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So, what are we working on?
🕑 Added 2018-01-26 13:44:26 +0000 UTC Hey Patrons!Since the year started we've been editing Noclip Sessions, extended cuts from Horizon and a few other things, but we've also been working hard to secure some interesting projects for the first few months of 2018. A lot of those plans are starting to solidify, so I wanted to give you an update on what you're going to be hearing from us over the coming weeks and months. So, let's get to it.
Warframe - The Free to Play Success Story Turns 5
I've always been fascinated in free-to-play and the communities that revolve around them, but there aren't that many F2P "core games" that have really made it work. There' DoTA 2, World of Tanks, and Hearthstone - and then there's Warframe! Digital Extremes have been guns for hire on other's people's games for almost 25 years, working on everything from Unreal Tournament to Bioshock. In those years they developed a games themselves including The Darkness 2 and Dark Sector. Five years ago when they launched Warframe on PC (and later on PS4) nobody expected this weird looking third-person, online, persistent shooter to amount to much. How interesting that in the five years since that game's release it has steadily risen in popularity and for years has been in the top 10 on Steam (it is currently at #7 with 49,148 players playing right now). It's one of the most played games on PS4, and stands as one of the most successful free-to-play games ever made. In February we'll be travelling to London, Ontario, Canada (my first time in the great white north) to talk to the team about how they managed to pull it off.
Our Accessibility Doc is Happening
It's no surprise that I've been looking at tackling this project for a while now. I often talk about talking to Steven Spohn at AbleGamers about doing something, at some stage - and I'm happy to say we're in the final moments of planning for this one. Accessibility is a big story in the world of games. From color-blind modes, to subtitles, to custom controllers for folks who have trouble using traditional game pads, and so much more. We want to show the experience of these dedicated gamers and the people working tirelessly to help make games more accessible to them.
I'm working closely with Steven to get interviewees who can speak to their experiences, and will be talking to him and some other folks at The AbleGamers Charity about the work that they do and how we can help. In fact yesterday I interview Vinny Caravella from Giant Bomb about his experience with color blind modes as somebody who has trouble distinguishing between red and green. We will be filming this over the coming months.
GDC 2017 - What to do?
It looks like we're headed back to GDC - in fact we have a special showing of one of our docs around that time that hopefully I'll be able to talk about soon. We're also going to be filming more interviews at the show this year. We've not decided on whether or not we'll do the 'Sessions' thing again this year, or take the time to work on a San Francisco based studio. I'd actually love to hear your thoughts on this. I'm feeling very malleable about it at this stage to let me know what you think.
Project Lambda. (Work in Progress)
This one is a real loose concept that may or may not work out, but I wanted to get the community involved to help me put it together. My favorite game of all time, Half-Life, turns 20 in November and I want to create something to help us all celebrate this fact.
I've put some feelers out to the folks developing Black Mesa and have even reached out to some friends in the Counter-Strike community about the possibility of doing something, but ultimately I need to talk to the folks at Valve, and get time with people who have since left. I want to interview the voice actors, or the crazy super-fans that live out there. I want to create something that allows us to celebrate the wonderful legacy of that series and everything is started (Half-Life 2, Counter strike, the Steam Marketplace). Who knows where this will end up, but I wanted you to all know we're putting in the effort to see if it's possible.
Bonus Level! (aka The Point returns)
All this month I've been hard at work on our latest project for Noclip entitled 'Bonus Level'. Effectively it is my new op-ed show, taking what I learned from The Point and my brief work on Danny's Disk Club last year. Expect a highly produced, short-form video series about the work we do at Noclip, my opinions on what's going on in games and more. I've gone back and forth on whether I should publish this on the Noclip channel, or make a sub-channel for editorial work (or publish on my own YT channel) but I've decided to take a swing at creating an incredibly polished production and see if it works or not. Patrons will get access to this first and I look forward to sharing it (and our awesome motion graphics) with you all in the coming weeks.
AOB
That's all we can talk about right now. We're hard at work on other projects that I can't talk about but hopefully the four above will keep you satiated while we continue to work into 2018. Let me know what you think of what we're doing, and expect a full news blast on the Warframe news over the coming weeks.
Delighted to finally share some of this with you all. Let me know what you think.
