Around the Verse: Episode 1.01 (2014.06.11)

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:10

   Hi everybody. Welcome to Around the Verse. This is our very first show, which we're very excited about. I'm Sandi Gardiner, the VP of Marketing and I'm Ben Lesnick, I'm Community Manager and Designer in Star Citizen. And uh we're basically here to take you even closer to the nerve center of the game. Uh We're operating out of uh CIG Santa Monica here with Chris Roberts and the team. Um a lot of people are kind of confused about Santa Monica. They think, "Oh, it's the it's the marketing office. Oh, it's it's the, you know, glossy business office." Hey, this is Ben Lesnick from Star Citizen Marketing. I'm calling about the Freelancer campaign. We need to get this thing out to everybody. I want it on the side of buses. I want it on movie posters. I want it etched on the moon. Oh, you can't do that? Well, you're worthless. Ciao, baby. I got your drink, sir.

2. 00:00:59

   Dammit, James. It's not a cosmopolitan if it doesn't have a colorful plastic sword. Get the hell out of here. Sorry, sir. Ugh, he had one job. But seriously, folks, uh when we said we were moving the show to Los Angeles, we heard that it was going to be this Hollywood affair, shallow, not involved with the game. And uh what we want to show you is that that's as far from the truth as possible. Uh here in Santa Monica, we have a hardworking team of artists, designers, programmers. They're the They're the guys who built the Star Citizen dog fighting module, and they're going to be building the next parts of the verse. So, let me take a page from Wingman and uh give you a little tour. Introduce you. Please, come with me. Well, welcome to Cloud Imperium Santa Monica. Let me show you around, show you

3. 00:01:46

   some of the members of the team. And our very first team member is May. Say hi, May. Hi. She keeps everything running here. This is our a room where we talk with the other offices in Manchester and uh Austin and as well as all of our office partners around the world. Let me take you upstairs. That's where the real work happens. This is our writers room. We have Harry Jarvis who you know from Austin. Hello. It's our newest writer William. Hey what's going on? And of course the legendary Dave Haddock. What you guys working on? Writing. Yeah. There you go. You heard it here first is an Around the Verse exclusive. Over here we have a selection of our fantastic programmers. This is the office of the man himself, Mr. Chris Roberts.

4. 00:02:34

   But in fact this is not Chris Roberts. This is Dennis Daniels, our long-suffering IT guy. Over here we have our uh production pit. This is where Travis Day and Alex Mayberry are when they're not at E3. And here we have the Zenemax art room with uh our famous hair model Hey. Dave Haddock. Head back here, we go to the community area. That's where I live and where we're going to be showing the show. We've got William and James and that's my desk over there. We'll all be sitting with Sandi and taking you Around the Verse. Over here is our customer service area. Chelsea is out sick today but she sits there with all the candy. Guys, Chelsea loves candy. This is Alexis. Does merchandise and customer service.

5. 00:03:23

   And in that room over there would sit Sandi Gardiner. She is uh off at a business meeting at the moment. So that is Cloud Imperium Santa Monica. We are stuffed with people right now. It reminds me of Austin in the early days but we're excited to uh show you guys what we can do. So let's take it away. Around the Verse. We got one more. That one went much better. Um and we would like to thank Eric Wingman Peterson. Thank you. He did an amazing job for 72 episodes of shows. He's uh gone back to producing game now uh where he's absolutely needed because this project is just getting bigger and bigger. So yeah, we we actually did a marketing survey and people said they wanted someone fatter than Wingman. So here I am and they wanted someone prettier than Wingman. So here I am. Oh, come on.

6. 00:04:11

   Wow. All right. No, you're you're actually quite pretty. All right. Yeah, but yeah, we were we were really eager to have you guys here and to show you more of Star Citizen every week. And moving on to our first interaction with the community, we asked our backers to come up with a logo for the show. We have lots of super cool logos and we're kind of fighting on which one that should win. We had quite a debate. In fact, we had over 150 submissions. In fact, check check some of these out. They we had a hard time deciding. In fact, we couldn't decide. We we had

