Tom,

hate to keep bothering you like this, and forgive me if you already read one of the PM's I sent you, but if you're interested, I've finished my top 50 artists poll and compiled the results:

http://vert.newgrounds.com/news/post/371 411

Cheers!

Just received a detailed review of my entry and I'm 99% sure that I'm not going to win. T_T
But as I entered mainly for the fun of it (and I already was pretty sure I wasn't going to win); and I received some great feedback, it was more than worth it and I'll be sure to participate in future contests.

Here's a huge thank you towards FatKidWitAJetPak for organizing this contest, leaving a detailed review and compiling them, and a thank you to each of the other judges, Stalagmite, Naxster and Scribbler, for taking time to judge this contest and for making some excellent suggestions and criticisms of my entry. In case any of you are interested, I've left a reply to each of your comments on the review made by FatKidWitAJetPak.

Good luck to the other contestants and let me end by saying that I'm personally rooting for RobbieKhan, his entry is great!

Here's my submission:

The Tale of Christopher Carter, by Vert Type: SongGenre: Voice Acting

It's nothing special, but it was pretty fun to record, so I'm happy in any case.

Thanks! This is the sort of step Newgrounds should have taken from the start, although I understand why you opted to go ahead without leaving an option, which is that this constitutes an (eventual) improvement to NG, much like the change in site layout.

I'll stick with the classic mode, for now, but when the wide layout is improved (and I'm sure it will), I'll probably change to that.

I'll keep this short and sweet: I hated the new format! I like to be able to open the window to a flash without having to actually downloading the flash, as I might just want to read the reviews for a flash, for example, or vote again for a movie I like.

Anyway of making this optional, via the account options? Please?

Looking for the guy with a million accents*?

For someone who can sound both sophisticated and, errr, unsophisticated?

And who has a (sadly) small range of frequency**?

Then look no further. I'm your man, as you can see below in my professional*** voice demos!

Small, random voice samples, by Vert Type: SongGenre: Voice Acting

Vert's Voice Demo Reel 2009, by Vert Type: LoopGenre: Voice Acting

Send me an PM or leave a message in my user page if your interested, I won't charge you a single buck!

* Well, maybe not a million, but quite a few nevertheless.
** Don't expect deep voices, unfortunately.
*** Actually, my demos aren't professional at all. I need to re-record the second one, in particular, as the recording quality wasn't the best (I was in a rush). So listen to the voices, not the recording quality, as I can do better!

Looks absolutely great! I love the design you've made for the pale man, specially the way his cheeks are so prominent, making him look even more "white", so to speak. Also, the 'turtleneck' garment he's wearing, that's an absolute must for a character with his 'issues', it hadn't even occurred to me when I was writing the poem.

I also like the way people are mocking him in the background, without allowing us to see anyone specific, as it keeps the focus on the pale man (and the terrible events about to happen to him).

So, in short, looks great! Cheers!

Congratulations!!!

<being pointless rant that should be ignored>

Tom, I kind of disapointed with you. How on earth did you not include, among the game nominees, at least one of the following, all of which have a similar theme, although vastly different sorts of gameplay, and were probably a direct product of Portal:

Bright in the screen CLNR, by HapPie Type: Game Rating: Ages 13+

Hunted Forever, by acrazycanadian Type: Game Rating: Ages 13+

MindFeed, by K-Guare Type: Game Rating: Ages 13+

Also, for its sheer originality, why not:

Z-Rox, by Evil-Dog Type: Game Rating: Everyone

Don't get me wrong, all the games you selected are very good (except The Torture Game 2 and Gemcraft, to be honest) and I'm particulary happy that you opted to include some very unorthodox games such as The Majesty of Colors and :the game:, but surely one the previous games deserved a mention?

<end rant>

I'm suprised no one suggested this game so far.

MindFeed, by K-Guare Type: Game Rating: Ages 13+

I'm not sure that MindFeed did, in fact, influence the two other games I'm linking below (the truth of the matter is that I imagine that all these games simply have a common source: Portal), but the case can be made, specificily regarding the way the game interacts with the players:

Hunted Forever, by acrazycanadian Type: Game Rating: Ages 13+

Bright in the screenCHAOS, by HapPie Type: Game Rating: Ages 13+

At 12/6/08 12:17 PM, Bahamut wrote: Bravehost link
Lycos link

EXP update #7 is now available!

This update was supposed to be expanded to all users with at least 8k EXP, but due to the amount of users I found with more than that, I decided to keep this update to 9k+ EXP users only. Seriously, someone who deposited everyday since the last update, but lost 50 or so ranks is just silly. Next update, however, I WILL expand it to 8k EXP.

