Broken Buttons Blackbeard Blurb

(Insert appropriate phrase about saying that X amount of times fast.)

So my endeavors to equip plushie Etho with a redstone torch to carry to the SC Comicon are for the moment, foiled.  I worked extensively on his torch last night...after receiving some Skype messages in the Broken Buttons - Lore Writer chat.

As I may have previously mentioned, I wrote some blurbs for different bits of the blamethecontroller.com website and a few maps.

The Broken Buttons has now officially rolled out the new Blackbeard PvP map, available on BTC's fan server only.  It is currently builder- and member-play only while it's in beta after writing new plugins, but I'm hoping that BTC is going to ask some of the Mindcrackers to come on and horse around with it in order to do some official promo recording, and to raise awareness of the game's existence.

All that leads me back to the Skype messages last night, requesting a how-to-play script for a short video BTC was putting together.  My poor other lore writers responded quickly, but they are both in university and have mega projects and tests going on (both are from Europe, so they say 'university' instead of 'college').

Since I don't get home from work until mid-afternoon, I was the latecomer to the conversation, but I asked some questions, narrowed down the scope of BTC's request (and managed to do all of it without fangirling excessively).

Let's make one thing clear:

I am not strictly a BTC fangirl.

I am a Mindcrack fangirl.

I fangirl all Mindcrackers equally.

(Except Aureylian.  She's new.)

I think I may have told BTC in a different Skype chat that I was going to go fangirl over his latest video.  Wisely, he did not have a comeback for that.  Perhaps I should have clarified that I was going to fangirl over the fact that my pixel art design is now on the Mindcrack Server.

My Minecraft username might not go down in infamy, but...how cool is that anyway?!

But I digress.

(Oh, here's the pixel art:)

(Now I really am getting back to the main point.)

So, script!  BTC needed a script for a video.  I referred back to my MineCon Map script from last year, and went to work.  It ended up looking something like this:

INTRODUCTION

Begin at spawn, where new players will automatically appear when they join the server for the first time.

BTC: Hey guys, I’m BTC and this is a quick introduction to the Broken Buttons’

newest minigame map, Blackbeard.

Blackbeard is a multi-player PvP map where the Royal Navy and the

Pirate Crew are battling to collect enough gold for their team to win.  

The address for the server is MC.BLAMETC.NET, and the server is

running Minecraft 1.7.5.

Text for the server address should appear on the screen.  (Recommend a nautical/pirate-style such as lowercase Blackadder ITC.)

BTC: To find Blackbeard once you join the server, follow the signs

from spawn and jump through the portal, which teleports you to the

Blackbeard lobby.

Footage switches to the lobby area of Blackbeard, or jump into the portal.

LOBBY

BTC: A full game hosts 20 players, and team selection is random.  Every time

an instance fills up, a new one begins, so there’s no waiting for a match to

finish.

Consider doing a wide-angle, panning shot of the lobby.

INSIDE THE GAME

Perhaps open with a few select fly-over clips to show the general terrain and the three main landmarks.

BTC: Winning the game sounds easy; the team that collects ten gold ingots first

is victorious!

(It's all very script-y and straightforward, etc., etc.)  So we'll see how that goes; there haven't been any changes to the script so far (I've left it open for the other lore writers and BTC to make changes or leave suggestions) and there weren't any messages left on Skype this morning saying good/bad yea/nay.

There was a link to the forums of a new person requesting a lore writer application.  Thaliest was awesome enough to point her in the right direction, and I posted the old lore writer app for her to refer to.

Hmmm...not much else happening.  D&D session tonight.  Need to plan that.

(Don't tell my players that the GM is still unsure what evil things she's going to do to them tonight.)

Until tomorrow, or even Sunday (depending on the con?) adieu!

Thursday Catch-Up

Wow, well there goes my goal to blog every day in May (but at least I made it further than my May goal from last year...).