7. 00:05:02

   to narrow it down to three people. We've got a logo from Disco Lando, a logo from Voy Dude, and a logo from Khan Allan that we're going to be using at different points in the show. They're all really cool and hope you enjoy them. So, we have something very exciting which has been going on. The Freelancer sale is going great and I hope you picked up your Freelancer. It's not a sales plug. They're just very cool. The commercial, I hope you enjoyed that as well. It's a really cool commercial. So it's only till Friday, right? That you have to pick up your MISC. Yeah, if you want a Freelancer MIS or the Freelancer MIS package, you only have until Friday. We may offer it again at some point, but this is our limited ship like the Super Hornet. And I know my wife is in CS. I know that they get emails constantly. Can I have a Super Hornet? Can I have the uh 350R? Uh Uh

8. 00:05:50

   get it now. Okay, what else have we got going? Everybody's enjoying dog fighting. Uh tens of thousands um have dog fighting matches have happened in the last couple days. It's incredible looking at the numbers and getting the feedback from users. Uh you're helping us make this game better. We're we're QA, design, programming is all working 24/7 around the world at all our locations to improve the experience, to get it great. We love the fact that you enjoy it and it's just going to get better from here. I've been giving you the first uh taste of Star Citizen. We should match make with some of our staff when that happens. Yeah, that's definitely coming. We're going to do it right here on the show actually. Oh, we are? Awesome. yeah. So, if you if you want to battle I'm going to battle Sandy. Uh get in line.

9. 00:06:37

   Uh all right. Who's Sandy? Uh what can you tell us about what's coming up for marketing? What have we got going? Well, I'm just finishing the final touches on our Gamescom party. Um and I'm getting a lot of help from our fans. So, thank you very much to you guys over in Germany. You've been incredibly helpful. Uh we have quite a few volunteers for the Gamescom party, which is cool. Yeah, we couldn't do these events without the community. Uh no, we couldn't cuz uh things just like organizing 10 towers for uh people to play, um what we're going to showcase Which we can't quite talk about yet. Um but uh the party is going to be Friday, August 15th. Uh so, most people voted for that. Yeah, yeah. It's going to be a good time though. Last year was just incredible. Venue holds a couple of thousand people.

10. 00:07:25

    So, it's not the same place as last year. It's a bigger place than last year. Cool, that's the first I've heard of that. That's good news cuz we packed it in last year. Yeah, and I am locking down the Australia event. Um looking at a very cool venue for that. Just have to check that we get enough bandwidth. Um so, no bandwidth, no party. So, I said, "Oh, well we need, you know, at least 10 megabytes up." And they're like, "What?" I can't even do my Australian accent, so bad. Um But you are actually Australian. Yeah, I am. I am. It's true. Um what else have we got? T-shirts should almost be ready. Um we have two type styles of Arena Commander t-shirt. Um what else have we got going? Alexis has quite a bit of flair that she's working on. Alexis and I are are are working together on a lot of the

11. 00:08:11

    merchandise. Well, that is a great segway to the first of our new segments. Uh we'd like to turn it over to fan favorites Chelsea and Alexis with our uh best damn customer support team ever. They're going to answer some of your questions and tell you what's coming up for subscribers. Chelsea, Alli, take it away. Hi everybody. Welcome to the customer service report. I am Alexis and I would normally be joined by Chelsea, but she is out sick today, so James is taking her place. And this is my new shirt. The biggest issue we're having in CS right now is people confused about the cross chassis upgrade system. How it works currently is that you can only upgrade a ships that are already within the DFM. And as new ships are added, then you can upgrade from there. So, CS can't help you get your constellation yet.

12. 00:08:58

    Uh and I have an update about your exciting new hanger flair for subscribers this month. It is going to be the Freelancer MIS model. You'll get a special stand for it and you'll even get a very cool box that the model came in. So, look for that in your hangers this week. Thanks very much, ladies. Very cool. And uh we're returning some favorite segments from Reverse Hangar, also. So, here is uh William Lewis with My Old Job MVP. Hey everybody. I'm lead moderator Bill. And I'm here to bring you this week's MVP. This week's MVP goes to Leon 300 for his thread about tips and tricks and general help in Arena Commander. He goes into the HUD and explains the different systems and he talks about the basic controls. So, thanks Leon 300, you're

13. 00:09:48

    this week's MVP. Thanks, William. You're doing a great job with that. Uh we are now here with Travis Day, our dog fighting producer for Arena Commander. Hi, Travis. Hello, guys. How are you today? I'm doing just great. I'm well rested now. Much better. You were the very first guest on Around the Verse, so welcome. I feel honored. And I think everybody out there is very happy with the job you've been doing. Well, I hope so. The the community feedback so far at least seems pretty positive. And it is good to get the criticisms on the things that we need to improve on cuz that's the whole plan with the roll out of the patches. How do you feel having it out there in the world? Uh it feels good. I was kind of It's kind of starting to feel like a woman who who was like 10 months pregnant or something. I just wanted to get it out of me. Just just get there.

