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The Guild wins at the Streamys
A big congrats to our friends over at The Guild, who picked up a trio of awards at Saturday night's Streamys Awards, honoring the best in web video over the past year. The show picked up Best Comedy Web Series, and Best Ensemble Cast, and Felicia Day was a big winner herself -- not only did she win Best Female Actor in a Comedy Web Series (beating out Lisa Kudrow, Megan Mullally and one of my favorites, Kristen Schaal), but that other little web series she was in, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, picked up a slew of awards on its own. And in other WoW Streamys news, as we said on the podcast post today, Alex Albrecht picked up an award for Best Web Series Host for his WoW video podcast, Project Lore.StoryGas has a list of all the winners (a list that's strangely missing from the official Streamys site) and LG15today has pictures from the ceremony, including a few cast members of The Guild all dressed up in their finest. 12seconds.tv has video of most of the award winners as well, including Felicia. Sounds like it was a blast. Congrats to all the winners -- this was definitely an excellent season of the show, and we can't wait to see the next one!
Fallon promises game premieres 'movie premiere' status
This Monday, "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" begins and Conan O'Brien ascends the ranks of late nightdom into the much-vaunted "Tonight Show" position. Why is this exciting news for you, you ask? Because Fallon loves Felicia Day! Wait, no, that's not it. It's because Fallon, like Engadget's Josh Topolsky, is a big fan of comically oversized iPhones. Wait, that's not it either.No friends, it's because, speaking with Canada.com, Fallon said, "We're going to treat a video game premiere as if it was a movie premiere. My generation grew up with the computer. We grew up with the Internet. We live in a video game type of world - video games are second nature to us. Games make more money, as an industry, than the film industry." He's certainly got a point. We'll be on the lookout for Mr. Fallon's promises on March 2nd, when his show premieres. And ya know, Jimmy, if you're ever looking for experts in the gaming field ... your friends at the 'Stiq are always available.
The Guild season 2 finale
Yes, The Guild season 2 finale is out now on MSN Video and Xbox Live, and it's a good one. There's revelations, revenges, an epic battle, and even some spiritual reflection on Vork's part. And it's probably fair to say that after this episode, The Guild will never be the same.That's it for this season, but The Guild isn't going anywhere -- they're planning a live Ustream chat this evening with the cast and crew to talk about the season and the future of the show. This season's episodes should also be "unlocked" from Microsoft soon, so they should be showing up on YouTube as well. We'll be watching, as usual, and we'll bring you news of the third season when we hear it. It's safe to say this season and the big Microsoft experiment turned out to be a big success (despite a few complaints about the exclusivity), so hopefully we'll hear more on what's next soon.Thanks, Savant!
The Guild gets down in episode 11 of season 2
It's throw down time around The Guild this week, in the second to last episode of the second season. Codex gets it on in a back room at the party, and Bladezz gets screwed (though not quite in the way that he'd hoped). Zaboo finally gets a chance to show how much of a man he's become, with a little support from the rest of the guys. And things are set right up for the season finale next week. The show's available on MSN and Xbox Live right now, so go check it out.In other guild news, there's now an official podcast for the show, run by two of the folks behind the scenes on the video shoots. And the official site has also posted a list of all the Guildies on Twitter, so you can stalk follow anyone you like. Oh, and as long as you're on Twitter, don't forget to follow stalk us, too.Season finale next week -- should be good.EDIT: Podcast link working now.
WoW Moviewatch: Dude, Where's My Mount? Episode 8 -- Awww Nuts
Some of the language in this movie may not be appropriate for work.Apt-T Productions is back with the well-anticipated Dude, Where's My Mount? Episode 8 -- Awww Nuts. In terms of ongoing, serial machinima, the DWMM legacy has really been growing. Between DWMM and the Chronicle of the Annoying Quest, fan-film viewers are truly starting to get meaningful, full seasons of entertainment.In this episode, our bewildered heroes return from the really real world (man), and land back in Azeroth. After a bit of confusion, they get chased around by dragons. And that's when they find the Elf Girl. Interestingly, the credits to this episode thank Felicia Day. (You might have heard of her.) Was the Elf Girl voice-acted by Felicia? I wasn't sure, and couldn't pick out the voice to be certain. Anyway, hijinks continue, and the pair of heroes find themselves in the midst of a squirrel army.I really feel like DWMM is getting better and better. Like so many serial novels and fiction, the longer the characters exist to gain life and depth, the more interesting they become. The comedic stride is also clearly evolving, as I find myself smiling and laughing a little more with each episode.Edit: Voice credits at the end conifrm Chelsea Sprauer performed the Elf Girl. Thanks Kincaid!If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.Previously on Moviewatch ..
