Crawfish

Yikes, I never actually took that into account. Time zones have never been my strong suit, and I guess Ross doesn't live anywhere near the U.S.

It won't be any hour, there's a still a hell of a lot of editing for this one. I'm going to try my best to get it out later today, but no promises. Reading that kinda made me shudder. It's like it's my birthday and I've just been told "Well maAAAaaAaaybe we got you that one thing you've always wanted... Guess you'll just have to wait and see!"

I'd assume because, aside from minor scratches and a hole in his ear, Freeman was completely uninjured through the entire journey. There wasn't really anything for them to heal. I mean, he never even used a First-Aid kid except for when he got high off morphine.

My god, it's all coming to a close! This is about the time we should all start playing "Final Countdown" by Europe.

I'm personally rather excited about there only being 5 days left in the FM deadline. Just means that there's about to be a fairly large concentration of Freeman's Mind over the week!

If Ross *does* do Half Life 2 (and the expansions) that may or may not conflict with "Freeman's Mind 2: Episode 1: Episode 1." Maybe Episode 1 and 2 could just be Freeman's Mind 3? Why not Seasons? HL:S = Season 1. HL2 = Season 2, and so on. I think HL2: Ep1 and Ep2 would be the same season though, because Episode 1 is kind of short.

Cornwaffle is going to be out for Friday - Sunday, so sound editing work won't start on 67 until Monday, so no. Only deadline I'm promising is before 2015 on the series. I understand that. I didn't think it was an official schedule or anything, it's just roughly how the episodes have been coming out the past couple of weeks.

So we have a basic 3-day gap for episodes for now? You can damn well bet I can live with that!

I just had an idea. If Ross takes a particularly long break from FM after HL1, I bet he could release little shorts in-between, showcasing mods and such. I'd love to hear Freeman comment on G-Invasion, or especially Crack-Life. A bit absurd, surely, but funny.

Ah, good to see another Vinesauce fan AF.

You can bet I'll be here to support any content you come out with! But I hope you don't forget some of us sitting in the back who silently look forward to an occasional Game Dungeon.

Nah, I know what you mean. Maybe it's because I subconsciously connect this series to certain points in my life- but that's how nostalgia works, right? I remember laughing my ass of the first time I stumbled upon it on Youtube. I remember watching it with my friends in middle school. I remember my first reactions to many of the quotes (the beginning of episode 13 in particular had me laughing like a madman). I remember the feeling of giddiness and excitement I got when I came home to see a new episode had come out. It's weird to think about now, but some of us have been following this series for seven years. I've "only" been following it for six (I'm pretty sure) as of now, but it is still the only web series I have consistently followed for this long of a time. I grew up with Freeman's Mind (Civil Protection too, but that had less of an impact because the episodes were so few and far between), same as I did with all of the movies, books, TV shows, and games I read/watched/played. I started watching in middle school, and I'll soon be attending college. It was and still is what I watch when I just want to kick back, relax, and laugh, due to the simple premise and constant barrage of jokes. It's not the only work that I do this for (films such as Anchorman and Spaceballs being other examples) but it's definitely the one I've watched the most and keep coming back to. This series is what got me into Half-Life (which itself got me into PC gaming in general). Ever since I've played Half-Life 1, I've always been eager to see how Ross would handle Freeman's reaction to certain sections, from the three-story tall tentacle monster to the military death squads to the arrival on Xen. In fact, I still do anticipate his reaction to the last few levels (the Nihilanth will be a definite WTF moment for Freeman, though I hope he doesn't just blunder and kill it by accident or something). But yes, the game is coming to a close- and even though our favorite neurotic, paranoid, sociopath might continue his adventures due to fan demand... it still feels like the end, you know? Well, at least it's a good Christmas present. Well said. I wish I could say I've been following FM for that long. Though I'd watched the "whole" series/knew about it since a while before episode 43 (the last big pause before the Machinima crisis), I only really started actively following the development and release of Freeman's Mind since early 2013, about midway through aforementioned crisis. I had always assumed Freeman's Mind's creator to be like any other Machinima drone, pushing out content for the sake of money and nothing else. But then I read through Ross's blog a bit and started seeing him as an actual person, which made me feel much more attached to a series that I already thought was great. It makes me kinda sad to think about, I always manage to discover things late enough where I can't say I've been there since the beginning. But at least it feels great to be here now.