Thanks for the update, as always! It's nice to see that a few people straight ahead are being lax in their deposit habits, that means that a few rank gains are coming, slowly, along. That and I finally passed Vash! X_X

At 12/9/08 08:29 AM, ramagi wrote: Thanks for voting, ramagi! Your experience has been automatically deposited!

With that vote, you now have 26,660 experience points. You need 1,090 more to get to Level 51.

Well I have offically taken ht down a spot and leveld up :)

'Grats!

How about (finally) creating a help/faq section in other languages? Hell, I'd more than willing to translate in portuguese for you, since it wouldn't take me more than say, an hour.

At 9/24/08 07:38 PM, liljim wrote: 4) Take the time to consider whether your idea is practical and useful, or frivolous and inefficient:
--- a. What level of user demand for this idea would there be?

Reasonable, I'd imagine. User that don't speak english too well might appreciate and, in fact, it might very well help expand the NG user base! After all, there's no reason to believe that people who don't speak english can't appreciate a great deal of the site.

--- b. Does it serve a purpose?

Yes, obviously.

--- c. Is there something else NG does that already takes care of this?

Nope.

--- d. Include your reasoning in your post.

Done.

Oh, and it should be quite easy and cheap to implement too. After all, there are bound to be plenty of users willing to translate and verify the translations.

At 10/18/08 08:31 AM, Bahamut wrote: Bravehost link
Lycos link

EXP update #5 is now available!

Thanks for the update, as always, Bahamut! And it's back to normal, after a few months of repeated (and extraordinary!) rank gains, with just one or two coming up. Eventually.

My Velouria, by jonnyroasta Type: Movie Rating: Everyone

Sadly, this came out on a 'Pico Day', which is why it has the pathetic number of views and score. It really deserves more attention. It's a very original take on the song and suprisingly polished, but was completly ignored that day... shame, really.

Thief: quest for jewels, by Unicamper Type: Game Rating: Everyone

Just a little game from way back. Simple, quite short, but quite fun!

Choices: a poem, by Vert Type: Game Rating: Everyone

I guess I really shouldn't nominate something I myself made, but I couldn't resist the temptation. But, on the other hand, I won't laud it's virtues either.

Oh, and I'm not sure if I was allowed to make more than one recomendation, Tom's original post didn't make things clear, so if it's necessary to put forth a single movie, go with Velouria (aka, the first link).

At 9/26/08 09:59 AM, Bahamut wrote: EXP update #4 is now available! (for the Lycos site, click here)

As always, thanks for the update! It's nice to see that I still have two or three rank gains coming up, but after that I'm going to get stuck on aprox. 82 for a long time. Which means that things are back to normal.

On other news, I've just noticed two very closely related facts: ramagi is getting very close to overtaking no less a person than Shrapnel! And humantarget52 is also getting <very> close to leaving the top 10 users too.

Such is the high living on the top 2000 user list: you never know what madness you'll see next...
=]

At 9/7/08 11:19 AM, Bahamut wrote: OK, that's enough of the update schedules, about switching webservers, I have done that and you can now find the EXP list on my Bravehost site as well as my Pentalist updates. The only thing that's been bothering me are the ads and other crap put on the site. I can pay to have these ads removed, but I'll only do that if the ads are a pain for the majority of you. If you all can deal with the crap put on the site, that's fine, but if not, I'll be willing to pay some money to make it look better.

I can see! For the first time in I-don't-know-how-long, I can actually see the update! And, like I said before, I have some a few easy rank gains coming up too, which is always nice. However, I also noticed something scary: I'm only about 800 exp (which is more than two months away, but still) from overtaking Vash-The-Stampede!

X_X

After Wade and bigbadron, he's probably the biggest "scalp" I've ever (well, technically, "will, in the near future, ever have") managed collect. Never thought I'd overtake a guy like him, to be honest. Still, many thanks Bahamut, for maintaining the list and, specially, for taking the time to re-create the site in a new host. Cheers!

At 9/7/08 01:30 AM, BR wrote: Anybody have any regrets? ;-)

Oh, I'm guessing quite a few of us (possibly myself included) will have regrets sometime in the future... but right now, we're so caught up in the <exageration on> adrenaline rush <exageration off> that we don't notice things we might have reasons to regret.

<j/k>But seriously, I also imagine that a few of us will wear the levels, ranks and badges we've earned proudly as, well, err... as badges when NG becomes the multinational, VR making corporation (akin to Blade Runner), complete with standing army that will come to dominate the world in a couple of years thanks to its hipnotic flashes (think hipnotoad of Futurama fame, but nastier).