Danny
Comments
Matt K
Hey Danny! Just wanted to start off by saying the Horizon Zero Dawn doc was great; telling the story as a single feature length video in chapters worked out beautifully. I borrowed a copy of HZD from a friend and (finally) finished it just so I could watch the whole doc. I loved them both. I also wanted to chime in on the Sessions question! I really enjoyed them but if you don't have the bandwidth I totally understand if they don't happen again this year. That being said I think you recorded one with Zoe Quinn last year? If so I hope that eventually comes out, I'm sure it'll be a good time.
Daniel Slawson
Hey Danny, with SOTC remake dropping I was thinking I'd love to hear the story of Bluepoint. They've worked with such goliaths in the industry and their means of success are so unique. Must be a cool story there.
Is older stuff dropped, like extended interviews and mentioned somewhere GOG doc?
Tohir Tillyaev
What have I come back to?!?!?! AWESOME! A whole barrel of it! First of al - Warframe has been on my mind for a while. Since one of my friends showed me how crazy dedicated the players get. It was just awesome watching them play and I’d love to learn how it all came about. Bonus Level is a great name and I think a lot of people will enjoy it and will hopefully discover noclip for themselves. I think you always had great insight on gaming news and it confident that this video will uncover a whole new level of engagement with patrons and your audience. Not much to add on accessibility doc - it was a long time coming. Really curious to see it. Last but not the least - HL3! I think you got it right - highlighting the powerful community behind HL, the countless mods and most importantly - all the inspirations on modern day gaming - would alone be enough for 3-4hrs of documentary. Would love to see you doing something similar to what you did with mystery games - get some of us to share their passion for HL universe.
Tory Thompson
Wow this is a great pipeline. Exciting stuff! Really appreciate the transparency with your patrons, thanks for involving us Danny!
Noclip
Good to know, thanks so much!
Noclip
Yeah I follow her work on Twitter, she's a great advocate for it. I'm not sure if we need a designer perspective on this doc but that's a great suggestion to keep in mine. Cheers!
Amir Rangnekar
For your accessibility doc, a good person to reach out to if you want to cover how AAA games are slowly tackling this issue would be Alexandria Neonakis from Naughty Dog. She's spoken about her initiative at Naughty Dog on taking the steps to make their games more accessible. She's even given talks on how simple UI changes can make a huge difference. Just something to think about. Loving the news in this update and looking forward to this year!
Other than warframe, Path of Exile is another great and truely free to play game that work out well with a great community and constant new content. I am a huge fan of this game and hopefully there will be potential project to be done on this game
Clay A Binkley
The way you've been doing things already has been exceptional, so if you don't change a thing, that'd be just fine. But since you ask, I like the longer form stuff more. Gives the material context and room to breathe. The "Sessions" are perfectly fine, and some of them are exceptional, but I'd rather have one larger in-depth doc than several smaller "Sessions".
wavedash
Not gonna lie, really disappointed to see that Path of Exile isn't mentioned as a huge free-to-play game with microtransactions. Path of Exile and Dota 2 are the only big free games I know of where the only thing you can buy are cosmetics. The "you can get it without paying, but..." concession sucks, and the worst part is that the most fervent and vocal section of the fanbase is always everywhere saying it doesn't suck THAT much.
Philipp Lehner
I've been making three Half-Life mods over the last two decades and they've been greenlit (before Steam Greenlight died) as a whole standalone collection called Halfquake Trilogy. Currently I'm touching them up (new music, etc) and it'll be live on Steam hopefully this year. You certainly haven't heard about this series, but it has gathered a small (yet amazing) community over the years and has been mentioned in PC Gamer and PC Action (German PC magazine), as well as in the Half-Life retrospective by Noah Caldwell-Gervais. Although being in Vienna / Austria might make things difficult, I'd still be happy to share my thoughts about why I love Half-Life and working with Goldsrc so damn much, if you're interested. I'd also suggest getting the creators from Cry of Fear, it's a Half-Life total conversion that was extremely successful. In any case, I'm looking forward to what your Half-Life celebration will look like. Thanks for all your hard work, and keep it up!
