Change of pace

Hi folks,

Best wishes from all of us at Rusty Towers and hope you had decent weekends. We’ve got our heads down at the moment with a number of internal projects and reviews, though it’s fair to say that trying to produce things through an ongoing pandemic is proving somewhat challenging.

With regards to one of our recent new Patreon milestones, that of finding a new part-time Communications Assistant to join me, the job description is up on our website and everyone who had previously expressed an interest should have been contacted with it as well. We would particularly like to hear from BIPOC fans or interested parties, so do feel free to share with folks. The closing date for applications is this Friday, 3rd July 2020.

Now, I mentioned that the current global situation is proving difficult for making things, and no doubt you’ll have seen this across the entertainment spectrum from movies to TV, and other shows that often rely on a studio environment. And unfortunately, Rusty Quill is not immune to these forces. Whilst we were initially hopeful that we would be able to get through this without interruption to any of our shows, this is, alas, not proving to be the case. 

Parts of our contingency planning have suffered setbacks and been disrupted by forces beyond our control, not least of which have been delays with the postal service in getting recording setups out to guest actors and back again. Taken as a whole, it means that while we were definitely well ahead of things coming into this, in order to ensure that production doesn’t get too tight, that we don’t risk pushing people to burnout, and that shows remain high quality, we have had to make some difficult decisions.

One of these you already know, in that Stellar Firma Season 3 won’t be returning until December. The other big one is that we are changing the release schedule for The Magnus Archives. In a move that’s in keeping with the grand narrative Jonny has in mind for the show’s conclusion, we are splitting Season 5 into three Acts, which will come with a 6 week mid-season break between each. We feel that this will help keep the production efforts reasonable and also give listeners a bit of a breather between the different arcs, as this season has been rather heavy already, to say the least.

But, we won’t be going dark during these breaks – you can expect content on the public feed throughout the hiatus period. Some of this will be older Patreon material that we are declassifying, and some will be new things you haven’t heard, including the audio recording of the London Podcast Festival live show from November last year.

So, here is what Season 5 will now look like:

End of Act I, MAG176 – 16th July 2020
Start of Act II, MAG177 – 3rd September 2020

End of Act II, MAG189 – 26th November 2020
Start of Act III, MAG190 – 14th January 2021

FINALE, MAG200 – 25th March 2021

And, yes, this means that we will be bringing the show to a close as the crowning part of the 5th anniversary celebrations of The Magnus Archives! (MAG001 – Anglerfish – debuted on 24th March 2016)

We would like to thank all of you loyal supporters of our shows in advance for your patience and ongoing generosity through this. We hope that you understand why we’re doing this and know that these are not decisions that we have taken lightly, but for the health of the company, our staff and the shows themselves, they are necessary. 

Also, don’t forget that the Patreon tax changes come into effect from Wednesday when the next pledges are taken, so you may want to keep an eye on your account if you live in one of the affected territories. 

And, here's what you can expect from us this week (all shows release at 4pm UK time, unless otherwise stated):

Tue 30th June
RQG159 – Getting Airborne* (Patreon)

Wed 1st July
MAG174 – The Great Beast (Patreon)
RQG159 – Getting Airborne* (Public)
RQ Streams – Anil plays… Grim Fandango (5pm) 

Thu 2nd July
STL - Season 2 Q&A (Patreon)
MAG174 – The Great Beast (Public)

Fri 3rd July
Citizen / Knight/Noble Bonus – Titlecard Speedpaint : Tharsis
STL - Season 2 Q&A (Public)

Sat 4th July
RQ Streams – Mike plays… Skyrim (3pm)

Sun 5th July
RQ Streams – Martyn performs… Photoshop Challenges (2pm)

* Provisional title, subject to change

Have a good week all!

Anil
Community Manager