After all, in this "bright future", old users such as ourselves will become the ruling elite! I mean, that's the reason we all keep depositing, right? To become the ruling elite in the new world order? I mean, no one in their right minds would keep depositing for X (where X equals to 3, 4, 5...) years straight just for fun, right?

At 8/31/08 05:47 PM, Bahamut wrote:

At 8/25/08 07:31 PM, Vert wrote:

At 8/25/08 07:19 PM, Bahamut wrote: What? You've not been able to get on my site? How odd. All I can guess is either Lycos doesn't agree with the ISPs in Brazil or vice-versa. I've asked Sir-Nuts about this issue via PM, so if he says he can't access to my site either, I'll just have to find another webserver that doesn't screw around like that.

Well, I'd appreciate the change, but only if it's too much trouble... after all, you can always just post the top 100 here and I'll be more than happy! j/k

I'll try and look out for another webserver sometime this week. There's not a lot to do this week real life-wise, so I really should do something with my spare time. Also, if you want to see the 10 users above you, here they are:

77 Molotov 20,040 290 +2
78 DRGONEYE 20,000 160 -2
79 jonthomson 19,982 280 +1
80 Josh 19,883 0 -5
81 Painbringer 19,860 280 +1
82 bluntedboy 19,700 270 +1
83 Fatboy 19,675 0 -2
84 whitewolf360 19,620 250 +2
85 b33f 19,598 280 +2
86 ayegowj 19,519 120 -1
87 Vert 19,490 280 +3

Much appreciated! Seems that I have two or three "easy" rank gains coming up... great! It's just a shame that b33f is such a persistent depositor. And, in all honesty, don't stress out too much about making a new site. I've never complained before (and this has been a long time problem) because I don't actually 'need' the updates to keep me going, although they are, again, greatly appreciated.

At 8/25/08 07:19 PM, Bahamut wrote: What? You've not been able to get on my site? How odd. All I can guess is either Lycos doesn't agree with the ISPs in Brazil or vice-versa. I've asked Sir-Nuts about this issue via PM, so if he says he can't access to my site either, I'll just have to find another webserver that doesn't screw around like that.

Well, I'd appreciate the change, but only if it's too much trouble... after all, you can always just post the top 100 here and I'll be more than happy! j/k

At 8/23/08 11:10 AM, Bahamut wrote: The latest EXP List update is now up!

There shouldn't be any missing users here.

Bahamut, is there any reason why someone from Brazil wouldn't be able to open your webpage? Why ISP from around here wouldn't manage to connect? Because I've never, ever, managed to open your page, for some strange and etherial reason that lies beyond my comprehesion, even after trying on multiple ISP and computers. T_T

And ramagi, 'grats! It's sheer luck, of course, but + 2 is certainly something to celebrate!

At 7/27/08 12:07 AM, gfoxcook wrote:

At 7/18/08 09:06 AM, Bahamut wrote:

And that's nothing compared to the 50. Which is nothing compared to the 25. Or the 20. Or the 10. Or the 5. Or the 1.

And the 1 is nothing compared to the 0, actually. Just you try getting to rank #0 in ANY NG stat. It's so fucking hard, man. It might as well be impossible!

Which was pretty much my point when I said (way back and what pretty much started all this) that you're only as high rank as you feel. Do you think bomb feels he's at a high rank? Maybe he does, but I'm willing to bet he'd give his right foot to be number 1 and, until he does, he's not 'truely' happy. We're always running and running and, in the end, all that seems to matter is our relative position to the next in line, which is why so few seem to be really happy with the rank they're in.

And even Pimp probably isn't all that pleased with the situation, since he's constantly looking over his shoulder and seeing us all chasing after him...

In the end, I recon that the best thing to do is simply enjoy the trip / exp grinding and hope that Tom changes those crappy 51-53 levels icons (man, they suck so bad when compared to the rest of the level 50's...).

At 7/10/08 05:56 PM, Bahamut wrote:

At 7/10/08 03:41 PM, Vert wrote: If for some reason she dosen't have it, I once helped ramagi to do the update and I <think> I still have the spreadsheet I used from them somewhere. However, that was a long, long time ago and so I'm doubtfull as to how much help it would be.

I'm guessing this was years ago. Not only the EXP ranks would look very different to what it is now, but the URLs must have still gone by the profile ID's.Plus, people had underscores and hyphens at the start and end of their names. I don't think it will be much help, but could you please tell me the date of when the stats were pulled anyway?