The Guild, episode 9 now on MSN Video and Xbox Live
It's Tuesday, and you know what that means. Not only is it time to wipe down the Ampitheater of Anguish (that thing gets messy over the weekend), but it's time once again for a new episode of The Guild. And for those of you unhappy to see this here every Tuesday (perhaps because you're stricken with some horribly rare disease that keeps your eyes from moving on to our other posts instead?), we're sorry to say that there's only a few weeks left in the season. So let's make the most of it while we can.And the guildies definitely try their best -- they decide to take the night offline and split up the sexes, to... err... mixed results. Clara gets a little nuts with girls night out, and the guys also struggle to find something to do that doesn't involve signing into the game. Good times as always.And just in case you missed it last week, The Guild shared some pretty important company on MSN Video on Inauguration Day. Say what you want about the Microsoft deal, but even when there's big news going down in real life, MS is keeping up their end of the promotion deal.Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
World of Warcraft meets Jimmy Fallon, with Felicia Day
Fans of Felicia Day, rejoice! Our sister site WoW Insider picked up on The Guild star's next step into mass media consciousness. Conan O' Brien's Late Night successor, Jimmy Fallon, recently did a video for NBC with Felicia Day about World of Warcraft. The video starts off as an interview of sorts, but eventually depicts Fallon's painfully noobish (but pretty funny) attempts to get into WoW, but we suppose that he's mostly trying to get a rise out of people. Still, we suspect that Fallon may pull aggro from some of the more dedicated WoW players out there. Even if it's done with comedic overtones, it's interesting to see MMOs becoming increasingly part of mainstream media and entertainment. Obviously, it's generally WoW that makes the leap from gamer subculture to the all-encompassing spotlight of major TV networks, but do you think any other MMO out there could potentially hold such broad appeal? You can see what we're talking about below the cut, in the embedded video.
Felicia Day teaches Jimmy Fallon about World of Warcraft
I'm back and forth on Jimmy Fallon -- when NBC first announced that he was taking over the great Conan O'Brien's late night spot, I wasn't real impressed. But since then, you can't say he hasn't worked for it -- the show, which isn't even on the air yet, has been blogging and running all over the country to drum up some interest (including a little gig with the guys at sister site Engadget), and their latest stop takes then to the abode of our good friend Felicia Day to play World of Warcraft.As you can see above, Fallon isn't much for Azeroth -- while Felicia is rocking a pretty hardcore Warlock, Jimmy still has a tough time getting past the character creation screen. But he did drum at least one laugh out of me (which is one more than he ever got from me on SNL), so well done. I very much agree with the commenters on the blog -- if he can keep the show technology and geek-focused like this (and maybe get at least one character up to level 30 -- all Felicia had to do was say "roll on a PvE server," right?), he might have a chance at filling Conan's shoes.Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
The Guild posts episode 8 of season 2
Yes, the new episode of The Guild is now live for your watching enjoyment, and the gang deals with the servers going down the only way they know how: by driving each other crazy. Strangely, rather than running for the hills while they don't have to be in the game together, they decide to party up in real life as well, and that should be a sight to see next week. Plus, Codex gets her own game shut down by an unexpected player.Good times as always. The latest episode should also be up in HD soon on Xbox Live and in the Zune marketplace as well. Just the thing to keep you entertained during today's extended maintenance.
The Guild episode 6 of season 2
It's Tuesday, which means The Guild is back yet again with more wacky hijinx. Episode six is out on MSN Video now (and on Xbox Live and Zune soon), and there's some blowback from the "eruption" at the end of the last episode. Clara continues her campaign of corruption, and Zaboo does something you should never, ever do to another player.This episode seems long for some reason, but at the same time, it's kind of a breather for what we're sure will be an interesting episode next week. Felicia twittered the other week that they're working on editing down just the last two episodes, so the hard work for them is almost over, even though we're only halfway through the season so far.And finally, The Guild got a tribute song last week, a video and tune put together by a fan. They're pretty excited about it, but we'll let you judge whether you like it or not. We will say that it is a nice effort, and it's good to see that there are fans of The Guild out there willing to put in the time and energy to do something like that. Rock on!
The Guild: Season 2, episode five
Just in case, like me, you missed last week's Guild episode, you get not one but two episodes of The Guild today. In last week's episode, we found out more about the eye-dentity of Mr. Eyepatch, and now episode five is out today, ready to watch.This week, Zaboo continues trying to become a man, with the usual creepy results, and Tink shows a new side of herself -- Felicia promised us a while ago that we'd see new relationships sprouting up between the characters, and that's exactly what we're getting. Plus, the stuntman, who seemed like he might fit right in with the gang, might not actually be on exactly the same page.And this episode also shows off the show's bigger budget in a pretty exciting way (not to mention that the cinematography is looking really good lately). We almost can't keep up with all of The Guild coming out this year. Is it possible to have too much of a good thing?