So much happening this week!  Tuesday I was called in for jury duty (in traffic court, which is also considered a 'magistrate court')--all located in an old brick strip mall along with with a tailor alteration shop as well as a renal care facility.  (o.O)

My poor panda husband was trying to give me directions as I'm madly circling the parking lot looking for the appropriate entrance, and then my cell phone (which has been steadily holding less and less charge) decides it has been possessed by the beep demon, so I had to hang up on him.

Anyway...there is a trip to a Verizon store in my very near future...is it too much to hope that they still offer my model of phone as a free upgrade?  My hard plastic case has protected my little Samsung Gusto for the past few years and I don't even think I ever took the protective plastic off of the screen...it'd be a shame to lose it so soon!

Then the great and craftsy Deevius came by so that we could work on re-shaping the Halloween mask she bought into something more Silence-y (from Doctor Who).  (Note:  While I sometimes have great crafty plans, they often fall flat and do not achieve their true potential due to my own derpiness.)

Several hours of gluing, caulking, and painting later...well.  She's going to take it to a friend in the art department where she works and ask for shading help.  (Mostly to see if what we've done can be salvaged.)

In between all of that, I've been doing an emergency rush order of a 'cactuar' plushie (no, I do not play Final Fantasy) for a friend; he had an acquaintance fall from a ladder and fracture his clavicle, which required emergency surgery and a stay in the hospital.  Pics to come when it's completed!

I'm also in the process of designing business cards to hand out on Saturday.

Why, you ask?

Well...I'm attending my first con!  (It might be a small con, but a girl has to get started somewhere!)

The SC Comicon is being hosted by Borderlands (a local comic book/game/nerd store) and when I participated in the blood drive they held on Free Comic Book Day (May 3rd), I got a free one-day pass to the con!

Thus, the great and fabulous Deevius and I shall be attending, (possibly along with Mike the Coworker's fiancee Midori) and doing a group costume.

She's going as a Silence from Doctor Who.

I'm a cheapskate and I'm going as a Silence victim.  (What could be easier than wearing normal clothing and drawing tally marks all over my hands and face?)

I also plan to tote one of my Minecraft plushies around with me (and I will be wearing my Broken Buttons shirt), and handing out business cards to those that ask where I got him from.

I have a choice of taking Etho (who belongs to me) or VintageBeef (who's part of a triple order and the other 2 plushies are not yet finished).  Etho has 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube and Beef has 900k.  Beef is by far my most popular sale item, but I'd want to contact the buyer and ask if it was okay to take him to the con (in the case of severe handling).

Decisions, decisions!

But before all of that happens, I'm running another session for my D&D players on Friday night!  I'm so excited because I'll get to share this with them:

It's our entire party!

From left:  Xerxes, Saffron, Darius, Malaris, Kuri, and Ana.

A special thanks to Nbiester on Deviantart for taking my commission request and showing it who's boss.

We'll get back to crochet shenanigans another time...maybe tomorrow...maybe later!

No Post on Sundays

...as Uncle Vernon would say.

Cheers until tomorrow!

(Here, have a Hogwarts pin on me. ;-)

Portal to the Past: Early Nerd Crochet

So today I'm actually baby-sitting the BTC Fan Server UHC match.  (No, I do not have the slightest idea what I'm doing.)

In Skype, they asked which admins would be available to help out, and since I sit at home on Saturdays and crochet like a mad fiend, that's not too much of a stretch, and I really don't mind.

However, there's no set hours for the amount of time the match could take, thus I thought it best to just do a flashback of some of the early nerdy crochet projects that got me started.

First up is the blue Cthulu:

No, I do not read H.P. Lovecraft.  It would give me nightmares.

Then I learned a hat pattern and decided to adapt it to a couple Marvel characters:

  

Captain America                                  Iron Man

By this time I was gaining momentum with inventing nerdy adaptations and alterations of current patterns and I went right for a commission for a friend:

Would you believe he is double the size

the original pattern called for?

