Lounge L33ts Episode 1: The Grind (Pilot)

Well, here we go! The very first episode of Lounge L33ts. There was a bit of trouble with recording for this episode. Like I said in the inroduction, this was an episode of firsts. If FRAPS shows numbers in a magenta/pinkish-puple hue, it may not be recording properly. When we finished, I opened the file to find that only the last three minutes had been recorded. Then Matt let me know FRAPS should be loaded (although not necessarily recording) before the game is loaded. In order to get the backup footage to me through the dropbox folder (restricted to 2GB in the free version), Matt converted the file to an flv file. Unfortunately, Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD doesn't read flv's and I had to use Total Video Converter to convert the file into a wmv, a file type I knew the editing software would recognize. After editing, it was rendered into one of the "Internet HD" file types offered and sent through Total Video Converter to become an flv file again. At 1.9 GB, it was too big to post on Bliptv. So I went back into Sony Vegas and rendered the edit into an "Internet SD" file, which was small not to have to be converted in TVC. It was a bit of work, and hopefully the next episode will go more smoothly. Anyway, in this episode Matt Winchell, Ran-san, and I meet up in Anarchy Online's The Grind where we discuss  how we all got caught up in MMO's, the news on Game Director Fia "Lindelu" Tjernberg's departure, and the prospects on the future of the game:

Lounge L33ts Introduction

     So why am I doing this? Well, I've been sitting on the sidelines for a while, enjoying other people's webseries and podcasts, always with an itch to try something of my own. I have always wanted to do a Let's Play series, however I don't feel that I could bring anything new to this over saturated field. At least not just yet. Video games are my latest interest, but I wanted to do something I felt hadn't been overdone. I don't know of any webseries that focus exclusively on recording  podcasts/vlogs from within taverns and bars in MMO's. I'm sure they exist. I know some shows will do a live streaming broadcast of at least one episode from within an MMO or other web based game. But when compared to the glut of Let's Plays, Playthroughs, and Walkthroughs out there, it still feels like a novel idea. At least to me, anyway.
     When I have a question about a game, "Mad" Matt Winchell and Randy "Ran-san" McCullick are usually the people I go to along with Robert "bob" Laib and "Drenivian." So I naturally turned to Matt and Ran-san as guests for the first episode which took place in Anarchy Online's The Grind bar, Atlantean server. For now, the series will probably just focus on me and my friends sitting around in various bars and taverns in our favorite MMO's. I have no idea how people will react, though. So far, I'm assuming people with either like it, or think it's boring and move on to something else.
     There are quite a few bugs to work through still. The pilot episode was the first time I uploaded a video to Bliptv (I've only ever uploaded one video to Youtube before this). It was the first time I tried to record video game footage with FRAPS (it failed and I wound up having to rely on Matt's backup footage). It was also the first time I'd used Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD (or other video editing software) to edit a video, and the first time I used Total Video Converter (rather than TsunamiEnc, which I used in 2006 to make my own DVD's). Bliptv also wanted me to come up with promotional materials, which I was kind of expecting. However, screencaps of the episode, while they worked well for filler on the Facebook page, would not do for the actual show's webpage. Fortunately I came up with the basic idea of the beer and martini glasses lit up in neon under the "Lounge L33ts" title. We'll see how this goes.
     Monday (10/1/2012) Tuesday (10/2/2012), I plan on doing the show again with Ran-san and Matt, and maybe a couple other people. We'll be in City of Heroes, Pocket D, Virtue server to discuss last month's shocking reveal of that game's shut down at the end of November. You can tune in to new episodes on Bliptv:
http://blip.tv/romeomoon

I also have a Facebook group set up here: http://www.facebook.com/LoungeL33ts

"The lounge is open 24 hours with no age limit."

Let's Play Borderlands Episode 9

Surprisingly, Sledge was a lot harder this time around. When we first fought him, he went down pretty quickly with my Soldier and Matt’s Hunter. It could just be that our load outs weren’t the greatest, or that we pretty much just charged in there thinking it’s be easy again. We may have been a higher level in first playthrough, too. I did notice a lot of henchmen around Sledge that didn’t seem to be there the first time. In other words, we wind up dying…a lot. I haven’t sat down to watch this episode yet, but I’ll post if I see anything which may have caused this.