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Red vs. Blue Season 3 Begins 189

Posted by Zonk from the what's-a-puma? dept.
Thanks to HavokDevNull for the news that Red vs. Blue Season 3 has begun! From the site: "Episode 39 'Best Laid Plans' weighs in at 8 minutes and 45 seconds and is available in Divx, Quicktime, and WMV. You can download it from our Video Page. Thanks for being so patient waiting around for it. "
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Red vs. Blue Season 3 Begins More

Red vs. Blue Season 3 Begins

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  • Dodgeball (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 )
    If "Red vs. Blue" is going to mean a videogame this season, then the political races need to switch to "shirts vs. skins". Who's who?

  • It's Hilarious (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Certainly worth the watch. The battle scene is the best.

  • Red vs. Blue is great (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Chris_Jefferson ( 581445 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @10:50AM (#10503804) Homepage
    OK, I sound like a fanboy, but Red vs. Blue is actually quite good :)

    I feel it's one of the best examples of "some people with some ideas, some time and an internet connection can make something funnier than 90% of the stuff on TV". If you haven't seen the first and second series, you really should.
    • No need to aplolgize for fanboy status of this!
      My brother and I were thinking about trying to do this (inspired by RvB) and realized we were doomed to think our work crap b/c they're so damn good at what they do. I bought the season 1 DVD (buying season 2 soon) and watch it about once a month.
      -nB (proud RvB Fanboy)

  • This should (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Milo of Kroton ( 780850 ) <[ ]o.of.kroton ( ... m ['mil' in gap]> on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @10:50AM (#10503805) Journal
    This should how long last? Big video? Seed the torrent before site server death is someone!

  • Awesome (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Mad Ogre ( 564694 )
    I'm not sure why... but I love RvB. Something about it... It's brilliant.

  • Ob. Slashdotting comment (Score:5, Funny)

    by mollymoo ( 202721 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @10:52AM (#10503828) Journal
    Woo! Let's link to a 50MB video from the Slashdot homepage.

    Would you all mind awfully not downloading it for the next 11 minutes till my download finishes?

    Thanks

    • Over thirty comments in and I'm downloading at almost 40k/sec (my connection tops out at 60). I'd say they can probably handle it.
    • They're more than used to this kind of traffic. Not only have they been linked from Slashdot many times in the past, but they've scaled up to handle the bandwidth as it grew. From their FAQ:

      "The videos are 320x240 to save bandwidth. Our first series, Red vs Blue regularly chewed up 170 Terrabytes of downloads in a month."

      For those without any reference, bandwidth can run from "unlimited" (see Serverbeach [serverbeach.com]) to paying $x/GB. When you're talking 170TB/month at approx $6/GB, you're over $28,000 in that month
    • Oh, the humanity! I'll bet their server is on fire! Roffles!

      Wait, no. I'm getting 50 KB/sec here.

      Thanks, try again.

  • this sucks (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @10:53AM (#10503837)
    i've never watched this before, and now i'm realizing why. someone should have voiced over a hamster or a wombat or something, at least animals can move around more than video game characters who raise and lower their gun for minutes on end to simulate talking. ... maybe i'm just old fashioned.

    • Re:this sucks (Score:4, Funny)

      by falzbro ( 468756 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @11:07AM (#10503966) Homepage
      i've never watched this before, and now i'm realizing why. someone should have voiced over a hamster or a wombat or something, at least animals can move around more than video game characters who raise and lower their gun for minutes on end to simulate talking. ... maybe i'm just old fashioned.

      Here you go [oceanbluepools.com].

    • Re:this sucks (Score:3, Insightful)

      by RatBastard ( 949 )
      Considering the limits of their source material, they're doing a pretty good job. But you have to ask yourself something: What's more important? Quality writing or varied animation? For me it's the writing that makes it funny.
    • ... maybe i'm just old fashioned.

      No, you're just unable to appreciate the work that went into producing a very funny series of web shorts.

      To put it more succinctly: You're just lame. :)

    • Re:this sucks (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hai.uchida ( 814492 ) <hai.uchida@gmail.com> on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @01:01PM (#10505208)
      So a home-brewed "underground" cartoon isn't to your taste. So what? If you don't get the joke, move along.

      Shark Tale is in theaters now... Of course the story is horrible and the jokes were flat and tired when I first read them in Cracked magazine twenty years ago-- but that doesn't matter, right? After all they put tons of work into the 3-D animation making those sea creatures move around and talk!
    • The problem is that you came in at Season 3. The series starts out pretty slow and dull. Around Episode 3 or 4, the rookies (Caboose and Donut) start showing up, and things get really funny. It's one of those shows that you have to watch a few episodes for it to make sense. I've yet to meet anyone that has watched three consecutive episodes and not been in hysterics at the end.