Episode 4 of The Guild's second season released
The latest episode of The Guild is up, and as has been the case with previous episodes of this season, if you're not seeing it on XBox Live or Zune yet, it'll surely be there soon. It's a great episode, with plenty of the laughs we've come to expect from The Guild. I'm curious to see what impact this new character will have on the crew!In other Guild news, a gag reel for episodes 1-3 is also available. It's short and sweet, but their bloopers are just as funny as some of the real scenes. It's not super surprising that even their flubs would be hilarious given the cast they have, I suppose. I'm almost as much of a fanboy of Sandeep Parikh and Jeff Lewis as I am of Felicia Day. Almost.
The Guardian on The Guild
British newspaper The Guardian has a look at our favorite web series, The Guild, and how it has taken the MMO community by storm and vaulted its way up into one of the most popular television series that's not actually on television. There's no question that The Guild's popularity online was fueled by the fact that it follows a group of people who spend most of their time online, and with a built-in audience the size of World of Warcraft's, you might think that all they had to do was get the references right.But as The Guardian notes, success for The Guild isn't just a matter of hitting a niche audience. Felicia Day and Kim Evey say they spent eight hours a day emailing the show around when it first came out. And while the show is of course sponsored by Microsoft now, the whole first season was powered by hard work and donations. The Guardian attributes The Guild's success to "direct marketing of content to a niche peer group" -- find an audience, and then make sure they know what you're doing.And of course, as a Guardian commenter notes, it doesn't hurt that the show is funny, and as Felicia told us herself, they've gone out of their way to explain and convey the WoW-related stuff to an audience that might not always play MMOs. The series is attracting a lot of attention these days, not just as an MMO story, but also a how-to guide of how to get a television series off the ground without actually being on broadcast television.
[1:Local]: Perspectives on WoW past, present and future
Reader comments – ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week. Be sure to dive into the comments area of each thread (not this one!) and add your own thoughts – unlike your mama, we like us some hot, fresh backtalk. We don't miss that at allThis Breakfast Topic, which looked back at the little annoyances we're not sorry have gone the way of the dodo, included plenty of nostalgia for the epic-length Alterac Valleys of old. Players claimed to have hated them back then – but they seem to miss them now that they're a thing of the past. A number of readers pegged a different annoyance that early WoW players remember with chagrin. "One of the things I remember with the least amount of fondness is unconnected flight paths," noted lightningjynx. "There wasn't the clicking a destination halfway across the world and going to do something productive while you waited. No, you had to stare at your character flying to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time, unless you had all the flight path times memorized and played that way." "Wow, yeah, I had forgotten about that," agreed MadScientist17. "Had to try to remember which flight points went where." We agree, too – but ultimately, we think Veil has the pointiest point: "Definitely don't miss old Andorhal. That place was an f'ing death trap."
Felicia Day on having Microsoft as a Guildmate
In this day and age, you have to applaud geeks who take their ideas and make good on them. Take, for example, Felicia Day. Talented, beautiful, and geeky to boot, Felicia recognized that all the drama we know and love as part of MMO culture would make for one hell of a sitcom. She could have quit after networks repeatedly turned her down or told her they didn't get it, but she stuck to her guns. Producing the show herself and releasing it to YouTube, she's become a pretty epic Internet celebrity in her own right. Since then, The Guild has built up enough buzz that when it came time to distribute Season 2, she apparently had several offers to choose from. (No real shocker there!)Why choose to sign up with Microsoft, then? Well, okay, beyond being able to send your video out on Xbox Live - which is pretty geeky from where I'm at - Microsoft isn't generally known as a heavy player in the sitcom business. According to Felicia in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Microsoft is not only is willing to distribute The Guild on Xbox Live, for Zune, and on MSN Video in high-definition, but they're also allowing her to keep full creative control and ownership of all of the work. The deal lets Microsoft have it exclusively for four weeks up to the end of the season, but after that period, she's free to post it to YouTube (or wherever she wants, really) so anyone who doesn't own a Zune, isn't on Live, or willing to surf over to MSN Video can still enjoy the second season of The Guild. I just hope that Felicia and crew will keep us laughing with their geeky hijinks for a long time to come. Short of letting a baby nom on a powerstrip (and if you've seen that in real life, I don't envy you) there's quite a bit of The Guild that rings home with MMO geeks. Much like Jell-O, there's always room for more geeky humor - and more of the awesome cast of The Guild!