14. 00:10:36

    A lot of us felt that way. That's why. Thank you for sharing. Yes, you know. Here here's an actual woman and we It's actually been Okay. Yeah, it's like being pregnant. It's Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh so, let's switch gears. Tell us a little about yourself. How did you get into the game industry? Uh probably because I guess um I wasn't more clever to come up with something else like all my parents are in the games business and they divorced, so there's four of them. And I feel like I just kind of took the the path of least resistance and what I knew best cuz I always think to myself I could have been an astronaut or a doctor or or like an Navy SEAL and instead I just ended up doing the same thing that my parents did. What what did your What did your parents do in the game industry? Uh so, my dad actually worked at Electronic Arts before he had his own company.

15. 00:11:23

    No, no, a publisher. I know, right? He actually was uh at one point Chris's producer for Wing Commander uh 3, 4, and then did 5. Uh my mom had her own company, did uh, Humongous Intera- Yeah, Humongous Entertainment and Cave Dog Interactive. My stepdad was Ron Ron did like Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, and Total Annihilation with Chris Taylor. And then my stepmom was, once again, drum roll, evil publisher, uh, director of marketing for Electronic Arts. Well, we've got our director of marketing here. I got to agree. Yeah. No, it's actually it's funny, that's how I learned my vowels growing up cuz it's uh, A E I O U and I could never remember that, so I always did a different way, which was E A I O U because they paid for everything in my life cuz everybody in my family worked for them at one point. You're funny.

16. 00:12:09

    Well, I have some questions from the fans. All right. Yeah? Ferratus would like to know, is there a release schedule for the playable ships in Arena Commander? Yes, there is. It is uh, it is something that we want to try and get every single-seater ship out first. The multi-crew ships are going to be a little bit more complex on the back end of the technology because we have to separate the physical grids so that you can actually walk around in your ship cuz right now, if you were to get out of your seat, your ship would just kill you with the physics momentum. So, single-seater ships are all on the agenda first, then all their variants, and then multi-crew ships. That's kind of the rough outline of how we're going to proceed. Damage Inc would like to know, what is the average time it takes for a build cycle, as in fix bug, compile, test, and document, repeat?

17. 00:12:59

    I I think that be a good thing to answer considering how many people were like incredibly distraught on on Tuesday night as we sitting there on chat roll, we have the final build building and deploying, and and everybody's getting really impatient, so it was probably to answer that question, the best way to put it is, the bugs, I can't tell you how long it'll take to fix cuz every bug's different. Yeah, that's one thing I think a lot of people don't understand. They'll see a list of 30 bugs, and we have them overnight, and then there'll be one bug that we'll have for 2 weeks. Yeah, exactly. No, that's a very fair point. I mean, some of them the hardest ones especially when you move to release, you don't have any of the debug info because you're running in release mode and so some of these bugs can take forever to track down. Um but to answer the the original question, really it's however long the bugs take to fix, once we think that we have them all and that's the important thing is think we

18. 00:13:45

    have them all fixed, they get peer reviewed so if it's an engineer another engineer will go read his code and make sure it all looks right and he's not going to break anything else. They check in, the build process kicks off and our build process builds three different builds so it builds the release build that you'll get as a consumer, it builds the profile build that we use generally to test around here and then it also builds the debug build. And then the servers in all those same modes and a Linux version of the servers in all those same modes. So there's anytime we kick off a build, it's like nine to 10 different builds that actually build along with all the assets and that process takes about three hours. And then to deploy them out if we're going to publicly release it to the CDN is about another two hours to depending on how much bandwidth we're getting that day and how well the CDN's receiving it. Then from there this is the last step I promise. I know.