      If you're looking for a single episode to give you a good idea of their brand of humor, check out their public service announc

  • What Is It? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by booch ( 4157 ) <slashdot2010@cr[ ... m ['aig' in gap]> on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @10:54AM (#10503845) Homepage
    Why the fsck doesn't anyone bother to tell people what things are? I have no clue what Blue and Red is from this post. Clicking on the link to RTFM, I'm still not told WTF it is. Clue to people writing articles -- you need to tell me why I should care. Assuming I already know everything about what you're talking about is stupid -- if I already knew everything, I wouldn't need to read what you wrote.

    • Re:What Is It? (Score:5, Funny)

      by ravenspear ( 756059 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @10:56AM (#10503870)
      I have no clue what Blue and Red is

      That's because your UID is too low to understand it.

    • Read the FAQ (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Fr05t ( 69968 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @10:59AM (#10503893)
      http://www.redvsblue.com/faq/?id=3

      From the FAQ:
      "Q: What is Red vs Blue?
      A: If you don't know, why are you here?"

    • Re:What Is It? (Score:5, Informative)

      by mollymoo ( 202721 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @11:00AM (#10503906) Journal
      Q: What the hell?
      A: Yeah, we know.

      Q: No seriously. What the hell?
      A: Oh. We just write scripts and then use videogames to act them out. It's a new style of animation that some people call machinima. It allows to make weekly pieces of animation with a small group of people.

      Q: That was a long response.
      A: Yes it was.

      From the RvB FAQ [redvsblue.com].

    • Usually I don't answer to articles whose contents are beyond my limited understanding, because I am humble enough to admit that I don't know everything. That doesn't, however, mean that I don't read the article or stop answering to other people's threads (as I am doing by now). Sometimes when neither the Slashdot article nor the referred content itself has enough information, I simply don't push the reply button. Think again: do you really need to comment on every single slashdot article?
    • Zelda (a videogame starring a young Hylian boy (a videogame is a recreational electronic program (a program is a set of computer instructions(...))(a Hylian is something that looks like an Elf (an Elf was once a form of pixie but was redefined by J.R.R. Tolkein(...))))) will see a new version soon.

      I wish I could have posted this in the better way, but of course the filters are trouble.

    • RedvsBlue is what you tell your friends and co-workers about in order to make them think that you're ahead of the curve in terms "hip and cool things". Except that RvB is Sooooo Last Year, but it's still funny.

      Sorta like telling them about I Love Bees [ilovebees.com] except that everyone knows about I Love Bees now, and it's time to find something else to impress them with.

      And no, I'm not telling what the latest thing is, you'll just have to find out about it from somebody else. (And it's not the Donkey, either. Tha

      • And no, I'm not telling what the latest thing is, you'll just have to find out about it from somebody else.

        Don't lie. Admit that you're just waiting for someone to tell you what it is.

    • Hm. God forbid you have to click on the F.A.Q. link in the menu on the left of "TFM" (though I think you meant "TFA").

    • Re:What Is It? (Score:4, Informative)

      by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @01:21PM (#10505462) Journal
      I think that most people know what RvB is because it's achieved cult status.

      Put briefly, it's a short set of video captures made in the popular first-person-shooter videogame Halo that are then dubbed with the voices of the RvB people. Basically, they make sitcoms.

      The content is actually pretty amaturish, and frequently not very funny, in my opinion. However, RvB is notable for several reasons:

      * It is a video series that is free. There are not many sizeable series of video files that are available for free on the Internet (well, legally).

      * It is somewhat funny. Every now and then, RvB comes up with a really, really funny joke (the babies/pacifiers joke seems to be very popular). Their pacing is very uneven, though.

      * It is notable in that it is an example of amateurs without the ability to either film the video in real life or to model and render this to be able to create a watchable show. It's used as a bit of a herald of the future, where easy-to-use tools will let people easily express their ideas -- as much as computers have improved ease of writing, so do we expect them to improve ease of video composition.

      * Halo is a good game. People like watching Halo characters.

      * Halo is made by Bungie. Everybody loves Bungie. Bungie made a series of great games and had the most amazing conspiracy theories and story analysis [marathon.org] surrounding them -- no other game company has ever even come close. After they were bought by Microsoft, their "It's done when it's done" philosophy had to go (which didn't help the quality of Halo at all). Their current conspiracy theories are weak attempts to be as interesting as the earlier ones (the new ilovebees.com is blatant and in-your-face rather than just hinted at). However, there's still a lot of love for Bungie left out there.
    • You know, I often times feel the same way about Linux stories that are posted. I'm not flaming Linux, I'm just saying I don't really know much about it (yeah yeah...I'm here for the OTHER news), nor do I really know why I should care about all the little projects posted, and they never give a good explanation in the summary. So its not just RvB, its most stories that get posted to Slashdot.