I wanna say something real quick. Does anyone know that feeling of want, of need, after an amazing, wonderful experience comes to an end, but not fully? Like, have you ever played a game through to the end, and loved every second of it, but something nagging inside of you says that even though you know the sequel will be just as great, the experience won't be the same? It's a feeling of mixed emotion. You look forward to the new experience, and it might even be better than the previous one, but it's just not the same experience. I'm starting to feel that way about Freeman's Mind, now that Half-Life: Source is coming to a close. It's been a goddamn great ride so far, and it's not becoming any less exciting as we're finishing up, but once Half-Life: Source ends, the ride will come to an end. And no matter how great the next ride is gonna be, it just won't be the same rollercoaster. It could possibly be a better one, with more exciting loops and turns and twists, and leave you feeling great at the end. But until the end of that ride, you just can't escape the nostalgia of the last one. The wish that somehow, it could have been longer. For myself, and I'm sure the same goes for many others, Freeman's Mind has created memories. The laughs, and the favorite quotes we'll always remember. And if/when Freeman's Mind Season 2 comes out, more of these great memories will be made, but there will always be something special about the first. A great example is with Pokemon games. Millions love Pokemon, the new games and the old. But even if they love the new games just as much as the old ones, there'll always be something special about the first game(s) they played. A sort of emotional attachment. What I'm trying to say is, even though it's not quite over yet, I'm already getting a feeling of loving, happy nostalgia for the first season of Freeman's Mind. And no matter how much I might want it to keep going forever, the Freeman Train is coming to a stop, because for HL:S, the end of the track is coming up. But I can't wait to board the next train, because I'm sure it'll be a newer model, fully equipped with refreshments, snacks and heated seats! I just needed to get that out. I hold Freeman's Mind close to my heart, like a beloved book series or game franchise. It also helps that Half-Life, to me, is a beloved game franchise. My apologies if anyone thinks I'm too attached to a YouTube series, but honestly, without Freeman's Mind, there'd be a big hole in my heart that nothing else could fill, y'know?

So does this mean he might actually not kill the friendly Vorts later on? I'd like to see him try to communicate.

Hey Ross, I had a bit of an idea that I think might be kinda cool. Either before, or in the beginning of the last episode of Freeman's Mind (at least the HL1 season), you could run a "Last time on Freeman's Mind" segment showing highlights of the series, with the entirety of Military Precision playing in the background. I don't know why, but I was listening to Military Precision and thought that hearing the music beyond the "Womp womp, PEW" part would really give a feeling of finality to the episode. You feel me?

Another reason is that with Half-Life 1 ending, Ross would need to start putting out new content to support himself with YouTube revenue, and I don't think the Game Dungeon is quite popular enough to get him by. So even if we don't get Half-Life 2, there's still high hopes for something we saw in Freeman Across the Universe, eh?

I'm not worried about little details like that, personally. Source is a buggy engine, and for all intents and purposes, outdated. I expect bugs like that, y'know? Don't worry about it too much, Ross! Well, I mean, that is literally what Gonarch is designed off of. Gonads + Monarch = Gonarch.

When the Essence of Metroid Prime is allowed to mature further it burrows into the ground and becomes the Xen Tentacles.

I completely understand where you're coming from. Personally, I love 60fps YouTube videos. It just feels so smooth, and in watching a few gaming videos I almost thought I was playing at a couple points, which gave me something to chuckle at. I think the videos that will benefit most from 60fps are videos of old 8 bit and 16 bit games, like NES and SNES. I've noticed that a lot of games that use flashing to indicate invulnerability after taking hits are hit hard by YouTube's compression, because the flashing sometimes makes the sprite either stay opaque or completely disappear for the duration of the flashing, and that's always pissed me off a bit. But Ross, I have a question. If, in the future, YouTube adds options for 720p and up to be either 30 or 60 fps, instead of locking it at the framerate it was uploaded at, would you once again consider 60fps? That way, anyone who gets nauseous from 60fps, or certain things about it, could just (hopefully) toggle an option to lock all videos at 30fps, like I have my general resolution locked at 720p whenever it's available.

Man, don't feel any guilt about that, I'm still sustaining myself from the previous donation money and I agree with your parents view on not having to donate to people with more money than them, it doesn't make it sense. Right now my income is hovering right around what someone would earn working full time minimum-wage, but I don't have to support 3+ people either. I never want people to send me money who are worse off than I am, I take a utilitarian view on most things. I do feel a bit better about it now, thanks. My want to donate remains though. I always feel bad when I can't support artists and creators that I love. One music artist that I like puts up some of their music for free, along with several buying options, and I always feel bad using the free link. I realize that I need to think about keeping myself stable too, but in a year or two when I have a stable job and such, I really hope to give back to the people who have provided me with free entertainment for all these years.

