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So guys, know how we were doing a little bit of navel gazing a few pages back over stuff that usually doesn't go to the sandcastle or whatever? I've got one of those for you now. Before I get started here: Off and on, when people speak about narrative LPs, the discussion steers toward narrative video LPs and it is often regarded as something like a white stag - a nice thought, but no way could we ever actually do that. This is the first fruits of an off-and-on attempt of mine to change that. But it's just that - an attempt. I know that I think the work is somewhat solid but I have no idea how well or how poorly it'll go over. I'm showing what I've worked on here to figure out if this path I'm on is at all viable, and what I need to do to make it the best I can. Do NOT take this post as indicative of an imminent thread posting. The plan I have worked out for the thread, IF I even decide to go forward from where I am now, is to finish two entire playthroughs of the game before the thread is even posted. You will understand why momentarily. Please remember that this is, at its heart, style experimentation. Thematically I don't see it as too terribly different from an artist trying something new on his paintings. Maybe it works out and he adopts it. Maybe it doesn't and he hopes those canvases never show up in a gallery. I realize that weird attempts like this have gotten people run out of town, as it were, before. Please don't mentally group me in with them when you're giving your feedback, since I hopefully have a reputation of being an entertainer instead of an egomaniac. Enough delay. The game is Deus Ex 2: Invisible War, and there are 3 entire playthroughs planned for the finished thread. The first playthrough is one I'm nicknaming 'Alex Debonair'. It will be a 'good' run of the game - nonlethal, ghost style, with the protagonist being a very intelligent and canny woman who relies on subtlety and professionalism to do her work. This is the runthrough that delayed me quite a bit as it was amazingly hard to find a collaborator I could work with for the narrative style, which is voice-over narration. You will probably get a Rucks (ala Bastion) feel from this video, which I've decided is pretty much unavoidable so I've decided not to worry about it. This is aimed at being a 'high cyberpunk' style story where the main character wages a largely invisible war against whatever forces she's opposing. The play style supporting this is basically just being good at the game, with inserts supported by one-off Python apps that I code up to show her hacking sequences and other character diversions. Here is 'Debonair' episode 1 The second playthrough is nicknamed 'Alex Deranged'. This will kind of evoke 'how not to play Hitman' - the main character is completely insane, and could not possibly care less that everyone around him seems to think he's off his loving rocker. This runthrough is mostly subtitled, as the 'voice' of what's said is expected to come from the character himself, and it was too jarring to have two different voices for the main character - one in cutscenes, which the game provides, and one outside of it, which someone else would. You will probably get more of a Malkavian Mod or psychological horror feel from this playthrough. This playthrough will rely on murdering a lot of things, playing the game 'wrong', and exploiting a few bugs in the game to make it go kind of off the rails (yes, that is me killing Billie Adams with a shower 5 minutes into the game. Yes, this causes all sorts of issues later on). Florid, weird inserts that dive into some of the awfulness of the main character's head will support the narrative. Here is the first 'Deranged' episode. The above two playthroughs would be completed and ready before the thread is even opened. This helps my work load from being completely unsustainable, and also there's no point since there will be no real user interaction there. The third playthrough is roughly analogous to our 'control' group for this entire experiment. The thread will tell me what ethoses to adopt, what weapons to use, what biomods to use, etc, and I will play it with Roboky and I doing post-commentary much like a lot of our other work. This playthrough is the reason why I decided I could not possibly voice the narrator in Debonair - it's just too jarring for me to be hanging out like I always am in one playthrough and then trying too hard to be dramatic in another. This episode is not done and will not be until/unless I come back here for the final quality check before the thread starts. I am delighted to take criticism, answer questions on why I did things this way or whatever, and take positive feedback on things that particularly strike you. Again, I have not fully decided that I am definitely going to do this - this is a barrier I would like to break but I don't know if I've hit the appropriate way to do it here. Coolguye fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Oct 29, 2013 |
# ? Oct 27, 2013 18:27 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 03:39 |
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In a music history class once we talked about how come there were so many more compositions about how love is terrible and bad compared to how good love is. Granted, love is the biggest subject of all music compositions, and a distant second place is Christmas. The point is that while you are in love you are busy doing other things, but when you're out of it all you do is complain. Complaints are always going to be louder and more vocal than compliments. This can give you a false sense of the proportion of complaints to compliments. If you get views to your videos and the retention is good, then you're probably doing ok. No feedback is sometimes better than negative feedback because often the people who like your stuff will not have as much to say as the people who hate it. If you have no feedback and then no views, then I'd worry.
