but unfortunately people are locked out once the game starts. INSTRUCTIONS FOR PEOPLE WHO GOT A COPY WITH WARCRAFT 3 REFORGED: 1. Beats me, you're on your own. Steps 7 and onward are probably the same. Everyone else is welcome to watch at 5PM UTC on February 16th at twitch.tv/rossbroadcast. EDIT: Blizzard's gaslighting me. Apparently they've restored the option to download the official clients here: https://us.battle.net/account/download/ That option was removed a week or two earlier. Here's the wayback machine link to prove I'm not crazy: http://web.archive.org/web/20181223085451/https://us.battle.net/account/download/ This doesn't affect the instructions at all, just wanted to add that.

February videochat with fans. Usual ramblings, though I also talk about what Machinima did towards the beginning of the video. No videos being deleted here, more coming! Also, the audio quality was a little worse this time, oops.

February videochat with fans. Usual ramblings, though I also talk about what Machinima did towards the beginning of the video. No videos being deleted here, more coming! Also, the audio quality was a little worse this time, oops.

Ask questions or suggest topics in the link here on reddit to be talked on for the next videochat at 5:00pm UTC on February 3rd at twitch.tv/rossbroadcast. Freeman's Mind is running late, but not hella late. I've also been working on misc. things that should lead to neat videos in the future. I've also been having some minor issues with the Source engine on the next episode, if you can believe that.

Ask questions or suggest topics in the link here on Reddit to be talked on for the next videochat at 5:00pm UTC on February 3rd at twitch.tv/rossbroadcast. Freeman's Mind is running late, but not hella late. I've also been working on misc. things that should lead to neat videos in the future. I've also been having some minor issues with the Source engine on the next episode, if you can believe that.

Ask questions or suggest topics in the link here on Reddit to be talked on for the next videochat at 5:00pm UTC on February 3rd at twitch.tv/rossbroadcast. Freeman's Mind is running late, but not hella late. I've also been working on misc. things that should lead to neat videos in the future. I've also been having some minor issues with the Source engine on the next episode, if you can believe that.

Ask questions or suggest topics in the link here on Reddit to be talked on for the next videochat at 5:00pm UTC on February 3rd at twitch.tv/rossbroadcast. Freeman's Mind is running late, but not hella late. I've also been working on misc. things that should lead to neat videos in the future. I've also been having some minor issues with the Source engine on the next episode, if you can believe that.

UPDATE: There's a map pack from last time to download below. You should still be able to connect without it, but it will be much faster loading with it: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8edceso2tcpr4ct/AF_MapPack_17-9.7z?dl=0 Due to popular vote, Unreal Tournament 2004 will be the next game for the playsession with fans on Saturday, January 26th at 5PM UTC. Here's info on how to join: Main server: play.mulvenontech.com password: dog Overflow Server: play.mulvenontech.com:8877 password: dog You can join by pressing ~ key in-game and type: open play.mulvenontech.com We'll probably be doing onslaught. I was hoping for a bunch of custom winter maps, but I doubt I'll have time to hunt some down and have them tested. You can watch it live/hear me at twitch.tv/rossbroadcast. I've been told I should have a separate voice on Discord going also for players in-game, I may or may not have that set up for myself in time, if I do, I'll update info here.

This is just a small blooper that emerged in the last episode that made me throw out the whole take. Things like this can often happen, but it's usually not so dramatic. I decided to record this one and release it.

Here's the latest videochat with fans. I have some updates on the movie (it's still on, I've just had some technical roadblocks), but mostly just a bunch of rambling. I'll have more streaming this month along with (probably) more Freeman's Mind.

Ask questions or suggest topics in the link here on reddit to be talked on for the next videochat at 5:00pm UTC on January 12th at twitch.tv/rossbroadcast. I'll have an update on The Movie (short version is it's absolutely still happening, but I'm not as far along as I'd wanted to be by now), and I'll detail some misc. plans I have to try and get more done this year. Freeman and misc. videos I've been wanting to do are what's planned next. I have Game Dungeon stuff I'm looking forward to, but that's unlikely to happen this month since I've neglected FM for a long time due to the recording situation last year.

Freeman's Mind returns! I never intended to have this long a gap between episodes, but with my recording situation upended for a good chunk of past year, that was the sole reason for the delay. Things have stabilized though and this year I hope to make up for the relative lack of Freeman. This one was a longer episode where I would have normally split it into two different ones, but I figured with there being such a long absence, it would be better to push it farther. It kind of showed in production to be honest, since I think I had to deal with more individual bug fixes than any other episode (though not as serious as others I've encountered before). That's the magical Source engine.

Merry Christmas from the Game Dungeon! Maybe someday I'll actually have a Christmas episode out a few days in advance, but that's not happening this year. I think this one came out pretty well for what I had to work with. It certainly is a game. Freeman's Mind will be coming ASAP, but it will still be a few days due to me prioritizing this video to make it out in time. I hope to have streaming of something on my birthday on the 28th and a play session with fans (probably of Planetside 2) on Saturday 29th, but things are still a bit tight at the moment.

I always hate having these before I have a new video released, but here's the latest videochat with fans. More rambling as usual, nothing too important, except I'm hoping to have two more real videos out by Christmas. We'll see what actually happens, but more videos are coming soon! Also, I got sidetracked in the chat, but I meant to add the movie Heavy Metal 2000 has a great soundtrack.

Ask questions or suggest topics in the link here on reddit to be talked on for the next videochat at 4:30pm UTC on December 15th at twitch.tv/rossbroadcast. My apologies about the videos running late, but I have a lot of good stuff coming, starting this month. Freeman's Mind and a Christmas episode are still looking to come on time.

Here's the November videochat with fans. Has the usual rambling; one of the most voted questions for me was about the survival of mankind and capitalism. That one took me a while to answer, otherwise normal session. I also said Asmodeus when I meant Ozymandias. More Freeman's Mind coming!