I'll get into how I started on Minecraft stuff tomorrow...if I manage to survive the UHC today.

Recapping January 2014

I think it was around this time that there was a meeting with the other Broken Buttons admins and leaders to discuss the future schedule and small group projects.  I don't recall particularly contributing much to this conversation, as I was a junior lore writer who was just helping out by keeping an eye on the forums for new lore applications.

I said before that I had turned down a few hopefuls.  But then, I also found a guy whose application was really good; I think he said that he participated in D&D tabletop games.  He had a quest-maker's mind, demonstrated in the logic of his application.

So I accepted him, bringing the total lore writers up to four.  Whitherunn also added another guy and suddenly we were a whole team of five!

...in four separate time zones.

Bullethail was on Berlin time, StrikerShane: London.  ChromeMist and I shared Eastern Standard, and Whither was Pacific Standard.  o.O

Coordinating meetings proved to be...tricky.

And then when I least expected it, I was notified that I was now the 'Squad Leader' for the Lore Writers.

I was shocked.  And then, I freaked out.  Someone had put me in this position without even asking Whitherunn!  He was going to kill me.

So I hopped on Skype, and I apologized.  Profusely.

I explained that I hadn't asked to be put in leadership; I didn't want this position since it had been his...etcetera.

Whither came back and told me that he had recommended me for team leader.

If I had a mortified emoticon, it would go here.

That's the quick, simple version.  The longer version includes the new schedules, documents, Google Drive folders filled with homework assignments, spreadsheets, and other resources.  We lost a lore writer (Chrome) due to her school schedule and college hunting.  Yet we picked up and moved on--we now meet once every other week with small assignments to complete in between gatherings.

Right now we're completely focused on KotS 3, and I'm looking forward to trying a new approach to lore writing development: video development diaries!  (Obviously private for the Build Team only.)

I'll have to update you on that in the future, though--I smell free pizza!

Minecraft Crochet Segue

(Because I was mean last time and showed Etho with no context given.)

Who is Etho?  Etho is the third member of the Mindcrack server group known as Team Canada.

Etho's YouTube Channel

Although I do not subscribe to his videos, I have on occasion enjoyed his exploits with PauseUnpause and VintageBeef.  He has close to 1.5 million subscribers, and has one of the largest audiences on the Mindcrack server.

Here's the finished plushie:

This is the classic posed-against-the-doorframe photo I use for all new plushies.

I made Etho and then had no close third friend to give him to, so he remains steadfastly beside my PauseUnpause and has posed with him for quite a few photos, some of which have never been published to any of my social profiles.

Fun Fact:

I had originally planned to do

a webcomic using photos of

my plushies and their many

adventures.  I only got through

one strip before other things

grabbed my creative attention.

Here was the first and only panel of the comic:  

The premise was that the MineCon cape I had tied to the Pause Plushie would bring any of the plushies that wore it to life.  And they'd have adventures all over my house, up to and including holding my husband (the Panda) hostage so that I would crochet Etho and Pause a new Beef for them to play with.

Anyway, that never happened.  But here's the picture proof that plushie Pause went to MineCon:

Signatures include: BdoubleO, GenerikB, BlameTheController,

SethBling, VintageBeef, KurtJMac, DocM77, MCGamer, Pyro

Guude, WBaj92, Zisteau, and JustVan (Bonus!) 

But as it happened, I started working on other projects, some of which were my very first commissions, and first inventions.  I've only ever published one crochet pattern to date, and that was only here on this blog.  That will probably change in the future, as I choose to divulge the new techniques I've learned/invented/muddled through to the masses.

Other Minecraft creations:

Mini-VintageBeef

(Also known as 'why you can't make those big plushies smaller'.)

Patches done after the style of the Minecraft creeper, pig, and sheep.

A little cake keychain.

All three of the above are for sale in my Etsy store!

Well, that was a short post, but with more pictures!  Tomorrow I'll share about how I got started on taking commissions...

What?

Head of the lore writers?

