Player Interview: TGE & Pudding

Hey Guys! I was able to grab an awesome interview with TGE & Pudding. Please check it out below.

Briefly introduce yourself TGE & Pudding! Who are you? And what can you tell us about yourselves? 

I'm Tom, but you can call me Ping, TGE, THEGREATESTEVER - whatever you want! I'm the co-creator of the "PUDDING and THEGREATESTEVER" FlyFF machinima series and am currently working on our team's newest, biggest machinima project, "Legends of Roika: Dawn of the Phoenix!" Um, I love to do video editing and animation. My favorite color is red. And.... I'm excited to get deeper into the story of LoR!

And I’m Kristen also known as PUDDING, Mystic, or MysticMoon. I helped Tom create the original series. I’m pretty much his cheerleader. Go Tom GO!~ While he makes all the awesome videos, I’m the one trying to get it out there for others to see. I guess you could say I’m the voice of the series since I talk to most of our contacts and the fans. But now we have a production team to help us out with all of that! I like sweets, cute things, and cats!

Why are you called Pudding? Why are you called TheGreatestEver? Where did these nicknames originate from? 

The PUDDING and THEGREATESTEVER names originated from my entry to the FlyFF Halloween contest in 2007. We needed a name to describe somebody who was a cocky, full-of-himself loser, and thus THEGREATESTEVER was born! PUDDING was actually a name I called Kristen back in the day, which came from her love of pudding and jello pudding pops! It also fit nicely with the character being all cute and stuff.

How long have you been playing Flyff for?

We started playing back in June of '07. We were looking for a fun game that we could play together and just happened to see an ad for FlyFF on a random gaming website. We played Flyff for a long time, eventually getting some of our friends addicted to it *cough* Matt aka the voice of LegendaryLover XD. We don't play that much anymore, though. We're too busy with our projects and whatnot. If you see us in-game, it's usually because we're doing some filming!

What are your favorite things about Flyff?

Tom - My favorite things about FlyFF would have to be the music and weapons. I fell in love with the game when I heard the battle theme of Flaris when I first started playing. It was awesome! And I love the weapon art of FlyFF. My favorite is the Ivillines Big Sword - it looks evil >:D

Kristen - Aibatts and lollipops! And the really cute cs clothes and pets. I also like the fact that you can pretty much go anywhere in the game. By this I mean the ability to fly, jump, and the use of the wasd keys. This really helps when you are trying to make a machinima. Sadly there are a lot of mmorpgs out there where you cant even move your character other than by using your mouse. It may seem insignificant to others, but it really makes a big difference.

What inspired you guys to create MysticalPing Productions?

When we finished the "PUDDING and THEGREATESTEVER" series, we wanted to create a more official identity for our next projects. We couldn't think of anything when it came to a name for our group, so we just named it after my first character in FlyFF, MysticalPing. We invited some people to join the group that had helped us in the past. Our hopes was that if we could get more people to help us, our projects will finish faster and be higher quality!

What are your responsibilities in the team?

Tom - Pretty much everything lol. I do the scripting, filming, editing, 3d animation, voicing, etc.. I also create the MBC News episodes that launch whenever a new LoR episode is released. It's all very... time consuming XD

Kristen - I do the voice of PUDDING! I also manage our forums and take care of things over on the official FlyFF forums! I have various projects that I'll be releasing soon, too. But I don't want to reveal all that yet! I'm sort of the project overseer and keep tabs on everybody, EVEN YOU! lol

What sparked your interest in making a project that involved Flyff?

We love doing video projects and thought why not do something for the game we play? It's really broadened our talents in the field as well.

What is Legends of Roika: Dawn of the Phoenix? Who came up with the idea behind this project?

It's basically a rework of the "PUDDING and THEGREATESTEVER" series. We thought that since we improved in our video skills that we could create a bigger, better "PUDDING and THEGREATESTEVER!" And since we also partnered with Machinima.com to showcase our work, we wanted to create something that non-FlyFF players could watch and (hopefully) relate! We also wanted to create something more professional than anything we've created so far.

The name also implies that there could be future series to the Legends of Roika story. For example, Legends of Roika: (insert title for series here)! We did this so that we could add to the story eventually, while at the same time being a totally different series.

Did your group feel pressure about making the first episode successful?

