the guild the guild the guild THE GUILD THE GUILD THE MOTHERFRAKKING GUILD

I, uh, had trouble coming up with a title for this post. Sorry about that.

So season Three of The Guild wrapped up this week, and if the feedback I'm getting via Twitter and e-mail is any indication, we can make a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.

Felicia has a post at her blog where she talks in a spoileriffic way about her creative process and the choices she made for this season.

So the episodes. Two Guilds. Fifteen Actors. 20 Extras. What a nightmare, who thought of this storyline anyway?!?! Well, for episode 11 it is the finest frenzy we’ve ever done. I was determined to give everyone a grace note in one of these episodes, and I think everyone got wrapped up pretty well. There were, frankly, too many storylines going on this season, but out of necessity I made them work, because I couldn’t think of any other way to do the season. I think for season 4 there will be a more streamlined story on my writing part, but due to the chaotic nature of this season’s storyline I’m really happy with how it turned out.

Don't read it if you haven't watched all the way to the end, but if you have, I think it'll entertain you to the max, for sure.

Speaking of entertaining things … here's the episode 9-12 gag reel!

Felicia points out that you can watch all of Season Three at Bing Video, which is kind of a big deal because it means that Bing is finally useful for something. Mark this day in history, kids.

And Felicia, if you see this: Kick ass, dude. Once again, you owned it.

Warning: Assume that there will be Guild Spoilers™ in the comments.

the obligatory w00tstock post

Everything I could possibly say about w00tstock has already been said by Paul and Storm, who made a lovely list, and Molly, who made a comic that captures exactly how I felt the whole time we did our shows.

I loved feeling the terror and exhilaration of trying something totally new (The Trade, with music) that was raw and unrehearsed enough to allow for surprises every night.

I loved how totally geeked out we all were to be working with each other, too. I mean, I knew it would be cool to meet Adam Savage – the guy's a freakin' genius, after all – but I was unprepared for how completely and utterly cool, kind, and enthusiastic he was. And his 100 wishes are wonderful, especially that he, like I, wishes for his children to have careers that they love.

I loved feeling like we were creating something unique and special, that people would be talking about long after it was finished.

I loved how much fun we had every night, even though I was exhausted down to my bones by the time we finished our last show Wednesday night (actually, Thursday morning).

I loved how wonderful the audiences were at all the shows. Geeks truly are the best crowd, because even when they heckle us (I'm looking at you, Los Angeles front row) it was done with enthusiasm and love. Yes, even the hecklers were, in their own way, supportive.

I loved that we released the entire show under a Creative Commons license, so anyone who wanted to could record and share the show online. There are tons of videos at YouTube and pictures at Flickr, as a result.

I love that I can blockquote myself right now:

someone recorded all of w00tstock 1.1 from Los Angeles, and uploaded it. It's an audience recording, so you can pretend you are actually sitting at Largo next to the guy who recorded it! If it's the guy I think it was, he had a magnificent pimp hat on. If it's not … well, now you know that there was a guy at w00tstock in LA with a magnificent pimp hat, and you have yet another reason to wish you were there, sukka.

>I love that that recording was done on a freakin' iPhone, and it sounds fantastic.

I saw a post this morning that pretty faithfully recreates the show in Los Angeles from YouTube videos, so rather than try to duplicate that for all three shows, I thought I'd share a couple of my personal highlights, in video form:

First up, a wonderful compilation … almost a montage … from the LA show:

Here I am, recreating the moment when Luke Skywalker saw the smoking hulks of his aunt and uncle. This probably isn't as funny out of context, but if you were at the show, you'll know why I was so amused by this. By the way, the flapping hair in the wind was all Molly's idea, and it killed at all three shows.

Kid Beyond absolutely blew my mind when he performed Wandering Star by Portishead … using only his voice to create loops. If you think this is incredible on video (and it is) you should see him perform live, especially if he brings his video mashups.

Finally, everything Molly did was simply brilliant, and her cover of Toxic is sensational, but I just adore her song about breaking up with Wikipedia:

There's more, of course. Paul and Storm got a lovely pair of, um, undergarments thrown at them in Los Angeles. The acoustic Date My Avatar was great. Jeff Lewis did comedy as Vork, and completely killed. Kasper Hauser made me laugh so hard at the 1.0 show I bruised my medulla oblongata. I've known Chris and Mike forever, but I'd never actually seen them perform as Hard 'n Phirm in person until the Los Angeles show, and I wish I hadn't waited so long to enjoy the majestic wonder of El Corazon live. Josh Cagan seemed a little bemused that we'd added him to the show, but after seeing what he did to just 30 seconds of Roger Corman's Fantastic Four craptacular, I hope he'll come with us for 2.0. And, oh yes, three different versions of The Captain's Wife's Lament, each longer and more ARRRRRRRRRtful than the last. Those two videos (I can't find a video from 1.0 at the moment), do a great job of capturing how much fun we all had together.

