Epic Default Productions

A long, long time ago…we shot another episode of Fanboys. After months of life, gaming, PAX, and podcasts getting in the way, we finally have it ready to show to you.

But not quite yet. Hit the jump for more info as to when you can see it.

I WANT TO SEE

Unfortunately, I’m not so snappy a dresser as the good Captain Proton.

wowlotsofwords

Self Portrait

Help! I was lured here with promises of candy and puppies!

Not really.

I am Epic Defaults new slave, Snifit

I am but a young’n, but I know my way around a console or two.

I am the embodiment of the angry geek, who is angered by the simplest of conflicts, whether it be DRM, the lack of creativeness in the gaming industry, or how that stupid neighborhood kid is a lagger, and there is no way in hell that plasma grenade could’ve stuck me.

I love the classic Nintendo consoles, and I can still do a wicked fast speed run of Star Fox 64.

Since I am currently being oppressed by the federal education school system, most of my game time has been stolen away by cosines and dangling participles. However, there attempts to make my life miserable are all for naught, as I spend most of the night playing Halo, GTA, or whatever else.

That is, until the next morning, until I complain about how late I was up last night.

And then I do it again.

I hope to help out the Epic Default team by secretly spitting in their coffee when they aren’t looking.

That will have to wait for now, but until then, I will silently be increasing my panda army, in my secret hollowed out volcano lair.

~Snifit

PAX ’08 brought us many things here at EDP.  We met new friends, started a meme, had a lot of fun, got authorization to commit Paint the Line 2 and Armadeaddon into live action form (woo!), broke a camera (doh!) as well as much more.  So it was fitting that on the drive home we were already making plans for PAX ’09. Unfortunately, it was always ear marked with, “it depends on when it is next year.”

Well, now that ear mark is smoothed. According to the PAX website, the dates for PAX ’09 will be on Labor Day weekend next year, or September 4th, 5th, and 6th for you calendar challenged readers. So we are making our plans starting now. A new prank will happen, and more than likely it will need many people. More CCST madness will commence. And of course the all out fun that every gamer worth their salt should at least see once.

Save your money, book your tickets, and who knows, we may have a meet up by then as well.

Underdog isn’t here! Sorry, I just had to make that joke. The introduction is always the hardest part for me to get down on paper screen, and most of the time I go with something corny – like the example above. But once that is over, then I get down to business.

Greetings! As you can see, I’m not one of the Epic Default regulars that you guys and gals have been reading so far.  But I hope to change that. My plan is to come here once a week and write something and have my posts finish in 500 words or less.

And so far I’ve already blown through 1/5 of that amount, so I best get on with what I was going to talk about… myself. I thought it would be kind of odd if a random crazy person dude just appeared on the site without any warning and started shooting his mouth off.

So hello everybody, my name is Andy. But as you will tell from my gamertag on the bottom of this post, my username is Qs23 and most people just call me Qs. I can’t be blamed for the lack of pronounceability of it though. I created it for use on my older siblings’ BBS board that they ran in the basement when I was around 6 years old.

And that hopefully should give a clue to how long I’ve been around technology. I learned my ABCs on an IBM 286, was writing school reports using Word 5.1, and surfing the net at 2400 baud.

And video gaming was there the whole time as well. My platform ownership history is as follows: Atari 2600, NES, SMS, SNES, Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox 360 and Wii. And all but the Wii and SMS are still in my possession.

And let us not forget the PC. I’ve been gaming on it since text based adventures straight through Myst on the CD-Rom and now up to World of Warcraft, which thankfully was able to break the addiction to over a year ago and even the expansions have not gotten me back.

But that’s enough about the past, what about the future? Well, I just graduated from Eastern Michigan University with a BS major in Electronic Media & Film studies and minor in Graphic Communication. What does that mean? I can produce anything for TV, Radio, Magazines, Newspapers, Movies, Internet, etc.