19. 00:14:33

    Then from there because it's content delivery network, we upload to one central node and that's one server and then they're set up to basically propagate that data out to all their global network of servers so that everybody in different locations around the world can download at a from a local server at a good speed. And that process takes about a half hour as well. All right, so that's rounded like three and a half hours average time. Yeah, and it took me almost as long to answer the question as it would actually take to deploy the build. It's rough. How different do you think is Star Citizen compared to other projects regarding production and project management? Is it special compared to your previous work? Yes. Is that the end of the No, I mean it is. It really really truly it is because you know, usually when you work on a game, you have basically two teams. You have the team

20. 00:15:22

    with the publisher and you have the team of the developer. And both of those are usually centrally located within themselves. And here on Arena Commander, we had seven different studios and then eight if you include the art outsourcing as well working on the game at any one time. So, the communication and coordination of all those people across eight different time zones is just crazy. Uh Aaron actually, Chris's brother, had a really good system because we were kind of looking at it going, "Oh my god, these time zones are going to kill us." And he was really uh supporting the idea of using the time zones to our advantage. And so, what we ended up doing is basically having development on Arena Commander 24 hours a day by doing handoff emails from each studio that says, "Okay, here's the issues of the day. Here's where we got. Here's where we didn't finish. Can you look at these?" And passing them all around the world in a leapfrog fashion.

21. 00:16:11

    Unfortunately, there's a big gap at the back end of that between LA and UK. So, that generally had me here till about midnight or 2:00 in the morning so I could meet with them and do the handoff. To give us a little bit of context, why don't you tell us what you've worked on in the past? Uh in the past uh I've worked on uh such classic hits as Wall-E and Up and SpongeBob Truth or Square. Um I guess for the Flight Sim fans out there, I worked on a a little known fact that a DCS uh A-10 simulator is actually entirely made by the Well, it's entirely made by Black Shark. But before that uh we were doing that game for DARPA and the Department of Defense as they were upgrading the A-10 to the A-10C with multi-function displays. So, I actually worked on that game uh well, game as it

22. 00:17:00

    was a military simulator to be used for training. And then left that company and went to work for Activision and about 6 months after I started working at Activision, I saw that they had released the simulator we had made as a final commercial product. Which was a good way for them to double dip on that. Um other than that, I worked on Deadpool, Amazing Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man 2, uh, did PR for Transformer War Transformer War for Fall of Cybertron and 007 Legends. So, EA, Activision, you you're really hitting them all. I mean We kicked it out of you though. Yeah, no, seriously. Actually, I I'm I am, uh, I guess, a reformed a reformed worker for the evil empire. I mean, the reality is like working there, I I definitely did not fit in. And it was such a breath of fresh air to come

23. 00:17:47

    here. Oh, no, you don't fit in here, either. Damn it. There is no home for me. Carpe Kalem. What's the toughest bug you've had to deal with in the game thus far? So, toughest is probably a good question for a programmer. I can tell you for me, the most recurring issue, which makes it the most frustrating, is problems with the eyes. Like, I don't know why, but the character's eye in every single build gets completely up. completely messed up. Uh, I'll keep it PG. Um, yeah, I don't know if you guys saw the post out there where we had all the different examples of the ways they had giant eyes, we had no eyes, we've had blacked-out demon eyes, we've had glossed-over dead eyes. Um, but my favorite in the series was probably when we were getting actually right towards

24. 00:18:35

    the release of Arena Commander as one of the last bugs we fixed. And periodically, the Vanduul would be flying around, but there would be these giant gray orbs, like kind of ovals, and we could not figure out why. And Oka finally looked at it, and he was like, "Guys, it's the eyes again." And apparently, the eyes of the Vanduul pilot were breaking and exploding to be the size of like four sides, and they were just these giant flying eyeballs. And that was one that we we deemed we should probably fix before we released. Templerk. Is there anything that you would change about Star Citizen if you could? Maybe something that is currently limited by technology. Hm. Well, I want the multi-crew ships in there as soon as possible. And that's currently limited until we make some changes to the engine, but I don't know. I mean, it's really Star Citizen one of the things that makes it I think really appealing and really cool is that it is like five

25. 00:19:23

    games in one. It has the FPS, it has so many different aspects that appeal to so many different groups of people. So, what could we do? I think I'd just do more of it. I'd do it deeper. I'd try to do it faster. If we could automate the creation of some of this stuff, like procedural generations really appealing to me. Um just to be able to be able to push out more content. But, if technology was more advanced, I think the one way I would improve Star Citizen is to make it real. Cuz I think it's really cool universe to be inside. I really want a Hornet. Like, I want to be able to fly around in one. That'd be so cool. The Oculus Rift is getting you pretty close. But, yeah, it is. Totally. Totally. I saw the pictures today uh from the Star Wars, the new Star Wars, and they're actually building out all the physical models, and they had the the much-debated is this a Z-95 Headhunter or is it an X-wing? And I was like, "Oh my god, it'd be so cool to just build one of our ships and be able to fly around in that." Blast. In all of AC, what