I like how you're using the bet thing as an excuse to donate to Ross. Personally I'd love to throw a few bucks his way, but considering I'm a minor, I can't exactly go pulling money out of my parents' wallets without permission, and there's no way they'd be up for donating to someone who's not technically in a worse financial position than us.

On generation is 20 years. I'm guessing at least a hundred has passed since Half Life 2, but I'd bet on longer. A lot longer. Yeah, I fucked up on the "back to where it was pre-resonance cascade" thing, but as I said before everything was from memory. And my interpretation on that was somewhat shitty. Still, though: From the Earth we saw in space, there seems to be a lot of wastelands cleared up (Or almost none there), the oceans and atmosphere look fine, there's so little pollution that Chell can see stars somewhat clearly from within Aperture and GLaDOS says she saw wildlife, (A deer and birds, iirc). "the ocean was lowered by roughly 50 feet, and 70% of the human population is gone." I'm not doubting you, but I don't recall any of that. I know that there was some stuff cut from Half Life 2 about draining the Earth's resources, but I don't remember a statistic about the people. "It would take centuries to recover, and even then, the Xenian species' would be permanently ingrained into Earth's ecosystem as a corruption." I wouldn't call it a corruption, but it's certainly a rapid change. My statistic about humans is an assumption (and I believe it was actually talked about in an episode of Civil Protection, something about oil, but then again, that's not technically canon), but it's safe to assume that considering the entire human race fought against the Combine in the 7 Hour War, that millions, if not billions of lives were lost. But you can obviously see the lowered oceans in Half-Life 2, primarily in the chapter Highway 17. The area where you're lowered to the beach in the buggy has several beached boats. It used to be a harbor, but because of the Combine using the Earth's resources on their homeworld, the ocean has been drastically lowered. 50 feet is also just an assumption, but if it's not that, then it's more. I'd personally love to see a map project where someone rises the ocean to natural levels, just to see what it would look like.

"Rattman is long dead. The combine are gone, the resistance is over. Earth won. Earth is back to where it was pre-resonance cascade." HA MATE! You can't possible know that! Nothing of this is confirmed and you're actually triggering my autism! The end of Portal 2 makes this pretty clear. Earth's skies are a lush blue, there a white clouds, blue oceans, a bright moon, huge fields for farming (looks to be for post-industrial use, considering its size), Rattman is confirmed dead from a turret wound, and we know Portal 2 takes place well after Half Life 2. Chell was in stasis long enough for the self-sufficient system to be torn to shreds. That is, of course, after a social hierarchy was established and different departments were created. The announcer is partially corrupt, GLaDOS' core corruption was at 80% (There were way more than the few Chell broke in Portal), and large amounts of Ivy have infested the facility. Not only that, but GLaDOS has the two robots now and says she "doesn't need Chell" anymore. Chell was the last subject, otherwise GLaDOS would have grabbed someone else. Seriously, are you trolling me? I find it hard to believe Earth would ever fully recover from the Resonance Cascade and its side effects. At least not in one generation. Thousands of species would have gone extinct due to the introduction of the Xenians, the ocean was lowered by roughly 50 feet, and 70% of the human population is gone. It would take centuries to recover, and even then, the Xenian species' would be permanently ingrained into Earth's ecosystem as a corruption. Headcrabs are proven edible as resistance members and Vortigaunts are seen preparing and eating them in Half-Life 2, and they're also as common as vermin, so they'd likely become a common food source, more common than cows, which are likely extinct or incredibly endangered. As well, with the introduction of Leeches and Icthyosaurs into oceans and lakes, most aquatic life is probably gone, except for maybe that which is far down enough to be in pressures that the Xenians can't survive. There's just no real recovery from something like that. It would be a permanent scar on Earth's history, and it would show because of the constant bleeding.

What about this as continuation of that intro: "...Although, some newer buildings on MIT looks really weird. Maybe they are just renovating. Besides, walking around the Stata Center stoned for the first is far more weird that this. Wait. The gravity here is fucked up? OK, now definitely this is not MIT either. OMG, the sky is purple. I'm in LA. Those stupid scientists sent me to Cal Tech. Pollution and beautiful sunsets my ass. I clearly said Massachusetts. This isn't pretty. This is fucked up. I bet they also say that the water in the San Francisco bay tastes like cinnamon due to pollution...." My god it's perfect!

Well that goes back to the teleporter clone question again huh? Oh goddamn you and your ways of keeping the possibility of a HL2 FM a mystery!