      Although, at some point you have to assume that the vast majority of your readers know what it is from previous stori

    • I'm not trolling here, but can't you explore the links and find out for yourself? That's what the web is for, after all. Have some patience and explore.
  • I am still waiting for http://eric&linuxsystems,net/ to load :P - Seriously though RvB rocks :) - I bought their first two DVDs and it isn't a shabby buy :)
  • The classic and my favorite has got to be..

    "You killed Church you team killing fucktard!"

    or

    "It's not pink, it's lightish red"

  • Info (Score:5, Informative)

    by Liotius ( 739160 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @10:58AM (#10503889)
    Red vs. Blue is an online web show, using Halo characters. They use the Divx codec and they are are fairly large in they're amount of work completed as you can see it being they're third season. The ones I've been able to get a hold of revolve around the Master Chief who gives orders to fully vocalized named different colored Halo characters

    • Re:Info (Score:3, Informative)

      by CoffeeJedi ( 90936 )
      Master Chief isn't in it, that's Sarge, he's barely more intelligent than Donut and Caboose.
      Master Chief was mentioned very briefly in the first episode, but it was jut a throwaway line to sum up the events of Halo, and explain why there is now a civil war.

    • Re:Info (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anthony Liguori ( 820979 )
      I saw both seasons in the entirity at the Alamo Draft House [alamodrafthouse.com]. It's an interesting little story about a group of soldiers stationed out in the Halo world. It's mostly a comedy of errors staring a spanish-speaking robot, a couple ghosts, and some really stupid people. All in all it's a lot of fun :-)

      The creators actually stayed for QA after each showing at the Drafthouse. Gus even gave out the shirt off his back to one of the audience members.. it was, er, strange :-)
  • I got it!!! It's down! Okay, you can go ahead and take your turn, now...all 5 million of you.

  • pls read faq (Score:3, Informative)

    by earthstar ( 748263 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @10:59AM (#10503904) Journal
    I didnt know what this red vs blue was all about and I decided to ead the faq @
    http://www.roosterteeth.com/faq/ [roosterteeth.com]

    It was hilarious....have a read!

  • Slashtorrent. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by merdaccia ( 695940 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @11:02AM (#10503926)

    50MB downloads linked by /. ? No wonder they can't do the math [redvsblue.com].

    Maybe /. should start running it's own BitTorrent tracker, and ask permission from the content owners to host it. When/if they say yes, the story can be updated with a link to the torrent, ending their misery and ours.

  • bad compression ratio (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Karma Sucks ( 127136 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @11:09AM (#10503986)
    Why do the redvsblue videos have such a bad compression ratio for such bad quality video? I mean the file size is just comparatively huge. Not to mention that the movies are framed up and down by large black strips.

    I've seen recompressed DivX videos of these same movies in much smaller size elsewhere on the net.
    • They probably have a deal with Microsoft not to make WMV look bad so that they can make and distribute derivative works of Microsoft's IP (halo graphic design, etc...).

      Seriously, WMV does a very good job with natural content, but that doesn't mean it is any good with CG. Just try compressing a screenshot with JPEG.

      Disclaimer, I haven't tried compressing CG with WMV, nor with DivX - so this is purely conjecture.
    • I've read that the fact that the Xbox stuff is interlaced is part of the problem. When you can't use 3:2 pulldown, the artifacting from any other deinterlacing method results in a less than happy encoder.
  • Come on people, get to work! I'm pulling down the episode 39 divx file at 500KB/s (yes, big B). What a bunch of slackers. Get clickin'

  • Something I've always wondered... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by EvilCabbage ( 589836 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @11:18AM (#10504056) Homepage
    Who owns this stuff?

    I mean, these lads create this animated piece by using somebody elses protected art / characters, which (to my understanding) means they cannot ever sell this stuff in order to make a living, anyone confirm?

    Don't take this as me assuming these guys are trying to make a living off it, I'm just genuinely interested in who "owns" the end product.
    • I'm surprised it's not in their FAQ... well, considering what actually is in their FAQ, maybe I'm not so surprised. My layman's guess is that this qualifies as parody.
    • Given that they sell DVDs and appear to have no day job, I would guess that they make a living from it and are doing so legally. It's possible that they have permission from Microsoft to use Halo in their production; all of this "you can't use/copy/distribute" is always only if you don't have permission.

    • Re:Something I've always wondered... (Score:5, Informative)

      by CoffeeJedi ( 90936 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @11:29AM (#10504158)
      they have Microsoft's and Bungie's total permission and endorsement. The Halo team loved RvB so much that they actually commissioned original cartoons to promote the game. Go to any store that sells XBoxen and watch the little promo video long enough, and the RvB gang will appear and start doing their schtick about why you need to buy an XBox.
    • Bungie and MS have been very generous in allowing their fan community to use their IP for non-commercial purposes in the past.