26. 00:20:12

    not-yet-introduced feature element are you most excited about adding? Oh, uh boarding FPS. For sure. Hands down. I mean, there's that vision that Chris has always had of the the first scene of Episode IV in Star Wars where you see Darth Vader and his group of storm troopers cut through the door on the Corellian Corvette, and then they bust down, and there's the big laser fire, and like that is absolutely the coolest thing that I want to do. So, hopefully down the road in one of the future releases of Arena Commander, as we start to cuz Arena Commander is kind of like the the test bed for all things space flight and space combat for Star Citizen. And so, I cannot wait until we get the FPS team redacted to get their get their work to a far enough point that we can merge the two modules, and I just think it'd be so cool to be flying around, break onto a space

27. 00:21:00

    station, or break into another ship, have the big fight with those guys, take it over, and then fly it around yourself, and uh yeah, I also like the idea of, you know, pretending to be dead in space floating there like a derelict and having somebody try to come rob you and be waiting on the other side with a shotgun. It's just kind of fun, too. Dalva Fane, will we be seeing player progression in the DFM? Will there be just a numeric ranking system or a system where we can use accumulated points to attach more advanced weaponry, generators, etc. to our ships? Yeah, so that is actually First answer is yes, there's going to be leaderboards and rankings and all that. Um the second one I don't think has been entirely decided by Chris yet. And so we all have internally our own opinions on it, but I would personally like to see a system where people can can earn and rank up in different ways

28. 00:21:49

    and earn different weapons with, you know, kind of along their ships' line. Um at the same time we want to do testing, so we may just end up giving some things for free and then or having them cycle or There's a lot of basically there's a lot of different approaches and a lot of people have different opinions about the best way to handle it, so that one is a good question, but TBD. All right. Z Failed Bot, how are you going to balance additional ships as we approach DFM version 2 and beyond? So balance is difficult in that right now we're doing Arena Commander, which is all about space combat, right? Well, and free flight, but people killing each other in multiplayer. And some of these ships have not been created with killing another ship in mind.

29. 00:22:36

    So for example, like the Aurora, probably not your best dog fighting ship. So having it go up against a Hornet isn't supposed to be fair all the Um that makes balancing for Arena Commander and balancing for Star Citizen two very different things. So one of the things that I've been thinking about with regards to Arena Commander is at least on the scoring side, assigning each ship a point value. Essentially, like if you play Warhammer tabletop game, every piece of gear that you put on has a point value associated with it. So, you could kit out an Aurora to be super powerful. In which case, though, you've added so many things that its points become a lot more valuable. And that way, when a Hornet Let's just say a Hornet's supposed to be able to take on two Auroras. And that is Please don't quote me. That is just a rough thing.

30. 00:23:23

    Concern. Yeah, exactly, right? But, if it's supposed to be able to take out two Auroras, you would basically say, "Okay, well, one Aurora is worth five points each. And one Hornet base loadout is worth 10 points." So, two to one right there. Then, as you add different equipment, they modify their point value. That could also be used by our matchmaking system to make it so that This is another concern I had was you end up randomly matchmaking and you have a team with 10 Hornets and 10 Auroras against each other. And it's like, "Oh, well, this isn't going to end well." Um then, the other half of that is adding different game modes later on that will start to take advantage of the different classes of ships. Cuz, we do have exploration ships. And we do have uh cargo ships. So, maybe you have a protect the convoy mode. Where, essentially, two different teams are vying for moving cargo back and forth from one location. So, you have to

31. 00:24:10

    attack and defend. And then then, the cargo capacity of the ship does play into it. And it is important. Um you know, different ideas we've had for exploration is, you know, find the jump point before the other team does. So, then all of a sudden, you want a ship that's kitted out on your team for exploration. And also dogfighting to defend those ships. So, there's different ways that you can integrate the strengths of the different classes of ships into Arena Commander without them necessarily having to be dogfighting oriented. And there's ways that you can have the dogfighting oriented ships be balanced points value-wise against the non-dogfighting related. Once again, incredibly long answer. But, I think that'll at least answer the question. it. And final question is from Wingman. Dear Travis, does the camera really add 15 lb? Yeah, actually, I've been told I most