Yep, it happend way back in 2005! Yikes, sometimes I completly lose track of my NG time (as oposed to my real life time). Anyway, I'm guessing that you won't want the file now, right? After all, a file from 05 (when I still had my old, slightly pathetic username...) isn't going to be much help, right?

At 7/10/08 09:55 AM, Coop83 wrote:

At 7/9/08 07:03 PM, Bahamut wrote: I've been checking many accounts on Newgrounds to find those missing 10k EXP'ers. When I made that EXP update, there were around 30 users missing. Now, there's 10 more users with at least 10k EXP. There should be around 2 - 4 of those on the spreadsheet already. However, from those 30 missing users, I have only been able to find 6 so far. I've mostly checked on NG Log and the B/P spreadsheet and sadly, I don't know any other effective methods to find those missing fuckers.

Have you tried ramagi? She might have a solution, since che has run this list quite well pre-redesign, which is 1 year ago now...

If for some reason she dosen't have it, I once helped ramagi to do the update and I <think> I still have the spreadsheet I used from them somewhere. However, that was a long, long time ago and so I'm doubtfull as to how much help it would be. You're probably better off asking her, but should that fail, you know what to do.

How about the characters of the underated Pick Up series? I know, I know, two movies hardly qualifies as a series, but I still enjoy them...

If not, then how about Irving, or a Rienland (pixelated nudity!) or even a Claveman shirt! Only the last one classifies as a series, but I love them all anyway!

No responses so far, but that's to be expected. I'll only bumb this once, maybe twice more and wait, so I'm kindly asking for the mods not to lock this.

I'll try to keep this short. I released my latest movie in the beggining of the year and even as I clicked submit, I imagined that the overall visual design and presentation of my movie would be considered it's biggest weak point, which was confirmed in subsequent reviews. Knowing that I currently don't have the necessary skills to improve this aspect of my movie (and I would thus need an investment in training that is beyond my current possibilities to acquire them), I've decided to try and recruit a co-author for my next movie.

So, I'm looking for a artist with a proven track record (i.e., I want to see reasonable previous work before I'll work with you), at least some minimal knowlegde of ActionScript and an interest in poetry (or, at the very least, you should have liked my movie!). Basicly, I'd provide the poem (which I haven't written yet, since I don't want to force feed a poem to my co-author) and the voice acting and, possibly, a bit of help with the action script, while my co-author would create the flash itself (i.e., design and program it).

Feel like your up to it? Then just PM me, write a message on my userpage or post a reply here with (a) link(s) to your previous work(s) and I'll take a look and get back to you. Note that I may take a while before I reply, so please be a little patient.

Thank you for your time.

Just wanted to say a big thank you to all for all the reviews I've received for my movie. The feedback has provided my with new and interesting ideas and I really appreciate it! Thanks again!

At 6/7/08 02:42 PM, Bahamut wrote: Just looking at myself next to Coop, gfox, iscrulz, Vert and a few others here makes me think my level is very low.

It's all in the mind, really. If you feel high level, you'll, er, feel high level! Anyway, everyone knows that as long as your level 36 or over, which means you're in the top 40% of levels, you can oficially feel high level. It says so in the ultra top secret message Tom Fulp PM's you at when you reach the level.
=]

At 6/5/08 03:24 PM, Vert wrote:

At 6/5/08 01:37 AM, gfoxcook wrote: I'm already kinda taken, but thanks for asking, nonetheless!

Ah, shucks. Any volunteers from the regulars? Coop? BR? Bahamut? Anyone?

Yes, how may I help you?

Err, I'd highly recomend you take a look at my original post. You do realize that I was asking gfoxcook to
<insert dramatic music>
Marry Me!
<camera quickly swivels to look at Bahamut's shocked face>

At 6/5/08 01:37 AM, gfoxcook wrote: I know of the straw man argument. I DENY THESE ALLEGATIONS!

Hah, you're wrong 'cause your ugly!

Blame it on google / MS Word which usually give out the inferior american sugestions, since the default english on my version of word always comes back to the American version and I can't always be bothered to change things. And on the fact that it's been over 10 years since I lived in England and most the material I read is probably written by Americans (except the BBS news page which is, btw, the best news page on the web).

I knew it! ALL MICROSOFT'S FAULT. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....

As usual.

Do you mean BBC news page? Because NG BBS News is mostly written by Americans (such as Tom Fulp #;-}>).

<sigh> I can't seem to make a single post without making a critical mistake...

Vive le communications!

Viva!

I picked French, you picked Spanish/Italian. #;-}>

I did this one on purpose, whoever. And you should have said Spanish/Italian/Portuguese, actually.