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# ? Oct 27, 2013 18:28 |
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Zain posted:Do you really have to bring something new to the table though? There's a lot that goes into it like timing of a game. Like say someone is feeling a bit nostalgic for X game and someone happens to do an LP of that even if it's the 20th time it's been LP'd. As long as it's good people will watch. I just don't believe it really has to be new it; just has to be the right time for it. No, it doesn't, but that was my point. Some people may be willing to make an LP even if there's no audience or thread participation, and that's fine. Others will want feedback and may let their quality slip or even quit midstream if they don't have an audience, and I think it's rather unfair to them to say "Make the thread and people will read it" if that's not actually the case. That naturally gets into something that's probably an ethics issue or some word I can't think of - what's the obligation of someone making a thread, and what's the obligation of the people reading it? Does it make sense to say "I'm going to quit making this LP if I don't get X comments in Y time"? Or if people only comment when the OP requests comments specifically, then shut up afterward? I can see someone getting a reputation for being "that guy who never finishes a thread" when the reason is that nobody comments and they move on to something else, and then people won't read their new thread because they think it will be abandoned again. Maybe it would be better for that person to know in advance that nobody would be interested in that LP, so they can put their effort into something else. Even I've put off or canceled LPs of games that I really wanted to do because someone else has done an LP and I don't think mine would offer anything different, so I'd rather do an LP that is completely distinct from anything that's been done. When I feel like my LP is worth doing, I do it. The existence of other LPs can, and does, change the worth I perceive in my own efforts. With every new LP of a game, the number of people who aren't familiar with the game decreases, and the number of people who want to see more of the game will probably tend to decrease as well, as they've actually seen more of it. I think the audience for LPs of a given game is going to shrink with subsequent LPs, regardless of quality. The factor of offering a new, never-before-seen aspect of the game or method of presentation widens the appeal. Given that, I think being able to judge the size of one's potential audience, using the readership of the Sandcastle as a sample, is a valid and useful tool.
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# ? Oct 27, 2013 18:30 |
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Everything Nidoking says works, I think. It's particularly bad if it's a SSLP, because then you have multiple updates clogging up a single page, and that turns people off even more having to wait for hundreds of images to load. People aren't obligated to comment, but I think every single post helps if the thread is struggling to fit less than three updates a page, even if it seems like a bandwagon. Aside from spoiler posts, of course. That's not to say that 'obscure game nobody's heard of' or 'game that's been LPed before 5 times' can't work and get audience participation - Dangan Ronpa started out as the former and it's pretty much the hallmark of today's SA - but the LPers should know that it might be an uphill battle to get audience participation in, and viewers should know that helping to push a LP they like upwards keeps the LPer motivated.
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# ? Oct 27, 2013 18:39 |
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Coolguye posted:DX:IW Having played the game several times I'd say just pick one way (thread voting throughout the LP would probably be most amusing), and go with a character that follows the voted moral choices. Unfortunately it's all pretty irrelevant until quite near the end anyway, as is true with most games - but this is especially obvious about it with the way the main characters beg for your attention. Personally I probably wouldn't watch the narrative runs, but I'd be down for watching you guys make fun of it in co-commentary. Edit: also be careful with the shower bug, I hear it crashes the game later on in unfortunate ways - so do your research on that one. unfair fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Oct 27, 2013 |
# ? Oct 27, 2013 18:41 |
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Coolguye posted:Please remember that this is, at its heart, style experimentation. You might want to post those two vids in the experimental LP thread as well as here, because you'll probably get some good feedback and stuff. That said, I'm hella interested in the concept. Unfortunately I don't have time to watch the videos right now, so no direct comments, but you've proven yourself pretty able in the past. If/when this happens I'll happily follow along. I'm not sure the third playthrough would be necessary, though. Frankly, if you've got two whole runs through the game in a different style, that's a shitload of content, and I don't know how much more you'd get out of a voted-upon run.