When Paul and I talked about w00tstock a million years (or a couple months) ago, we hoped that it would be successful enough to justify the time we would need to put into creating it, we hoped we'd have fun working together, and we really hoped we'd draw enough people to make it worth doing future w00tstocks.

I don't think we ever seriously worried about having fun together, but I was very worried about actually drawing an audience. When we sold out two shows in San Franciso, and only had 20 or so seats left vacant in Los Angeles – where it is notoriously difficult to get people to come out to see shows – we knew that in the future, there will be w00tstock v2.x.

I want to thank everyone who was in the show, and especially everyone who came to watch us, for making the three days of w00tstock so memorable and wonderful. I can't wait to do it again.

oh yeah, this is totally +5 to sexterity

Just in case you haven't seen it …

Congratulations to Felicia, the cast of The Guild, and everyone else involved in the creation and production of the Do You Want To Date My Avatar video. Ever since I saw a rough cut of it while we were shooting season three, I knew it was going to be a huge success (I made a note there, but I seem to have misplaced it. Dang.) so it's tremendously exciting for me to watch it take off like it has.

If you want to have a copy of it for yourself, and you want to support everyone who makes The Guild possible, you can buy the single at AmazonMP3 for 99 cents
and it's also available from .

Season 3 of The Guild premieres on XBox Live on August 25, and it hits MSN/Zune on September 1.

the obligatory comic-con post (that’s mostly about the guild panel)

I didn't see enough of Comic-Con to give a comprehensive report. What I
experienced was a miserably hot and insanely crowded main vendor floor
that was more difficult to navigate than I ever remember it being
before – especially on Friday. My highlights were visiting with the
friends I could get within 100 feet of and replacing my my Green
Lantern T-shirt. My regrets were not getting to go to any panels, not
being able to introduce Ryan to my friends who we couldn't get anywhere
near, and not having the time to do the usual exploring that always
results in discovering wonderful new books and artists, (hopefully,
I'll be able to spend lots of time at the small press booths I love so
much in October at Long Beach Comicon.)

What I can do, though, is talk a bit more about The Guild panel, which is what I remember most clearly, anway.

I almost skipped Comic-Con entirely this year. Without any new books (the release of Memories of the Future has been pushed back three times because I was working on Leverage and The Guild, and went to Seattle for a D&D session with Acquisitions, Inc.) and without a lot of stock on hand, it just didn't make sense to try and get booth space, invest in a pass and a hotel, and spend four days down there that I really needed to spend up here writing and publishing.

When Felicia asked me to come to The Guild panel on Friday, though, it was pretty easy to commit to one day of Nerd Promery, especially since I was going to be in Escondido the night before.

Incidentally, knowing that you have to get up at 7am the following day and plan to spend all of it getting your geek on gives +10 to all saves vs. Yeah, I Think I Will Have Another Beer. (Well, at least it does for me. I saw a few people at Comic-con who clearly rolled poorly the night before.)

So Friday morning, I met up with the cast of The Guild, and secretly rode to Comic-Con in a limobus that had been provided by Xbox. Did I mention that the limo had multi-colored pulsating lights, lasers, numerous video screens and a stripper pole? For those of you keeping score at home, a stripper pole is not as sexy as you'd think at 9 in the morning. Unless, I guess, it's the end of the previous night for you and your buddies.

There was a discussion about the stripper pole, and we all wondered if there were strippers who specialized in on-the-road dancing, and if so, did they log their experience by hours or miles? These are the things we wonder about, up here in the rarefied air of Xbox-provided-stripper-pole-limobus riding.

When we got to the convention center, they drove us into this loading dock that was down a ramp and through some security that wasn't nearly as tight as I was expecting. When we got out of the stripper-pole bus (as it came to be called) I felt like I was in a rock band. A few moments later, when all of us were walking down the hallway toward the elevator that would grant us access to the convention hall, I felt like I was a rock star – and I wasn't even in an awesome costume!

Fun fact: I was the only member of our entire party who not only thought the crates marked FREEMAN were hilarious, but stopped to take a picture of them that isn't nearly as awesome as I thought it would be. Oh well, I couldn't find a crowbar, anyway.

We went into the green room, where all of us tried – and failed – to keep our cool when the likes of Keith David, Dominic Monaghan, John Cho, Amanda Fucking Palmer, and Neil Gaiman walked in.

I could tell you stories, but what happens in the green room stays in the green room, except for this picture that I captioned Best. Tweetup. Ever. and posted with the explicit permission of all involved.

After a 20 minute wait, we headed down the hall to the stage entrance. I walked a little bit behind the rest of the cast, so I could plausibly claim that I was just there watching my friends. Yes, I'm crafty like that, so you'd better watch yourself, if you know what's good for you.