      With RvB they seem to be making some allowances for commercial use (RvB sell sponsorships, DVDs, etc.) in exchange for an immense amount of very cheap grassroots marketing.

      To smart companies like MS (yeah, yeah, they suck, but they're smart), allowing the RvB crew to make some bucks off of their product in exchange for showcasing it to hundreds of thousands of visitors every wee

      • I'm not a fan of the series, but it's all gravy for them.

        I just hope the contracts they have don't leave them high and dry in the event of MS/Bungie wanting to turn "indian giver". It sure seems a fair deal now (and good on them for striking it) but marketing departments are still fundamentally evil.
    • IANAL, but presumably Rooster Teeth owns Red vs. Blue as it is a parody.

  • Jumped the Shark (Score:4, Informative)

    by Torgo's Pizza ( 547926 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @11:31AM (#10504181) Homepage Journal
    RvB reached it's peak midway through Season 2. Don't get me wrong, I think the production is great and I've watched every episode so far. But the writing has really gone downhill. RvB is best when riffing on gameplay elements or on the characters.

    Where RvB failed is when they tried to introduce some sort of miserable plotline of evil poltergeists, "body hopping" and robot love affairs. It's good for a small chuckle, but it's become to hard to follow and the plot actually gets in the way of the jokes.

    I nearly gave up watching, but stuck through it to Season 2. The lameass cliff-hanger convinced me that I'm really not missing all that much if I don't watch Season 3. I'll give their Sims 2 project a shot, but RvB is definitely on life-support.
    • Perhaps this is somehow tied in to my question?

      If these guys have an agreement to produce this stuff for MS/Bungie, perhaps they also have an obligation to produce X number of seasons?

      It's amazing how quick a passion can turn into a doldrum when you actually _have_ to keep working on it if you've moved on to new ideas.

    • Re:Jumped the Shark (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You might like this episode. It riffs on Halo as a multiplayer game and how players play it.
      • Gah, alright, alright. A co-worker downloaded it so I might just fire it up. I'll watch it in hopes that maybe some of that wisdom and magic from Season One has returned.

        I keep thinking that RvB would be genious if they went the Seinfeld route and made a show about nothing. No plotline. No story-arcs. Just pointing out the foibles of gaming that RvB can do so well and make comedy gold out of it.
        • Well, I watched it. Like most new episodes, there are two minutes of greatness and six minutes of hair-pulling. The plot again, sucks. Caboose has turned into a character that I hate to hate. It wandered for a good three minutes before anything amusing happened.

          The CTF scene was good. It was great. It brought a smile to my stone face. But it wasn't enough to salvage the episode as a whole. Nope, sorry RvB. You've lost a viewer. Somewhere, Fonzi is shedding a tear for yet another series that has l

  • Red vs Blue Upgrade! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mulletproof ( 513805 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @11:48AM (#10504374) Homepage Journal
    I hear RvB will be updating their animation software 11/09/2004. I've even hear they'll be adding new cast members, like Covenant actors with the upgrade. They've even got new vehical designs in the works, secret reliable sources tell me. Weapons too.
  • avast mateys, thar be spoilers ahead, ye been warned!

    Is it just me, or has Caboose gotten exponentially dumber!? In season one, he was dim and naive, but not much dumber than some real people i've met. Season two, he got really stupid, but still capable of rational thought (when they went inside his mind to root out O'Malley, he was very intelligent). This season 3 first ep though, damn... he has the mental capacity and speech patterns of a 3 year old. When he was dumb, it was really funny, when he was stu

  • I actually liked their whole first season, (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 88NoSoup4U88 ( 721233 ) on Tuesday October 12, 2004 @12:21PM (#10504712)
    but season 2 showed some minor episodes (imho).

    Hope they can recover, and show us some kickass episodes.

    For more machinima (the term used for creating movies with game engines) action, check out
    www.machinima.com

  • RvB (Score:2, Interesting)

    by colonslashslash ( 762464 )
    What can I say? I'm delighted, I loved season 1 and 2 of RvB, I only found out about it a couple of months back from a Halo fanboy friend, and it had me in stitches. (Particularly the aformentioned pacifist / pacifier / pedophile joke)

    I showed it to some friends round my place the other night, and whilst none of them being Halo fanatics, nor particularly hardcore gamers, they appreciated the humour and we had all had a good laugh.

    As mentioned in a previous post, this stuff is better than the large major

  • For any of you on Long Island, the Huntington Cinema Arts Centre [cinemaartscentre.org] is playing seasons one and two on the big screen. I don't know of any other place playing it in a movie theater, so if you are a fan, you should go see it.

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