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# ? Oct 27, 2013 18:49 |
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ApplesandOranges posted:Everything Nidoking says works, I think. It's particularly bad if it's a SSLP, because then you have multiple updates clogging up a single page, and that turns people off even more having to wait for hundreds of images to load. Even if it's a "good work" or "thanks, I'm really enjoying this," I feel that can really help out some of the smaller LPs. That said, I'm super grateful for Nidoking's presence in my Torin's Passage LP (as well as the other ten or so posters in it, ha).
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# ? Oct 27, 2013 19:09 |
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Massive shout-out to Glazius, the saviour of the LP subforum!
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# ? Oct 27, 2013 19:13 |
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Perhaps "what do you bring to the table" might be better-phrased as "here's some prior art you could take a look at for inspiration". Looking at previous LPs is going to give people ideas that they didn't think of, and could inspire them to try other things that they noticed the prior LPs didn't do. And sometimes, yeah, it's going to convince them "whelp, someone already did this better than I ever could have, guess there's no point in me doing my bit", but if that's all it takes for you to give up then you probably don't have the perseverance to see an LP through anyway. Bottom line is that (as I understand it) the Sandcastle is for helping people to make the best LP they can manage, not for telling people what LPs they can and can't make.
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# ? Oct 27, 2013 19:14 |
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Blind Sally posted:Even if it's a "good work" or "thanks, I'm really enjoying this," I feel that can really help out some of the smaller LPs. That said, I'm super grateful for Nidoking's presence in my Torin's Passage LP (as well as the other ten or so posters in it, ha). If no-one had commented in my Shadowrun (GENS) and Shadowrun (SNES) threads, I would have never finished, I like LP's for two reasons, to test myself, and to watch other people enjoy themselves. Discussion in one of my threads is the best and is genuinely heartening and spurs me on to do more updates / more work / better quality because LOOK AT ALL THE PEOPLE ENJOYING WHAT I DO. I've had a lot of LP's die on the vine in the Sandcastle, which is fair because my presentation was poo poo, other times I've completely ignored criticism and tried to do it anyways, (my failed Starcraft lp... ) What I enjoy personally as someone who has done LP's is interaction and knowing other people enjoyed it. I like the sandcastle for what it is, but I feel like the standards here have gotten much too high and things that would have ended up being great were discouraged. Coolguye posted:Off and on, when people speak about narrative LPs, the discussion steers toward narrative video LPs and it is often regarded as something like a white stag - a nice thought, but no way could we ever actually do that. Cknoor is doing a narrative LP of Don't Starve and it's actually really really good.
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# ? Oct 27, 2013 19:24 |
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GeneralYeti posted:I took some advice from the thread and made a second test video. There is no commentary and there is not supposed to be. This time I ended up recording the audio through audacity and synced them up. I also have the cursor on the screen. There shouldn't be any desync, but I'm not sure about video quality. How's it look? Hey here's a thing I posted back during the argument that kinda got lost. Any help? As for my two cents on the whole posting in the thread thing, it does get somewhat disappointing that no-one posts. I know they're there reading, it's just that the lack of posts implies that I've got nothing that people enjoy. Also, it gets obnoxious when there are a bunch of updates on one page because of the loading time and all that.
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# ? Oct 27, 2013 19:32 |
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unfair posted:Edit: also be careful with the shower bug, I hear it crashes the game later on in unfortunate ways - so do your research on that one. Also no, I'm not doing just one because that doesn't give me the feedback I'm hoping for. If this attempt at things is completely awful, that's chill, I won't do it, but if folks agree that they're well thought out and at least passably executed, doing all 3 will give me a ton of data through Google Analytics about what people liked and disliked, without relying on the established 1% who comment. biosterous posted:You might want to post those two vids in the experimental LP thread as well as here, because you'll probably get some good feedback and stuff. quote:I'm not sure the third playthrough would be necessary, though. Frankly, if you've got two whole runs through the game in a different style, that's a shitload of content, and I don't know how much more you'd get out of a voted-upon run. Turtlicious posted:Cknoor is doing a narrative LP of Don't Starve and it's actually really really good.