A lot of good that is doing for me at the moment though, because Michigan right now has the second highest unemployment rate in the country at the last check and I’m part of the 8.7% who don’t have a job. BTW, Rhode Island is first with 8.8%.

So what does that mean for you? Well that means that I’ve got time on my hands. Enough throw my hat into this ring on top of doing my own podcast. (I just had to plug it once) So as we near the end, I guess I will see you next time.

Qs23 appears courtesy of rapodcast.net. You might remember him from the PAX Review episode of our podcast a couple of months back. If you’d like to join the staff as well (we’re still looking for a web guru) please email us at fanboys.podcast@gmail.com

And now…a freaky game variant from Halo 3. Shark Attack!

So, as you can tell if you have been following us for a while, we barely know what we are doing here. Read: Barely Update the site.

So here’s the deal, I’m throwing open the door to EDP. You don’t have to worry about breaking your foot. There’s a lot of things going on in the core of the staff’s lives, either currently, or possibly upcoming, that will even further hinder updating regularly. So if you ever wanted to have your voice heard, let your design skills flow, or just generally have fun making fun of geeky things, now is your opportunity.

Now realize this. Currently, we do not make money off of what we do. This is a labor of love. We are looking at Avenues in order to get some income coming, but more than likely, all that is going to do is pay the basic costs of keeping the site running. If we happen to become profitable, well then pay will be discussed. Just don’t come into this expecting money, more than likely…you will be disappointed.

Here is what our plan for the site is. We want to do blog posts that are news related, but isn’t necessarily news. It’s more editorial than anything. If we happen to stumble upon a tip, or a connection, or someone giving us an exclusive, we definitely will report on it, but mainly we’ll just be giving our take on what is going on in the news. We’d like to get it to at least a post per day, but maybe even up to Kotaku, Joystiq, Destructoid, Sarcastic Gamer standards (Read: multiple posts per day.) The podcasts are trying to get to a point where we can get an episode out at least every other week (currently, that is not happening…sorry). Video skits and content is trying to get out at least once a month. We want to have a store where we can sell shirts, stickers, buttons, mouse pads, mugs, bobble heads, vibrators, you know, typical merchandise. We also want to get a forum community up, and a site that is both good looking, but not confusing.

The thing is…the 5 people on staff currently are all learning as we go, which is cause for most of the delay. The writing is the only thing that updates regularly because hey, we are some literate motherfuckers, but we’re flying by the seat of our pants on everything else. So we need help.

He’s what we need:

Article Writers — People to write editorials about geeky culture

Video Content Writers–funny people who can come up with jokes or funny stories that can be filmed

Podcast Panelists–Opinionated people who would like their voice to be heard…literally

Article Editors–People who have a keen eye for typos, grammatical, and train of thought errors

Video Editors–People who like to sit in front of a computer for hours on end watching hacks try to be funny

Podcast Editors–People who like to sit in front of a computer for hours on end listening to hacks try to be funny, and have a good pod safe music collection. Or at least can find good pod safe music

Web Gurus–People who would like to design and upkeep our site. It’s currently WordPress which works fine, except for a few code things that we can’t decipher, but you are welcome to design a site from the ground up if you would like.

Designers–People who can be funny with photoshop, design logos and merchandise for us.

Video Actors–People who think they can be funny on camera. Note: If you are not located in or around Houston, you must have your own camera as well.

The cool thing is that you don’t have to take on one job. Lets say you’d like to be apart of the videos, be a podcast panelist, edit said podcast, and write for the site. You can do that. Say you’d like to design the site, create post photos, write scripts, and be a part of the podcast. You can do that as well.

The one thing we pride ourselves upon at EDP is that it is a community effort. Everyone’s voice is heard, everyone’s ideas are welcome.

If you are interested or would like more information, please leave a comment here with an email address or send us one at epicdefault@gmail.com.

We look forward to hearing from you.