32. 00:24:58

    look like Brad Pitt in real life, but I have a feeling that I don't look that way on camera. Yeah, that's true. You are You are very handsome man in reality. Yeah, I know. I can hardly contain myself when I look in the mirror. It's just Well, that's all for our fan questions. I do have one personal question though. Were you perhaps the inspiration for a beloved childhood character of some sort? Um yeah, so when I was a kid and it is true story I used to read Spider-Man comics and DuckTales and Donald Duck comics and I got tired of those, read them all, and my mom would then tell me stories about a purple car named Putt-Putt and then later on made a children's software product called Putt-Putt the purple car. That was also where I learned about the media and not to tell them anything cuz they will quote you wrong and that's

33. 00:25:46

    where I got a quote in USA Today saying, "Her brain got it from me," says Travis Day, her son. Which was quite embarrassing. Even at 7, I was like, "That was a dick move, dude." Well, thank you very much for coming to talk to us and for uh Arena Commander, I mean, you've made a community a lot happier than it was 2 weeks ago. All good, you know, and I will say um this has been hands-down the most fun game project to work on, absolutely. And one of the most fun things about it is being able to interact with the community and get their feedback, positive, negative nice, rude, doesn't matter. Um it's been a really, really fun project and I wouldn't wouldn't have been the same way without the community. So, I'm really happy that we are finally able to give them something.

34. 00:26:34

    Well, how about you be the very first person to sign our wall? Is this like our top-tier wall? Is it? Nice. Wow, that actually looks like your name. Beautiful. I'm just getting hot in here. It feels like the Brad the Brad Pittness Is it I think it's the Brad fitness center. It's affecting me as well. Yeah, seriously. I'm going to go get a soda and some Cheez-Its now. But you got to keep up your physique. Yeah, exactly. It's it's hard. It's not easy sitting in a chair. Well, thank you very much Travis for uh but being with us today and for getting dog fighting out cuz that has made our community a lot happier than it was a scant few weeks ago. Yeah, the the difference was pretty pretty much instant. It was funny from the second like right before it went up was like the worst I've seen it. And then right as it went up everyone was like, "Oh, we love you. It's amazing."

35. 00:27:21

    Yeah, you think they were calling for both of our heads specifically? They were like, "Ben Lesnick should be murdered." And "Travis should be dragged out in the streets." I think it was threats for both of us at that point. Yep. Yep. Oh, but They were like, "Everything's great." Yeah, no. And I'm actually that's that's been the nicest part is people seem genuinely happy with it and the things that they aren't happy with we're getting feedback on. And we've kind of lined lined it up so that we have a whole patch schedule set up and we'll be able to respond to feedback and tune it and tweak it and it's really actually quite fun. Uh Chris was really right on about involving the community so early because having them in here early really helps you to fine-tune the gameplay to something that's fun for everybody before we're anywhere near release. All right. Well, thank you very much for being with us. Uh now let's go over to our assistant community manager James. He's going to have the fan spotlight of the week.

36. 00:28:08

    Over to you, James. Thanks, Ben. I'm here with Jared Huckaby or as you may know him on the forums and on YouTube DiscoLando. Thanks for coming. Hey everybody. All right. So, how did you get started making videos? Um well, I was a pledger. Mhm. I'm a backer. And uh I waited a while before I started. Uh I'm a pretty skeptical guy sometimes, but I liked what I saw. And then uh I started watching Wingman Hanger. Uh probably about halfway through last And I spent a weekend just catching up. I went from episode 1 to I got I'm guessing they were in the 40s at some point. So, I spent a good 40 somewhat hours just me and we man, you know, but as the hair was growing and the

37. 00:28:56

    but uh at the end of it I'm like, "Wow, I really want to I want I want to do something for these guys, you know, and I'm seeing in these videos people are sending booze, they're sending gifts and clothes and stuff. Yeah, booze. And and that's all great and more power to those guys. Uh but it wasn't me, you know. So, I'm sitting here trying to rack my brain thinking about what I can do. I realized that like the day before I downloaded a student copy of Adobe just just to kind of play with it cuz I realized I could. Did you have any experience making videos before that? Uh no, I've had 25 years as a stage actor Oh, I didn't say no. I just said 25 years of experience. not with Adobe stuff. But uh so in in front of the camera instead. And uh some things in the behind the scenes I did

