2018. Over two thousand years since we were eternally forgiven for our sins (or something), and yet here we are, seeing Youtube hammered by yet more scandals and accusations of hypocrisy. Couldn't leave that behind in 2017, so of course the YT recovery will now be on hiatus again while the media industry as a whole decides how to deal with all these producer-less creators who occasionally go beyond being edgy and start a full-on edge-conquest to become edge-overlord of the great internet nation of Edge. Also: 2018 IS THE-YEAR-OF-THE-HYPHEN!
Well anyway, enough about that. Here's some good news from old Offy-D: in December 2017 I actually made some money! Double figures profits! OMG! Yes, the great business venture of the Offy-D corp has fleetingly broken even. Such feats will now be dashed in the "FU it's January" of youtube revenue, but perhaps, if youtube can avoid collapsing in on itself for a bit, 2018 will be the first break-even year. I recently read an article saying that I need to be saving over £500 a month if I want to retire at 68. Well... joke's on you... 'cause... I already retired... probably... Hopefully either eternal life will have been invented by then, or conversely voluntary euthanasia will be legal. Either's fine really.
So, in other news just yesterday I finished making Fields of Mars! Hurrah! That took a while didn't it? When I started barbarian masters I was thinking "I'll make this a shorter series" but it's already looking like it might end up being pretty damn long - just reaching realm divide around ep 25, and only half way to the victory conditions. Best case scenario: realm divide makes me lose and that's the ending. Thought I'd lose much earlier and THAT could be the ending, but alas. ALAS I SAY.
Fields of Mars was a bit of a conundrum throughout, as I think I mentioned in an earlier blog somewhere, in that people seemed to like it for reasons I couldn't determine. It's a bit like that with all my total war videos. I remember liking the series up to about episode 10, and then at some point it became a source of confusion; why so many views, so many likes, so many nice comments? I was putting far less care or attention into it than Nariko's Treasure or even This is Content, but it always seemed to please. I've created this thing that I would never want to watch myself, but at least someone else likes it. It may just be a case of not being able to see it from a detached perspective - I'll give it a watch in another year and see what I think.
Now then I have to come up with the new series, which is proving quite difficult. There is little-to-no unity in what people are asking for in comments, and I have little-to-no desire to do anything in particular. There is a sense of fatigue, in that I have just come to the end of a year-long project and then less than 24 hours later I'm being asked to commit to another potentially year-long project. Can't I just close my eyes for a little bit...
So this coming week I'll be trying to drum up some enthusiasm within myself for some ideas, then making a video to get an audience vote on their preferences regarding whatever I end up with. Last time I did a vote was just before Sinews of War in Empire Total War, another series that I felt was too long and yet was about 2/3rds of the length of Fields of Mars. I think 30 parts is a good target, like good old Nariko's Treasure!
I think I'll be trying to come up with some gimmick to make things interesting, like I did with Second Messiah; in that case I had no desire at all to play the game, so I made it a pointless challenge run to spice it up, and that did make it more engaging all around I think. That, I should add, was another series mandated by audience vote. I do think that all my best series' were ones where I discounted the audience altogether and just made what I want, but then since I have now actually made everything I want I'm going to be lost without some kind of pointers.
If were entirely up to me, and no one was watching, what would I make? Well, the answer is: Nariko's Treasure. But darn, someone already went and did that. If it didn't have to be an NLP I would make a playthrough of Final Fantasy VIII where I did all the voices to practice voice acting. Could just do that anyway and keep it secret. Hmmm.... But if forced to make an NLP in a familiar sense, it would probably be... err... YOU SEE I SAID THERE WASN'T ANYTHING I WANTED TO DO I WASN'T JOKING DAMMIT. Probably something sci-fi like Elite Dangerous (in some way) would be my reaching-deep answer. Always had this idea about a guy who runs a radio show from a spaceship, and gets into antics on his journeys. I COULD BE THAT GUY. Would be a great excuse to make fake radio show scripts like in the good old old old days.
OKAY TIME FOR ANOTHER PARAGRAPH
So, how about that new Star Wars film eh? Sure has got people up in arms. Although to be honest, a lot of the up in arms people are (apparently) complaining about its effect on the long-term lore and 'not feeling like Star Wars'. Didn't really feel that myself, seemed fine in terms of a Star Wars film in principle. It was rebelsistance vs First Ordpire, and although it didn't have a death-star, it did have references to the death star, among all the other star wars references.
That possibly ignorable line of criticism has created a backlash with people saying that it's "bold", or "unexpected" or most famously "it subverted expectations". I guess I didn't have expectations because it didn't seem like that to me. If the entire thing had been about Rose, that would subvert Star Wars, right? If it had been entirely from the First Order's perspective, sure. I feel like the claims of it being such a break-out thing are just a generic retort to equally shaky claims that it's too different to previous films.