We listened through the door while they played the music video — which is hilarious and perfect and must be seen by everyone in the world or I'll unleash the Doomsday Device* — and then the cast walked in, to thunderous applause. It was pretty awesome to hear them get such a wonderful reception, from what I'd soon find out was a standing-room-only crowd. I heard the familiar theme music a moment later, and I knew that the screening of season three's first episode had begun.

I pressed my ear to the door, and listened. As the reveal of me and the rest of my guild grew closer, my heart began to pound. I'm not going to lie to you, Marge, for the first time in years, the
terrifying knot of nerves that usually sits in my chest before I go
onstage wasn't just cut, it was obliterated by excitement.

I heard my voice, and the audience gasped — they gasped! Then, there was a moment of silence, followed by a roar of cheering and applause.

Kim Evey (who most people know as the producer of The Guild, but I know as my friend and former ACME castmate) took the podium and said, in a sad voice, "We really wanted Wil Wheaton to be here today . . ." in a happy voice she continued, ". . . so he is!"

I walked into the room, did my best not to trip over anything, tried not to be intimidated by the size of the audience and their enthusiasm, and took my seat on the panel.

I was feeling pretty good about myself. I hadn't done anything stupid, I kept my hands where people couldn't see that they were trembling, I hadn't crapped my pants … and that's when I saw that Joss Whedon was sitting in the front row. About ten feet from me.

Let's take a look inside Wil's head, shall we:

Me: OMG OMG OMG

Brain: What?

Me: JOSS WHEDON IS RIGHT THERE! HE CAME TO THE PANEL AND HE'S RIGHT THERE!

Brain: Okay, just be cool.

Me: OKAY I'M BEING COOL.

Brain: No, you're staring.

Me: What?

Brain: You're staring. Stop staring.

Me: Shit. Okay. I'm not staring now. [pause] HOLY CRAP DID YOU SEE THAT JOSS WHEDON IS RIGHT THERE IN THE FRONT ROW?!

Brain: Yes, you mentioned that. Also, you're staring again.

Eventually, I broke out of the loop, which in WhetonIX looks like: (if near.joss=1, do {stare.like.idiot} fi;), and I enjoyed the rest of the panel. As I said in my post a few days ago, "I've known, written, and performed with a lot of these guys for
years, and I'm not surprised in the least that everyone loves them so
much. It rules to see so many people in the world (millions per
episode, I guess) finding out for themselves what I've known for years.Season 3 is going to kick thirteen different kinds of ass, and I'm thrilled to be a small part of part of it."

When the panel was over, we walked back to the green room and convinced each other that, yes, it was all real and they really did like us. The cast went to do all their booth-related duties, and I went out to explore Comic-con as just a civilian with my son for the first time in years.

Overall, though, I enjoyed myself. When we got home, I told Anne about the panel. "It was so weird to
feel like all these people were excited and happy when they saw me
in The Guild," I said. "I'd gotten to used to people automatically deciding that
I was lame and they hated me because of a character I played when I was
14, I didn't really know how to react to them, well, liking me."

"How did you react?"

"I was happy, and I may have done a little dance."

"You danced?"

"Okay, I jumped. Once. I had to maintain my composure, you know."

"Obviously."

"But it's weird, you know? On the one hand, it felt good — heh. 'I feel weird, but also good!' Um, that's …"

"Wesley when he's drunk. I know."

"How d—"

"I live with you. I pick things up."

*Not really. Oh, it needs to be seen, but I'm saving my Doomsday Device for something else. Besides, it's more fun to actually threaten to use the Doomsday Device than it is to actually use it.

Axis of Anarchy RULES!

A few months ago, Felicia Day asked me if I'd like to play a character in Season 3 of The Guild.

The conversation went something like this:

Felicia: So, I wrote this character for Season 3 of The Guild and I wondered if y—

Me: YES YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES YOU HAD ME AT "THE GUILD!"

Rob Reiner's Mother: I'll have what he's having.

Felicia told me that she and the other producers wanted to keep my involvement in the show and the the details of my character a secret, because they planned a big reveal at Comic-Con.

So all those times I told Twitter some variation of, "Holy crap if I could tell you what I'm working on right now, you'd be all 'OMG NO WAI' and I'd be all 'WAI' and you'd be all 'awesome!' and then I'd be all, 'I know, right?'" Now you know one of the things I was talking about.

We started shooting a few weeks later, and after some 31-hour shooting days, my work on the show was done. I still can't get into specifics about my character or the story, but I think it's safe (and totally unsurprising) to tell you that working on The Guild was as fun and wonderful as you would expect, and every single person on the cast and crew was an absolute joy to work with.

As I said on The Guild panel at Comic-Con, I've known, written, and performed with a lot of these guys for years, and I'm not surprised in the least that everyone loves them so much. It rules to see so many people in the world (millions per episode, I guess) finding out for themselves what I've known for years.

Season 3 is going to kick thirteen different kinds of ass, and I'm thrilled to be a small part of part of it. I'll talk about each episode a little more after it's released.