Well not really haha. We were more or less excited to see what people thought of the first episode! If there's any kind of pressure, it's usually the wait for Machinima.com to release our episodes. We want to make sure we release the MBC News announcement asap whenever we see the LoR episode on Machinima's youtube.

Were there any challenges in the production of this project?

In the beginning of the project, the main challenge was limiting the story to what I was capable of doing in 3d and through in-game filming. There were also issues with trying to get things done in a timely fashion. There's a lot of time and work spent into each episode, more than 100 hours I'd say! And that's pretty tough to fit into everyone's lives when they've got school, work and other things going on. Other than that, there was the challenge of making scripts/episodes last a certain length. That's no-longer an issue now, though. The issue these days is trying to get things done while trying to keep to our planned 2 week release schedule!

Describe a Typical day.

Tom - If I'm not working at my job, then I'm working on the project. I'd say an average of 3-6 hours a day is spent on the project for me. If I'm rendering something, or if it's 12am, I usually take a break and watch anime or play a game with Kristen!

Kristen - I work semi full time. On my days off I poke around on the interwebs and work on various aspects of the project. Most of my time is spent on our forums moderating and what not. When I’m not working on the project, I enjoy playing games with Tom, hanging out with my cat Mystic, and watching anime!

Are there any other members in MysticalPing Productions that you would like to mention?

We have a handful of awesome people on our team! Everyone collaborates on different areas of the project, but we more or less have certain responsibilities.

Matt (TickleMeMatt, LordBizkit) - Does the voice of LegendaryLover as well as any other minor character in the scripts. He also has a marketing project that he just started that'll help promote the series and our production! Matt also helped create the skeleton of the story, so much of what you're going to see is based off of his awesome ideas!

Lauren (Kinneko) - Does the voice of Rain. She also created some story for the first few episodes! Lauren does character development for the series as well and has a ton of ideas just waiting to be put into video-form! She also helps manage our forums.

Anna (Tefira) - Helps edit the scripts so that they flow better. She also voices some future characters in the series!

meimei - Does the voice of CuteButt and edits the scripts too. She is also a voice director where she critiques the voices of the episodes as I create them. We then redo the voices to make it fit the scene better. Mei also takes care of things on FlyFFWorld by promoting us there! Mei helped setup our forum and installs new features for us! We turn to Mei when we want a new feature on our forums

blinkky - is our tech guy and the one hosting our forums! He is awesome!

Jesse (Jessymaru) - Does the voice of various characters, such as Shadyman. He helps promote the series through facebook and other forums sometimes, and also is a voice director.

Key200 - Helps moderate and promote our forum! He also does his own machinima projects.

Sal (Caelum)- Creates background music for the series. He is awesome!

Steven and Jeremy (rei0 and Ares) - Create music for the series as well. Their band, Blackout, is responsible for our current intro and outro songs for LoR! These guys are awesome! Aside from music, they also help with extra voices. You can find them on facebook, http://www.facebook.com/blackouttheband and myspace http://www.myspace.com/blackouttheband.

How was it to work with them?

Sometimes it's hard to get everyone on the same page, but that's expected when we all live in different areas of the world and can only communicate online! Overall, it's a great experience and we're glad to have them on board!

What are you currently working on? Are there any special projects that you would like to mention? 

Tom - Currently, I'm working on re-rendering the original "PUDDING and THEGREATESTEVER" series, although I'm not sure if I should say exactly why yet . While doing that, I'm also working on episode 5 of LoR - 3d animations.

Kristen - Umm, I can’t really say right now. I want it to be a surprise!~

Do other players know who you are? Could you provide us with a URL to your projects?

Our guild on Kern server knows us. We have a full friend's list of fans in the game as well lol. Even some people in other games know us! It's crazy O_O.

You can find all our projects at:
http://www.youtube.com/theping781
http://www.mysticalpingproductions.com
http://www.facebook.com/mysticalpingproductions
http://www.twitter.com/legendsofroika

Any shout outs you would like to make?

Tom - Bruce Willis, you're my hero!
Kristen - Omg Tom… lol - I just want to thank all the GM’s (world wide :3) who support us and our project. You really help to inspire us to keep at it. Also, thanks to all of our fans that watch the series. It would be nothing without you guys.

Any last words?

Tom - BUCKLE UP HERE WE GO!!!!

Kristen - You don’t mess with… THE PUDDING! - Join our forum!!!!!