Production update 2023-03-21 / Patreon satisfaction survey

Hello everyone!

First of all, I want to apologize for kind of dropping the ball on updates towards the end of the last video. I got quite busy, my sleep schedule was all over the place, and I didn't take 45 minutes to make an update for you guys. I kept posting in the Discord server but I didn't consolidate the information in a neat post.

Today's update will cover a lot of different topics, so let's get started!

SMW 11 Exit Explained

How is the video doing? Well! It had one of my best releases ever, barely trailing Minecraft and getting 100,000 views in just about 36 hours! It's currently sitting comfortably at 2/10 in recent releases. 

Now, I must say, while there isn't really cause for concern because 145,000 views is 3 days is already awesome, the video is on a gradual decline and isn't showing signs of picking back up just yet. There's a chance it slowly settles down and stops growing around 200,000 views, which would be a bit of a bummer if it happens. Most of my WR and TAS explained videos have reached close to or above 1 million views by now, although it's true that some of them took years to get there.

Crossing fingers to see it reach the masses!

Next video topic

The topic of my next video: I've settled on Goldeneye 007 - Silo DLTK!

What is DLTK? It means Dark License to Kill and it's the most brutal and impossible difficulty setting in Goldeneye - in fact, in almost any FPS, period. It has all the objectives of 00 Agent, but enemies have 10x health and 10x damage, 100% accuracy and the fastest possible reaction times. Everything kills you in one hit and every single guard takes 10 headshots to kill.

Why Silo? Because it's the most run and gun type of levels, often really loud and chaotic with 5+ guards shooting at you at once in tight hallways. It's among the most brutal levels in DLTK because there are so many guards everywhere. Also, I said that guards take 10 headshots to kill, but they also give you back only 10 ammo on 00 Agent. Oh and did I mention that the level is on a time limit before the whole thing blows up? That's right: you can't even take it slow either!

The whole thing is absolute nonsense. Incredibly, it has been beaten by 10 different people, and the first time in 2013. Only three people have ever done it with more than 10 seconds to spare. Some have beaten it while the level was blowing up. The run we're gonna dissect is a 7:32 by BlazeM, which comfortably clears the time limit by almost a minute.

The video will focus more on strategies and manipulations rather than glitch explanations. There are basically zero glitches involved, but it's a very intricate choreography executed with clockwork precision and a healthy dose of luck.

Music releases

The music from the last video is out! Check this post if you have early access. I also posted the schedule for public releases on Bismuth Music, as YouTube posts. Here's the schedule in question.

Taking a short break

Right now I am sort of taking a short break. I'm going light on work and being on the computer in general. I worked 130 hours in the last 18 days of production and it took its toll. I've been having slight hand and wrist pains for a couple of weeks. I've been wearing a wrist bracer most of the time these days and it's helped some, but I think mostly I just need to rest my hands for a bit.

I believe it was caused my the all-nighter I pulled TASing. I was using a controller at the beginning, but switched to TASEditor and using the mouse for 99% of the work, which involved a whole lot of clicking and a whole lot of scrolling. In hindsight, I went way too hard and should have paced myself and taken breaks. Take care of your hands, people!

In the meantime I'm still gonna work on outlining the next video, possibly come up with a first draft of the script during the week. I'm hoping to get back to work at a normal pace on Monday.

Patreon satisfaction

Lastly, I would like to get feedback from you guys on this Patreon. I made a survey on Google Forms with about a dozen questions, either simple linear scales or optional suggestion boxes. I expect it to take about 1-4 minutes to answer. There are more questions if you have higher tiers of perks. I would really appreciate your input, and if you've had ideas or suggestions on how I can improve this Patreon, either by improving the existing perks or by adding new ones, now is the time to make yourself heard!

Here is the form! 

That's it for now! I hope you have a great week. I will be taking it easy myself. I'm going to my brother's house to play board games all weekend and I'm looking forward to that. See you next week!