The truth, as ordained by me, is that it was a cool film dragged down by messy, careless writing. It's the complaints about plot holes and missed opportunities that ring true for me. You probably know them already. HERE'S HOW TO FIX ALL OF THEM:
- The rebels presume that they are being tracked because one of them is a spy, and they think it's Finn since he is a defector.
- Only Poe sides with Finn and insists that it's not the case, and THIS is the reason why he is not trusted with the rebel escape plan, which I think is probably the biggest and most often-mentioned plot hole (as opposed to 'it was just a prank' or whatever the actual reason is).
- The controversial casino planet thing can now be safely removed since Finn's arc can be entirely about him and Poe being hostages on their own ship and scheming to prove they are right and win everyone else over.
- Leia is shown to have usable force powers and be known to the characters to be a jedi, so that her super-powers seem less random. She is the counter-balance to Snoke (since Luke is 'disconnected' or what-have-you) like Rey is the balance to Kylo in force-balance logic.
- Rose isn't needed as more than a background character in this setup, but I guess she could be involved in the Finn-Poe antics just because she happens to also hang out in the deserted bits of the ship where those two are hiding from the rebel officers. Then, for the purposes of shipping, we can create the ultimate confusing 4D love triangle: Poe>Finn&Rose, Rose>Finn, Finn>Ray, Ray>Kylo, Kylo>Rose. No idea how to make that last one happen, but it would justify her in the plot a lot more if it could somehow be done. Oh wait... Kylo>Leia! Now we're goddamn talking!
- Admiral Akbar doesn't die.
- Snoke and the First Order get a backstory.
- Someone, somewhere, explains what actually happened to the 'New Republic' that is meant to rule the galaxy but apparently doesn't give a damn about all this war going on in it.
RIGHT I THINK WE SORTED THAT OUT DIDN'T WE!
Oh and perhaps throw in some of that good old Newtonian physics for good measure. SHIPS DON'T NEED FUEL TO FLY IN SPACE ONCE THEY ARE ALREADY MOVING BOMBS DON'T DROP IN SPACE JUST THROW THEM OUT THE WINDOW FROM 500000Km AWAY AND THEY WILL MAKE IT AND ALSO DON'T OPEN DOORS TO AREAS THAT ARE EXPOSED TO VACCUM THAT'S A BIT DODGY ISN'T IT AND ALSO WHY DON'T TRACTOR BEAMS EXIST ANYMORE LIKE IN A NEW HOPE AND ALSO HOW COME IN THAT BIT WHEN THE GUY LICKS THE GROUND AND GOES "IT'S SALT" WHY DIDN'T HE THEN LOOK AT THE CAMERA AND RAISE HIS EYEBROWS WHILE IT FLASHED A MONTAGE OF FAN THEORIES ABOUT WHY REY IS A JEDI AND WHO HER MYSTERIOUS PARENTS WERE BEFORE IT WAS REVEALED ONCE AGAIN IN UNMISTAKABLE TERMS THAT THE ANSWERS WERE "NO REASON" AND "NAMELESS ALCOHOLICS"?
Wait, what if the whole film lead to the twist that Leia was the spy, and she was deliberately trying to destroy this last bit of the resistance as part of Luke's plan to destroy the Jedi entirely, since it's the only way to create a new force-wielding group that doesn't have all the various weaknesses of the Jedi (e.g. no kissing). That would be so much spicier! Yes! YES! LET ME WRITE IT! Leia could be the first of the 'non-jedi' force-users, which explains why she can fly like superman and is immune to depressurization and such, because she masters ALL aspects of the force, not just the tricks the Jedi were allowed to teach, becoming a balanced avatar for the force that can't fall to the dark side and just generally is able to solve the whole Star Wars plot at some point and then Ray and Kylo also struggle to come to terms with each other's sides of the force to gain this balance themselves and finally when they do the prophecy is fulfilled and technically it was Luke who brought balance to the force by destroying the Sith AND the Jedi (or technically anakin as in the original prophecy for showing Luke all that evil shit and teaching him lessons about balance or something) and then Rey and Kylo kiss and Finn's like "no, this can't be" but both Rey and Kylo simultaneously say "wait, we're so balanced and shit that we've embraced polyamorous romance and so you can join in too" and Finn's like "well that's better than nothing" and then just before the credits role you hear Poe saying "room for one more?" off camera with the sound of clothes falling to the ground. Rose died at some point I guess - or so you think, until the post credits scene where she, the purple hair officer and Admiral Akbar-
RIGHT I THINK WE SORTED THAT OUT DIDN'T WE!
In summary, it's now 2018 and the channel will be continuing in almost precisely the same way it did in 2017. More NLP. More content. More complaining on this blog. More stolen memes.