I'll never forget that. In fact, now that California has legalized it, want to get married? <does a Fonzie-like "Aaay!" pose>

I'm already kinda taken, but thanks for asking, nonetheless!

Ah, shucks. Any volunteers from the regulars? Coop? BR? Bahamut? Anyone?

At 6/1/08 12:18 AM, gfoxcook wrote: Not really, seeing as how I already said that SOME (key word) 13 year olds who've lived in America (or England) for all their life display far worse English skillz than most non-native English speakers on this forum, so...

Thanks.

It may have happend, sure, but even then it'll probably have happend, what once? Maybe twice. That's pretty rare in my book. In any case, see below.

I never denied it was rare. #;-}>

True. Can't denie that, but it seemed implied.

No that's nothing like what I said and I have to be completly honest with you, I have no idea how you infered what I wrote meant that. X_X

I took what you said to the logical extreme. It's a debating... er... punditry technique. #;-}>

Kinda like playing devil's advocate.

Actually, you commited a very famous logical fallacy, the straw man argument (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man)
. I wasn't completly sure if you realized that or not, so I decided to play it safe and not point it out immediatly.

Well, I could be all sarcastic and say something like "You don't say, captain obvious", but I don't want to needles antagonize you.
=]

Needlessly antagonising FTW!

Argh... I knew I had spell needlessly wrong, so I copied and pasted it and spell checked it on google, but I didn't stop to see if the word suggestion it gave me was right... X_X

It's interesting that your only experience living in an English-speaking nation was in England itself, yet you for some reason learned to spell "ize/ise" words with the far inferior (IMO) z-American spelling, rather than the s-British spelling. Any story behind that?

Blame it on google / MS Word which usually give out the inferior american sugestions, since the default english on my version of word always comes back to the American version and I can't always be bothered to change things. And on the fact that it's been over 10 years since I lived in England and most the material I read is probably written by Americans (except the BBS news page which is, btw, the best news page on the web).

Me, I love the "ou" instead of "o" and "s" instead of "z" spellings so much more than in informal internet typing, I use the British versions on purpose. If I'm writing in a school or job related context, I write the American way. It's really amazing how I can do all of that with fairly little thought required. #;-}>

Interesting. Although I always believe the British spelling to be vastly superior on all ocasions, without exception (for obvious reasons).

One thing I don't agree with the British way, however... is in respect to the pronunciations of words like "schedule" and "aluminum," of which I far prefer the American English versions.

Nien! The true British pronunciations / accent sounds tons better than the American way of doing it. Hell, I prefer the Australian way of doing so than the American English sort!
=]

What else is new? #;-}>

Seriously, dude. What is life but a series of, it could be claimed, "pointless" discussions.

Vive le communications!

Viva!

Anyway, if all you were trying to say was that passing four people so quickly is quite unusual for where you are in exp rank, then I would have heartily agreed with you and that woulda been the end of it, but the way you originally said it was far from that, in how I interpreted you:

"Doesn't anyone else find it curious that so many rank gains would occur in such a small time? I'm so used to gaining a rank every few months that to have it all happen so quickly was very strange... I can't even remember when I gained 4 ranks in the space of a month." - Teh Vert

The fact that you used words like "curious" and "strange" and then asked if anyone else found it so, made me perceive you as having a tone of... almost suspicion.... about how such a thing could happen. And so I responded to your question (I hope it wasn't rhetorical #;-}>) by adopting the "skeptical" position, you could say.

If I threw a wet blanket on your party, I do apologise. #;-}>

No apologies are necessary, I expressed myself badly.

But you will no doubt remember that when many folks threw a wet blanket on a prior party of yours, I was the only one who said "yeah, I get this Vert guy. He's cool." #;-}>

I'll never forget that. In fact, now that California has legalized it, want to get married? <does a Fonzie-like "Aaay!" pose>

Right, one last shot at this, because if Luis himself telling you guys to stop isn't working, why on Earth would you guys listen to me:

How many of you who wanted another movie / game / user to win, instead of the excelent winners produced, took the time to go to the user page or PM the author of said movie / game telling them that you were hoping they would win, that you were sad that didn't and that you hope they can win next year?

I did that (I did it before I even posted here a second time) to my favourites (Rienland and Dct Grimoire) because even though I belived them to be the best, I decided that instead of complaining and moaning about them not winning, I'd instead show support for the artist that I cherished! Which I feel helps them out much more, by showing how much I admired and cared for their flashes, then to complain in this thread, which acomplishes nothing except taking away the joy of the winnners and of those celebrating the awards in general.

Btw, I also congratulated the winners on their user pages.