Brandon K Gann
Hey Danny! Just wanted to leave some observations: At first, reading all of this on its surface makes it seem you're taking on quite a lot, but because you are at different stages with each, it's actually pretty neat how you have the projects lined up so you can flow from one to the next. I hope you don't burn yourself out! Much like other focuses NoClip has tackled, Warframe isn't my thing, but like EVERY NoClip doc, I'm excited to see it, especially with the angle you're taking. Of everything you've listed, the most exciting thing here, personally speaking, is the accessibility doc. Despite great strides taking place to allow more people to experience games, this is an area that isn't talked about enough and you're doing a great service by highlighting it. For your GDC plans, if Patreon won't allow a dedicated space for whatever reason, could you ask the guys over at Kinda Funny to see if you can briefly use their space? I know it may be a bit of squeeze with the amount of content they make, but I'm positive they would love to host you back once again. Plus you get to see some friends! Yay! Because I haven't had any real exposure/experience to Half-Life, I can't really comment on it beyond I hope you can get something together! I'm really looking forward to Bonus Level. Between all of the editing, filming, emails, phone calls, and other administrative stuff, whenever you can find the time to carve out to make your show will be much appreciated. Sorry for the long post! Keep up the great work and to summarize: Looking forward to more documentaries this year! Have a great day.
Looking forward to all of this, especially Bonus Level. Listening to those with industry knowledge let me know their take on the current industry happenings helps inform my purchases. On a personal note, I'd love to see a documentary on speedrunning (maybe GDQ?) at some point. I feel like it's at the point where it's "kinda-not-really-mainstream-but-close", and I'm sure you could do a fantastic job talking about some history and future hopes of those in the hobby.
Josh Daniels
Looking forward to Bonus Level. I did like the sound of Danny's Disk Club more but I understand taking your name off it. I still go back every now and then and watch old episodes of Bluffers Guide (Escape From Mount Stupid), The Point and your Year in the life of a gamer videos. Can't wait to see what comes out of bonus level 😁
Michael Bataligin
You must let me buy you beer and poutine when you get to London.
Nick Grugin
Warframe doc is kinda like the Final Fantasy doc for me, i probably won't watch it but I know a lot of people will and it's good to have a diverse offering. Interested in the GDC bits and Accessibility stuff (I know one or two people with AbleGamers, they do good work) . As far as the Project Lambda stuff, I know Geoff K. might be a person worth talking to, too given his extensive look (article) into Half Life 2 right around it's release. I'm most excited about Bonus Level, then Danny's Disk Club stuff was great and I DEFINITELY want more of that.
mcwizardry
Sounds great, looking forward to what‘s coming this year!
Thomas Kaspersen
This half life thing would be awesome. And to know something about the inner workings at valve would be interesting, though I'm not holding my breath. Fingers crossed.
Alex Van Aken
Great announcements, Danny. Can't wait!
Bavo Debraekeleer
I really liked the Sessions, but it all depends on who wants to do it. It all comes down to what the best opportunity that you can get is!
In terms of GDC, I would love more "Sessions". Along with them being a really great dive into important people within the industry, I have to imagine they're a bit easier to edit and stack up which gives you time to focus on longer terms project (and relax!) and while still putting out great content.
Noclip
Thanks so much!
Noclip
He's the best.
Noclip
I think they'll do a perfect job celebrating that themselves :)
Noclip
There are bunches of studios down there like Supergiant Games and Double Fine. And there are folks who will be in town for GDC that we could film non-Sessions style videos with. Hope that helps clear it up!
Bavo Debraekeleer
Oh, motion graphics, can't wait!
Dunga
Yaaaas Danny! I’ve tried saying half life here in the comments in the early days of noclip but never got a shout out. Understand you were in a different place then but if you can pull it off this year then it’ll be terrific. I hear valve is quite anal about the HL topic though especially with the whole HL 3 circus getting out of hand. They really need to come out and say it and put the people out of their misery!
Fragglerock
Can you expand on a "San Francisco based studio." for GDC. I am not quite sure what you mean by that.
Hassun
Looking forward to the new projects! Warframe is an interesting thing.
Colby Kortas
While I’d love to hear more Sessions, if it feels like you’re trying to force it, I’d say don’t do it. Stick to core interviews. I don’t know how many sessions you may still have in the bag, though. I’m excited to hear these project ideas and cannot wait for the upcoming year for you and your team.
Yes!! The point returns.... going to have to get used to calling it 'Bonus Level'
Aj Fraser
Giant Bomb turns 10! Don't forget!
Giancarlo Marcelli
Hey youre coming up to Canada! Very interested to hear about Warframe and the accessibility session was fantastic. Exciting news overall!
Dan Longman
it all sounds incredible Danny, but I really can't wait for the accessibility in gaming doc! Steven is such an incredible dude!
Evan Pilnick
Looks like 2018 is going to be stellar. Good luck Dan. Can’t wait.