Oh, right.  Hmm...maybe time for both?  We'll see!

Broken Buttons 2014

After the MineCon map was finished, I think everybody wanted a little bit of a break.  Most of the builders on the team are between the ages of 12-20 (yes, I am an exception) and they had final exams, holiday plans, and all of that.

There was a lull, at least for a little bit.  The rumors of releasing Blackbeard (a mini-game type of map) had been quiet; the same with Juggernaut.  Additionally, I had heard that with the new resource pack, the team might want to go back and revamp Kingdom of the Sky I.

I set my sights on that, and began with transcribing all of the Youtube sound files BTC had recorded as the audio.

(For those who might not know, in the original game, there were signs placed around the adventure map saying 'Watch Video 1'.  There was a menu on BTC's channel where you could sit and listen to the character dialogue for what you were seeing at that particular moment, and directions as to what to do next.

With the resource packs, these sounds could now be included in the game with no break in the player's immersion.

So I got that transcription all written out and posted to the private Build Team forums.

(Somewhere along the way, I also acquired a promotion to moderator on those forums, so I could help evaluate new lore writer applications.  I turned down a few; the process was highly selective.)

Then BTC contacted me directly.  He had a pet project that had been on a back burner for awhile; in a TeamSpeak call he laid out the basic premise and the ideas he had.  

I practically couldn't talk.  I mean, I'm sure I tried to sound intelligent.  I hope I asked good questions.  There's proof that I took notes, but at the time I couldn't tell you what they said.  

(It is so embarrassing sometimes to be a fangirl; you come off as a star-struck idiot.)

TL;DR: I was informed of a new map that he wanted to do, that hadn't even been started yet.  Woot!  I was thrilled; this meant that I didn't have to try and figure out what all the parts of a pre-made map were for!

(The worst part about writing lore for a pre-made map is what if you missed something cool, and because you didn't write a quest or something for that one particular area, the players never get to see all the artistry and hard work that went into it?)

And then another surprise--I was added to the admin group.  (Don't even know if I should say that here.)  There's an admin group for the team leaders and such so that they can discuss new applications, the progress of the small build groups as they are assigned to different tasks, and tricky things like problems with the fan servers.

(I would have loved to have seen the conversation that occurred before adding me to the group.  But then, I think all people want to know what 'right' or 'good' thing they did that gets them approved for a promotion/more responsibility.)

All that aside; I came into the group right before there was a major restructuring of all the little build teams.  It was done in an effort to organize our resources better and keep ourselves on task amidst the resuming busy school year.

And then something even crazier happened:  BTC had made a custom Broken Buttons t-shirt for his build team members and made it available in his spreadshirt store.  You could have your name put on the back, which I thought was nifty.

But then he bought mine for me.

And sent it to my house.  (I saved the envelope it came in, along with the stickers inside.)

Fangirl Fiesta!

To be fair, he bought two dozen of them and sent them out to his builders all over the world.  Doesn't mean my little fangirl heart went pitter-patter-pitter-patter-boom.  (That was the implosion of fangirl love at the end.)

My very own Build Team shirt!  My face was aglow with bemused happiness!

And I have promised myself that if I ever manage to go to a large convention of geeks that might have the slightest clue about Minecraft, I will wear that shirt.  (I'm going to practice by wearing it to the SC Comicon that's coming up on May 17, in less than two weeks!)  

Bonus points if BTC is actually at the large con I attend, because I will muster up all of my nerve, say hi, and wait for him to ask me to turn around (so he can read the name on the back).

(No joke, that's what he did to Akeisu "the Woolmaster" at a con in Atlanta earlier this year.  Best story ever!)

Tomorrow I'll have to tell you about how I became the head of the lore writers.

(WHAAAT?)

Yeah, you heard me.  That was a twist I didn't see coming!

But for now, I leave you with this exclusive, rarely-seen belated Christmas photo of Team Canada:

(What do you mean, I never told you I'd made an Etho?)