Dethdlr 
Ever wonder what programmers do in their off time? Sometimes, we program. I write programs for my own use, apps for my guild’s website, even wrote an editor for the raid abilities for Fetish Nightfall a while back.
If you’re Greg “Rothgar” Spence, the Lead Programmer for EQ2, you wire up over 30,000 Christmas lights and program them to go on and off synchronized to Christmas music!
He has over 30,000 lights hooked up to 32 independant channels and has them synchronized to 4 different songs so far. He says that he plans on adding 2-4 new songs over the next few weeks but who knows how much spare time he’ll have with the ongoing server merges.
All of them are available in 720p HD quality so make sure to pick that in the popup menu in the bottom right of the window, after you click play, if you wish to see the higher quality versions. Really amazing work! I really like the way he used the star in the Christmas Vacation video. You MUST hear the music that goes along with these or you’re really missing out.
So without further ado, for your viewing and listening pleasure, I give you….
Rothgar’s Christmas Lights!
Christmas Canon Rock – Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Wizards in Winter – Trans Siberian Orchestra
Let it Snow – Michael Bublé
Theme from Christmas Vacation
Read all the info about how he pulled this off on his blog, Greg’s Place, and subscribe to his YouTube Channel for future updates.
Update – 16 December 2010 – New Video Added:
Simply amazing.
This is very kewl! 🙂
Truly awesome. A significant upgrade over Carson Williams original Wizards in Winter animated house ( http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/wizards-in-winter/ded9bc5808b0ff6de9f7ded9bc5808b0ff6de9f7-298879550868?q=wizards+in+winter&FROM=LKVR5>1=LKVR5&FORM=LKVR ).
And I didn’t realize Rothgar BUILT that Bethelem Star.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24codbklI8g
The star is awesome. The original one is here: http://www.holdman.com/christmas/star/
Well . . . now I know why the many balance issues, bugs, glitches and other things that need to be done aren’t getting done . . . if the LEAD programmer has enough time to do THIS insanity (albeit awesome insanity) . . . maybe SOE isn’t working them hard enough and has to start cracking the whip more . . .
Oh, and what’s his address. I want to see that show live!
Charn – address is on his blog
Charn,
I hope your comments are intended in Jest.
Rothgar is putting in 80 hour weeks and still has some time to do something fun. If I were him, I would have burned out a year ago.
It is really impressive. I think considering all the stuff going on with the game right now that he is doing a great job.
that’s awesome! Thanks for sharing greg
“This clip shows content from Sony Music Entertainment, witch has blocked this from beeing shown in your country for copyright reasons.” (free translation from Swedish) Now is this not ironic?
very impressive ONLY if they were this smart when it came to Everquest 2