The Guild: Christmas special 2008
Yes, The Guild is back with another Christmas special this year, and this time it's a retelling of "The Night Before Christmas" with a decidedly MMO spin. St. Nick is a level 90 rare spawn, apparently, and the guidies have to be careful -- not only does he have a few mean adds (including a reindeer with a Shiny Nose buff), but he's got more than one phase to get through, too.Very cute. The video should be on Xbox Live and the Zune marketplace as usual, and we should be very close to having the rest of the guild's episodes sitting right on The Guild's site as well, so stay tuned for that. Maybe next year we'll be able to see some of St. Nick's dropped loot tables.
The Guild, episode 3 of season 2 out now
The latest episode of The Guild is out now (should be up on Xbox Live and Zune soon if the last few weeks are any indication), and it's a good one -- we get a peek into the life of the man, the myth, the legend, the guildleader Vork himself (played perfectly by Jeff Lewis), Felicia Day gets naked (you read that right), and a mysterious new face appears at the end. This might be one of my favorite episodes yet.In other Guild news, Felicia twittered just the other day that shooting has now wrapped on season 2, so while I'm sure there's plenty of editing yet to do, the cast and crew can now take a little bit of a break. Good for them -- the switch to the weekly schedule was probably a big jump up in workload, but so far they've stayed right on top of things. And while we haven't seen or heard actual numbers yet since the switch to the Microsoft deal, the new series appears to be doing well.Good news for both The Guild and web video in general. Enjoy the new episode -- we can't wait to find out who Mr. Eyepatch is next week.
The Guild episode 2 of season 2 out now
Episode 2 of The Guild's second season is out now -- you can view it right over on The Guild's website (you'll have to click to it), or in the other usual places: on Xbox Live in HD or on the Zune marketplace. This week's ep deals with all the craziness that got set up last week: the loot drama continues, Zaboo's T1 temptation leads to an unlikely quest, and Clara plots revenge. Vork has a new job as well, which will probably lead to trouble.If you were eating turkey last week and missed it, don't forget to listen in to our talk with Felicia Day on the WoW Insider Show. We chatted about the new season and what's in store for these characters, the big exclusive deal with Microsoft, and how to best explain geeky things like guilds, choose your own adventure books, and loot drama to people who have never heard of any of them.Weekly releases by The Guild is pretty exciting, we have to admit, even though the gang is working overtime to get them done. We can't wait to see what happens next week.Thanks, Hatorihanzo of Mug'thol!
WoW Insider Show Episode 66: Felicia Day and her show
Yes, our podcast is a little early today (due to the holiday, I'm going to be traveling on Saturday, so no live show as usual this week), but we've got a bonus for you anyway: Felicia Day, creator of The Guild and star of Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog, joined us to talk about the second season of her web series, which just started up the other day, and the deal they've recently made for Microsoft to show it exclusively on MSN, Zune, and Xbox Live.Since most of our bloggers were out for the holiday this week, it was just me and her, but we had a lot of fun -- there are some good hints in there about new characters coming to join our favorite guildies this season, the third season (!) of the show, and how Felicia is able to get MMO concepts (like "DKP" and the idea of a "guild" itself) across to people who may not play MMOs. And I also got to read some emails and get a little bit of WoW talk in there -- if you'd like to email the show a question or comment for next time, you can do so at theshow@wow.com as always.We'll be back as usual live on Ustream on Saturday, December 6th at 3:30 Eastern, so make sure to tune in then when we'll get back to the WoW talk. In the meantime, enjoy the show, and do go check out the first show of The Guild's second season (or watch it in HD on Xbox Live) -- it's great.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
Felicia Day on meeting girls in WoW
Felicia Day is a girl. Felicia Day plays WoW. Felicia Day tells boys how to meet girls in WoW. If that just didn't get the attention of every hormone-infused-female-liking nerd on the planet I don't know what will.Felicia say down with the Asylum and talked about this topic for a bit. Their interview with her touches on a few interesting points."Would it matter if the guy's a noob?" Asylum asks. "Yeah..." Felicia answers. She goes on to mention that the difference is like seeing a guy in a Ferrari. Not being a total noob and having some good gear at least catches the eye. This makes me and all my purples happy. The interview is an interesting and entertaining read. Hit it up when you have a minute and enjoy.And stay tuned to WoW Insider for more news on Felicia Day and The Guild. She'll be sitting down with Mike Schramm and a few folks on our podcast soon talking about Season 2 and Wrath of the Lich King.