And since this is a post…here’s a video! More Mario Kart! with an impromptu Bad Horsing

What a whirlwind! I just got done taking a brief nap (I’m trying not to screw up my sleep schedule), and I thought I’d throw up a quick list of games I played:

• King’s Bounty: The Legend (PC)
  
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky (PC)
  
• Exalted (PnP)
  
• Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift (DS)
• Halo 3 (360)
• Hinterland (PC)
• Grand Theft Auto IV (360)

I played GTA4 with the Epic Default crew for countless hours (felt like at least 6) and I only wish I’d recorded it so I could cut out the highlights for you. Example: My friend Randomguy’s favorite tactic was to run past you, dropping grenades. I can’t count the number of times I gunned him down only to get blown up outta nowhere. Seriously, he plays GTA4 like most people play Bomberman. I’m sure Jonny will put up a summary later. Right, Jonny? *nudge*

Admin note: I don’t usually do these, but I’ve been nudged, so I must retaliate. I will not post up a summary, simply because Anthony wanted to do so for his article. It should be up tomorrow. I will however throw up all the recordings I made off of the live stream, so in case you missed it, you’ll be able to see.

I’ll put one up per post, starting with our little intro into the madness

If you haven’t donated yet, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!

Just kidding, but in all seriousness, this is an awesome cause, so you should donate if you can.  Even if it’s only $1 it will still help.  So please please please, help out the cause and empty your wallets to our team (especially Anthony and DJ…damn cheapskates :p)

For more info, please go to Extra Life’s home page

Donate to EDP

Donate to ClickPicTony (Anthony)

Donate to neenerheaddj (DJ)

Donate to Ekastoh (HotSake)

Donate to Jonny Nero (Jonathan)

So, this week has not been the best in Houston. The Epic Default House, along with 1.5 million other people, still is without power. There is devastation everywhere. And least of all the worries this week…my laptop caught a very nasty virus.

Luckily, I was planning for a reformat of the ol’ hard drive anyway. So I just took that opportunity to do so. Problem is, it took away from editing time. However the PAX episode will still be up sometime today/tomorrow morning, so stay tuned.

There is one thing that is a bright spot in Houston this week, however. Something you can help make brighter. The guys over at Sarcastic Gamer rolled out a great fundraiser for the Texas Children’s Cancer Center called Extra Life at PAX. I had personally known about this event for a while (one of the luck few who were at the SG Birthday Party when Doc round tabled it) and I’ve been excited for this day since he revealed it.

Today, Epic Default Productions officially announces it’s support of this cause. We already have a team set up, and some donations are coming in right now.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Extra Life is a 24-hour game-a-thon from 9am Saturday, October 18th, to 9am Sunday, October 19th (that’s in your local timezone). That’s right, you play games for 24 hours, and have people pay money to sponsor you. It’s really that simple, and that bad ass. Of course, more info can be found at the Extra Life site and Sarcastic Gamer as well.

Please donate to one of us if you would like, or give a Saturday to the cause. If you decide to join in on the fun, join our team! We want to make a great showing for EDP and kick Cancer’s ass!

There has been queries on the Random Access and Leetbix sites about where the second episode of the special edition PAX review is. Yes we have it, and I have it about 50% prepared.

I’ve cleared my lunch break and after work schedule for the next week (minus clean up) just in case. I should be able to have it up by Friday at the latest, so please stay tuned.

As a matter of fact, why not subscribe to the Epic Default Podcast, Random Access Podcast, and Leetbix Podcast feeds. They are awesome shows, and that’s the first place you will find any of the episodes as we get them done.

Do not forget to leave Itunes feedback on any/all of the podcasts, or leave a comment, or send an email to these guys as well as us. If they’re anything like us (a 99% possibility having met representatives from the sites at PAX), they will enjoy and appreciate it.

Also, stay tuned for the next real episode of EDP, we have got a lot of news and things to make fun of that have come up in the last month or so, so it should be a good one.

And finally, thanks for all the concern for all of us down here. We have got a long, tough road ahead of us, and hearing it definitely brightens our day.

Edit: Forgot to post this! here’s the pics of the ‘rent’s place before and after the storm