38. 00:29:44

    stage crew and stuff like that. So, um I was familiar with the concepts and whatnot. But when I realized I had it and I'm like, "Oh, I could make a video." And then I'm like, "But what do I do?" And then I realized that I on a whim I had named myself Disco Lando. So, I was So, I was kind of stuck with that at this point when I realized I couldn't change my handle. I was like you just fell you just fell into your name? right." So, I went back and I watched the original video from 1996 that we had done. And uh What was that for, that video? Uh that was just uh a couple guys on an AOL chat room. We were messing around. It it's it's some some Kenner videos. You can see them on YouTube. Okay. Uh they're great in their own ways. Why not? Um but now I'm like, "But nobody ever

39. 00:30:32

    talked in those." So, then it was probably more hours than it should have been trying to figure out a Disco Lando voice. You You and if you watch those first couple videos, it's pretty shady. Well, let me hear a little bit let's hear it now. Come on. Hello Star Citizens. This is Lando. Not bad. Disco Lando. It's not bad, dude. No, it's not. It's uh you have to bring the bass up on the mic a little bit for it to really sound it's I don't really sound like that in real life. Um but yeah, so then I just started making them and originally they were just for the team to be seen. I mean if you watch those first couple videos, they're a little they're a little blue. There's a little there's a little innuendo and whatnot. It was just meant to entertain the guys uh Wingman and uh Mike Morlan and um uh Mark and whatnot. And then uh he started mentioning them

40. 00:31:22

    on the show, but he wasn't playing them. He was mentioning that he couldn't show them. So, I took that as a challenge. So, I went even more blue with the next videos. I've seen that. and then he started showing them heavily edited versions. But he started showing them. I'm like, oh, okay. If he's going to show these, I have to start not sucking. So, start practicing the voice a little bit more. Um I actually didn't own any figures when I started. And this guy went up It was once I once I realized, okay, I'm going to start doing this. So, why was it Disco Lando then? Um like I said, it was it was a whim. It was a lark. It was almost Jack Burton from Big Trouble in Little China. It could have been a coin flip. So, it just happened to be that and then uh yeah, I I got pictures off the internet and were cutting and pasting them. That's what I used for the first videos. And then when I started, I'm like, okay, I'm going to

41. 00:32:10

    start doing more of these, I had to start buying the figures. And I now have probably more figures than I should. What got you into Star Citizen specifically? a really good friend of my I I two really good friends of mine uh we grew we grew just just these two specifically. We grew up playing Wing Commander. They had Wing Commander. I didn't. Um I actually grew up without a computer for a long time. Fair enough. and so I'd go go to their house and watch them play Wing Commander. And mainly I just kind of sat in the chair behind them while they played cuz I just wanted to watch the movies. I love doing that with games, too. Just any games like I love just playing games with friends and then they're like, "You want to play?" I'm like, "No, dude. I'm just watching." Yeah. And well, then they'd eventually let me play and I'd be really terrible. They used to be a keyboard shortcut to just make the Kilrathi blow up. I was like, "Just get me to the next movie cuz I'm terrible."

42. 00:32:59

    I'll probably be Commander Control for the new game. That's cool. Don't expect to see disco flying. No no stoke race or anything. Well, what what ship would you fly if you could? Uh my first ship that I bought was the Constellation. Uh you know, it's it's just of those original five ships you looked at it, it just seemed like the iconic Star Citizen ship. And now there are all these other fancy ships that people are excited about, the 890 Jump, and and and whatnot. But uh I I I I I still come back to that Constellation and what I it's I I I have high hopes for it. All right, this is a little of a out-there question, but what does Star Citizen mean to you? I know it's broad open-ended, but it's something I like asking because I get every person I ask gives me a completely

43. 00:33:46

    different answer and that's one of the things I really love about this game. My answer today would be different than it was when I pledged. Uh when I pledged, it was Chris Roberts and it was it was I want to help him make a game the way that he wants to make it. over the last year and a half, you know, with all the community work, with shows like We Men of Action, uh The Next Great Starship, uh Ten for the Chairman, and now, you know, this show continuing. If I felt part of the process. I mean, it's when you whenever we hit another million, you go into the chat uh not chat roll, uh you go into the RSI chat and people gather to celebrate spending another million dollars.