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# ? Oct 27, 2013 20:11 |
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SSNeoman posted:http://lpix.org/sslptest/index.php?id=16203 Looks pretty good. Are you planning to let people vote on what ending to show first, or are you just gonna do them in whatever order? And will you be showing off the different conversation paths? Because if not, I can do it for you.
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# ? Oct 27, 2013 20:17 |
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Lazyfire posted:I lurk the hell out of every LP I watch, barely ever posting more than a "I'm enjoying this, keep up the good work" a few videos into the thread and then just catching up on the thread from there on. Sometimes there isn't much you can say about the game if you haven't played it, and a lot of the time questions you would have about functions and items in the game are answered in the video they appear. I think people lurking threads don't often see a chance to join the conversation about the game or the videos, and that can lead to low post numbers in a thread. Yeah this is me as well, even if I tend to avoid the "Keep up the good work" thing because to me it feels like a bit of empty posting and only really post if I want to comment on something in the thread or the videos. Of course when I ran my own LP I was almost overly reply happy that I almost got worried about it sometimes and would try to cut it down. Having too much free time on your hands and wanting to seems active and trying to please most people is perhaps not the best combination at times.
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# ? Oct 27, 2013 20:23 |
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Lance Streetman posted:Looks pretty good. Are you planning to let people vote on what ending to show first, or are you just gonna do them in whatever order? And will you be showing off the different conversation paths? Because if not, I can do it for you. Thanks! For the first run, I will let people vote and just go through the game properly. On my next run, I'll do the other ending. Then I'll show off the different conversation options as well as the right choices necessary to convince Cyrus to go with your plan. If you'd help me out with that, I would definitely appreciate it Do you have the game script or would you be transcribing the game like I am?
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# ? Oct 27, 2013 20:48 |
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SSNeoman posted:Thanks! Transcribing, but I know the sequences pretty well. Had to farm all the routes for achievements. And compared to transcribing all of Trace Memory, this is a piece of cake.
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# ? Oct 27, 2013 20:51 |
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Suspicious Dish posted:Having been in this position before, where I get a low thread turnout and practically no feedback, it really is a motivation killer for me. Is my LP bad? Is the game just not a good one to LP? Am I really just bringing nothing to the table? I LP games because I think they're unique and I want them to be seen, but if I seem to have no audience except Glazius, well, who am I showing them off to? Please finish your De Blob LPs thanks.
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# ? Oct 27, 2013 23:05 |
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Let's Play The Legend of Sphinx: the Cursed Mummy of Time posted:
So, how is this? Any glaringly obvious issues I probably left in? I'm most curious about the audio mix on the videos. There might be a bit of echo from Grat's side due to how our recording setup works, but is it that noticeable? Or am I good with this? And, let's try this: would you watch/follow it?
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# ? Oct 27, 2013 23:05 |
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Suspicious Dish posted:Having been in this position before, where I get a low thread turnout and practically no feedback, it really is a motivation killer for me. Is my LP bad? Is the game just not a good one to LP? Am I really just bringing nothing to the table? I LP games because I think they're unique and I want them to be seen, but if I seem to have no audience except Glazius, well, who am I showing them off to? I sympathize with what you're saying. My lowest-viewed LP was Phantom Dust, where I had maybe 2-4 people actually commenting on the LP. It was disappointing for me since I thought it was a really unique game in every way, and had a really good plot with memorable twists. I'm honestly not sure if there's anything you can do in that position.
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# ? Oct 27, 2013 23:28 |
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Pungry posted:Please finish your De Blob LPs thanks. I'm so glad you asked me about Okami, you see I really like that game because
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# ? Oct 27, 2013 23:40 |
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Cooked Auto posted:Of course when I ran my own LP I was almost overly reply happy that I almost got worried about it sometimes and would try to cut it down. I think it worked well for the HAWX LP as it was very much a group of plane fans geeking out between posts. I didn't contribute to that, but I loved the thread. I'd be pretty similar in terms of mostly lurking in threads that I'm following - sometimes, if a thread seems to be pretty empty (like the Stein;s Gate one was) I'll make a point of replying just to encourage the LPer. I was really happy that one went through to the end despite it not getting a huge audience.
