Woaf 117 was born out of a desire to start making Halo content again. I used to co-host a Podcast called Dust and Echoes (DAEpodcast.com) back in the day but I had to quit as real life started taking up a lot more of my time. I talked to Tom about getting it going again like before and while we were both excited by the idea it just never came about.

I don't think either of us are obsessed by Halo news like we were back in the Reach days and I hardly play Halo multiplayer anymore.

I still had a strong desire to make stuff again now I'd finally got an XBox1 and Master Chief Collection. I think MCC is great and really wanted to create something that celebrated all these brilliant campaigns. I also wanted something that I could make on my own from beginning to end so I never had to worry about scheduling people which is always the hardest part of any group project.

My first Idea was to try Twitching but I did not enjoy that at all. Then I found out about the XBox internal DVR and thought I could give Video creation a go. I'd always steered clear of this before as I'd had some bad times with Captcha Devices in the past, but with the internal DVR seeming to be so easy and reliable it removed that hurdle.

My first Idea was to play through each Level in it's entirety and just chat and maybe make jokes about the fiction, gameplay, AI, weapons and sandbox or whatever occurred to me. This idea was scuppered pretty fast when I found out the Xbox1 had a 5 min max recording limit.

This moment is the birth of WOAF 117 I think. That limitation, while initially frustrating, soon seemed like a blessing. Who'd watch a video of a dude playing for upwards of 45 minutes? It would have to be a VERY entertaining dude. I'm not that confident in my ability to enthrall people!

This 5 minute limit started me thinking about having more fun by fictionalising the playthrough. The idea of making the chief kind of cowardly seemed obvious to me. He's such a quiet, noble, heroic and stoic character that inverting that and making him spout constant cowardly, selfish, self pitying nonsense seemed really fun.

So I made the first episode. Didn't even have an idea for a title at that point I just recorded the gameplay while saying whatever popped in my stupid head even though I wasn't recording the my voice while playing. I did multiple playthroughs until I had one that I found entertaining and then recorded the voiceover while watching the video back.

The title came from thinking that I wanted to separate the guy in my vids from the actual Chief. I've had the nickname Woaf for over ten years now (it's a shortened version of my surname) and it struck me as funny if this version of the Chief enjoyed being called a childish nickname even though he was middle aged, just as I do. Also, while it's not exactly what I'd say or do in the situation (I like to think I'm slightly less self serving) it's definitely closer to how I'd behave in these situations than how the real John 117 would.

I decided that I would record some VO over the opening cut scene introducing myself as The Woaf and add the old title card thing and the fiction of the character started to take shape there.

All of series one has been made with me kind of figuring it out as I go. In some places it's worked in others I honestly think I could have done so much better with some planning.

I intend to do things very differently with series two.

I'm going to buy a notebook and a pen and everything.

I'm pretty excited to see how it turns out!

Hope that answered your question.