44. 00:34:34

    I love that. And that seems counterintuitive. But it's because they don't think they're just giving the money away. They they realize it's we made $45 million. And it's it's it was the inclusive nature of it. That's what it is now. Yeah, that's the thing I love the most and I'm glad that comes across cuz that mentality of we did it like comes over here, too. Where every time we hit a milestone, it's like, all right, let's put this letter out quick so we can like celebrate with the fans so we can celebrate with our backers like that communal relationship exists in this game like more than I've ever seen anything ever. And being a part of that is And you are doing your part to keep that going. I'm trying. I wanted to I wanted to be a part of it any way I could, you know. My my my resume is a

45. 00:35:22

    mess. So I was like, the likelihood of getting hired on was was was was slim. So I'm like, how can I contribute to this in some way, shape or form? And that's what it's done. It's It's a little weird. It's a little out there. The really weird stuff I give to Lobot, you know. It's liberating being two people, you know, Discolando and Lobot. You know, so I give the really weird stuff to him and I I sometimes do my own commentary as as Lando. I I did the why I pledged video after the Arena Commander reveal cuz I just I wanted to remind people, you know, that you why we were doing this. So Arena Commander is out. Have you played it at all yet? Oh, yeah. Yeah, no. I I in the first 16 hours I did three videos after that came out. So I probably only played it for 2 hours of the first 16.

46. 00:36:10

    Got in, got the footage that that I that I was looking to get and then was was building the videos. Uh doing some things I'd never done before just editing-wise. Uh production-wise. But no, it's it's fantastic. Um I'm lucky enough that I own all of the three ships that are available now. So, um, I really enjoy the visibility on the Aurora. I mean, I understand it's not as tough or as beefy as the other ships, but there is something about sitting in that cockpit and having that field of view even below you. It's I love that and that's one of the things I'm excited about with the Constellation, too. I think my favorite ship to fly actually is the 300i. But Aurora is pretty nice, too. RSI. So, what's next for DiscoLando's videos? I've started a new series or I'm

47. 00:36:57

    starting a new series. Uh, it's sitting in an inbox somewhere here, hopefully. Uh, it's an educational series of four uh, folks who aren't familiar with Star Citizen. Um, like if you just heard about Star Citizen today. So, it's a little less tongue-in-cheek. It's a little less It's definitely a lot less innuendo. So, like it's it's it's meant for somebody who may not be familiar with not just Star Citizen, but DiscoLando. out the blues, what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I I'm doing seven voices in it. I discovered that my limit is seven voices. That's as many voices as I can do. And no, I will not. one. The one you're currently hearing. Well, I can do this one that you're currently hearing. The all the other ones require a little bit of modulation. so, but but that's uh, uh, it's just more playing Arena Commander, more making videos.

48. 00:37:45

    Um, and that's uh, I just want to contribute whatever way I can. Well, thank you so much for doing so. Um, I think that's all the time we got for you today. Well, we'll see you later. we have some drinks, complimentary beverages. Cheers. Thanks. Back to you, Ben. Thanks, James. That's really cool. We really love our fans. Can't believe how creative I could never do anything like like that guy. No, I know. That's why we have the fans to do it. So, this uh this brings us to the end of our very first episode. We hope hope you enjoyed it. We are, you know, getting settled here. Uh we'd like your feedback on the forums. the aim is to better connect the

49. 00:38:32

    community with the team and the game. So, uh any ideas you have for uh including yourselves in this process, we'd like to hear them. Uh new segments, any anything you can think of. It Just just like the game development, we we will be taking your suggestions into account with future episodes. And where can people submit their ideas? They can submit them right here. Again, thank you all and stay tuned for next week when we have uh one of our real celebrities. David Hobbins, who's out buying hair products right now. All right, it's David Hobbins. He's going to talk about the Mustang, the new Constellation, and all the cool stuff he has done. And uh it's going to be a good episode. So, uh check us out next week. See you next week. See you in the 'verse. Oh, see you around the 'verse. Around the 'verse. Around the 'verse, in the 'verse. Oh, boy.

50. 00:39:39

    Captain, the forum is hurting. Not again. Man the keyboard, helmsman. Here we go.