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# ? Oct 28, 2013 00:04 |
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Cheez posted:edit: Wasn't it you who initially showed some concern for games being LPed too many times, or maybe too many simultaneously or something to that degree? I really thought it was, but if it wasn't, then I have no idea where it began. It absolutely was not.
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# ? Oct 28, 2013 01:49 |
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JordanKai posted:Massive shout-out to Glazius, the saviour of the LP subforum! I remain unconvinced that Glazius is not a Let's Play replying robot somewhere.
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# ? Oct 28, 2013 01:54 |
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Cheez posted:edit: Wasn't it you who initially showed some concern for games being LPed too many times, or maybe too many simultaneously or something to that degree? I really thought it was, but if it wasn't, then I have no idea where it began. I think it started as a response to two people trying to LP a thread at the same time, as two similar LPs both live at the same time is a bit wasteful, and I think it just evolved from there.
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# ? Oct 28, 2013 02:22 |
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Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:I think it started as a response to two people trying to LP a thread at the same time, as two similar LPs both live at the same time is a bit wasteful, and I think it just evolved from there. We must have had a good turn around since then because there were two LP attempts for the Witcher 2 in the Sandcastle at the same time and I think the authors were more concerned with two running concurrently than anyone giving them advice. To be fair, it would be hard for two LPers not coordinating to produce near identical LPs of that game, so maybe that strikes outside the example you were using.
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# ? Oct 28, 2013 03:20 |
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Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:I think it started as a response to two people trying to LP a thread at the same time, as two similar LPs both live at the same time is a bit wasteful, and I think it just evolved from there.
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# ? Oct 28, 2013 03:23 |
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There were two Dark Souls LPs going on at once recently, one Geop's blind LP and the other an experienced 'here's how the game is REALLY played' playthrough (I don't remember by who, sorry!). I thought it was an example of two LPs at once being done in an okay fashion because they both demonstrated their own identity and take on the game. It's a very hard thing to pull off unless you know for sure you're bringing something unique to the table and it's probably not worth it, but having two of the same LP going on at once can most likely be done correctly.
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# ? Oct 28, 2013 03:40 |
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Niggurath posted:I assumed that's also where the Pokemon rule came about for a while since the forums was pretty much inundated with low effort Pokemon and people just became tired of them cluttering up the front page. It's been a while but I think that rule also came about riiiight after the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon got closed for being incredibly creepy. That was kind of last nail in the coffin situation though. ...Let's Play had some awkward beginnings, didn't it?
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# ? Oct 28, 2013 03:45 |
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Shugojin posted:It's been a while but I think that rule also came about riiiight after the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon got closed for being incredibly creepy. That was kind of last nail in the coffin situation though. Awkward beginnings, awkward middles, and it'll certainly have an awkward end.
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# ? Oct 28, 2013 03:51 |
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Let's Play will die with a VLP of a new, ultra-realistic, character driven licensing of Oregon Trail.
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# ? Oct 28, 2013 03:54 |
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Shugojin posted:Let's Play will die with a VLP of a new, ultra-realistic, character driven licensing of Oregon Trail. The first death scene will be the main character drowning in 3-foot deep water.
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# ? Oct 28, 2013 04:29 |
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Shugojin posted:Let's Play will die with a VLP of a new, ultra-realistic, character driven licensing of Oregon Trail. BioWare Oregon Trail would probably cause all of the games forums simultaneously to catch fire. Also, with regards to the "bringing something new to the table" thing: there is no rule or requirement for that by any means, no. It does sometimes seem rather pointless to do an LP of a game that has had a really solid LP of it before, but on the other hand: it doesn't really matter? If people enjoy watching it and you enjoy making it and it's interesting in some way, why not? Zorak fucked around with this message at 06:30 on Oct 28, 2013 |
# ? Oct 28, 2013 06:28 |
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http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3577198 Thread's up! Thanks guys!
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# ? Oct 28, 2013 07:10 |
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It's worth waiting for at least a few weeks if an LP in basically the same style of the game you plan on LPing has just finished. I think the problem with "bringing something new to the table" is that the person making a test post is discouraged from ever making that LP at all, rather than being told "This is good, so you might want to wait for a bit before posting the thread, since you might not have as much of an audience if it's so soon after this one".
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# ? Oct 28, 2013 07:37 |
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Suspicious Dish posted:So, how is this? Any glaringly obvious issues I probably left in? I'm most curious about the audio mix on the videos. There might be a bit of echo from Grat's side due to how our recording setup works, but is it that noticeable? Or am I good with this? Good audio mix; would follow. In your OP, you put an extra "u" in "sidequests." Don't worry too much about your knowledge of ancient Egypt; the developers obviously didn't. I'll save most of my tutenspergin' for the thread. The one thing that stood out for me was that Imhotep actually does say bird-guy's name after he dies. It's Horus, the falcon-headed god of, among other things, the sky and hunting.
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# ? Oct 28, 2013 08:14 |
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I don't see why people should be discourage from, or probated for, posting their honest opinion that an LP is too similar to another one in a way that would turn them off from watching it, or for saying the style of commentary isn't suitable, etc. It's the same as giving feedback that someone is trying too hard to be funny, or saying that you think they should take the facecam off their video. One of the valuable functions of the Sandcastle is to get feedback on things like this, in order to improve the odds of someone having a successful thread with a reasonable audience. If you disagree and would love to watch exactly the same thing again because you can't get enough, or you want to watch a guy do sparse subtitle commentary of Super Mario Bros. 3, then you should post and say that, instead of griping about the ability for someone else to post their opinion. Then the person asking for advice can take the feedback and make their own decisions. If the only thing really allowed in here is technical criticism of the recording and encoding of videos and screenshots, then let's replace the thread with a locked sticky thread telling them to email a sample to me. jawbroken fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Oct 28, 2013 |
# ? Oct 28, 2013 08:15 |
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Suspicious Dish posted:So, how is this? Any glaringly obvious issues I probably left in? I'm most curious about the audio mix on the videos. There might be a bit of echo from Grat's side due to how our recording setup works, but is it that noticeable? Or am I good with this? I just realized that I missed the opportunity for a perfectly good Scorpion King joke in the first of these videos and for that I am truly sorry.
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# ? Oct 28, 2013 08:52 |
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Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:I think it started as a response to two people trying to LP a thread at the same time, as two similar LPs both live at the same time is a bit wasteful, and I think it just evolved from there. It was worse than that. I'm pretty sure this whole thing started as a response to four people wanting to LP Darksiders at once. Which was quite crazy.
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# ? Oct 28, 2013 10:09 |
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jawbroken posted:I don't see why people should be discourage from, or probated for, posting their honest opinion that an LP is too similar to another one in a way that would turn them off from watching it, or for saying the style of commentary isn't suitable, etc. It's the same as giving feedback that someone is trying too hard to be funny, or saying that you think they should take the facecam off their video. One of the valuable functions of the Sandcastle is to get feedback on things like this, in order to improve the odds of someone having a successful thread with a reasonable audience. If you disagree and would love to watch exactly the same thing again because you can't get enough, or you want to watch a guy do sparse subtitle commentary of Super Mario Bros. 3, then you should post and say that, instead of griping about the ability for someone else to post their opinion. Then the person asking for advice can take the feedback and make their own decisions. I'm really glad there are only two polar extremes and no middle ground where both sides could find a compromise. It's much better this way, because if the argument goes too long Slowbeef can just flip a coin.
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# ? Oct 28, 2013 10:10 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 03:39 |
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GeneralYeti posted:Hey here's a thing I posted back during the argument that kinda got lost. Any help? Sync seems okay to me; hard to really tell with the way the animations are. I'm pretty sure the low framerate in the animations is just the game, though I don't know if the audio clipping is something you could do anything about.
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# ? Oct 28, 2013 10:13 |