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I have the misfortune to be doing LPs with two idiots who enjoy it regardless of mistakes so I should probably quit while I'm ahead. Also my awful audio quality will haunt me forever.
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May 7, 2015 06:32
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Final Fantasy I (the GBA version) One time when I was like fourteen I thought what if I lped every final fantasy game ever oh boy let's do that starting with the first. It was totally bad and I was only ever remotely entertaining when my brother barged in and we blabbed about stupid poo poo as my brother is wont to make occur And then I was like two episodes before the end, literally just the final dungeon and the final boss to go when I just sorta ended it because I didn't feel like it and recently just purged all the videos off youtube because my videos were garbage anyway. Super Robot Wars J lol why did i even try for one update to lp again (to be fair it didn't help that like half the posts were 'oh god this game is such a chore welp good luck' which kinda killed it for me) and that's my lp career
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May 7, 2015 06:36
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TheLastRoboKy posted:Even War for Cybertron! It's rough as hell around the edges and probably the middles too but it was a game that had enough great moments and writing that if anything it helped carry us through our teething phases for getting into this whole LP thing. We pulled in a lot of people from the forums and from our Steam friends lists who either worked out or didn't, but I still think having that extra different person each time helped the two of us work out how best to pace talking, which is really hard and thank god WFC is so chatty it gives us plenty of material to discuss on top of the game mechanics. It's funny because we do well as a duo but honest to god some of our best moments are with a third person. Earlier in the thread Coolguye talked about sometimes considering removing it but if he did that I would defenestrate him with my mind. I love that LP to bits. I'm probably in the wrong thread, all I can talk about is how much I love doing this poo poo. Also, you might say I'm the organizer - and I am - but you frequently outdo me in making the threads interesting. That's also a largely separate skill, and one you're a lot better at than me. A lot of people kind of ignore that aspect of things completely, which I've always felt is a mistake - most games, even fairly unknown ones like Dark Messiah, end up having a lot more content 'out there' than ever makes it into the game. Hooking people to talk about that stuff is not simple sometimes, but if you can do it (and Roboky has a real knack for it) the thread tends to become a lot more fun. There are some exceptions, of course - never, ever bring up Matt Ward in a 40k thread! - but by and large it's a lot more engaging for people, which pays you back because it self-replicates into more good and fun discussions. Orv posted:I have the misfortune to be doing LPs with two idiots who enjoy it regardless of mistakes so I should probably quit while I'm ahead. Also my awful audio quality will haunt me forever. 
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May 7, 2015 07:40
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Right, let's do this: Fabled Lands: I'm still hoping someone competent LPs the full series, because it's the best CYOA ever. I fell into the trap that a lot of CYOA LPers still do - the need to have the thread make every decision, instead of settling on some goals, fast forwarding through the travel stuff and only asking the thread for input on meaningful actions. Abandoning my very first LP (after everyone lost interest) would probably count as a bad omen, but I managed to finish or hand over every other LP I started / participated in. The other poor habit started in this LP - using random images as a crutch to enliven the text - I still indulge in. Nelly Cootalot:: It's a short, funny, quaint game that I finished in less than two weeks. I think I did about as well as can be expected (with the possible issue of not including proper soundtrack links from the very start). However, it gave me a lot of optimistic expectations about the length and time investment of my next project. Live a Live: Yeah... I think we've discussed it more than enough. Way of the Tiger and Lone Wolf: I took over two abandoned LPs for a while, only to hand them back to the OP who promptly let them die. That would also be a poor omen, if it were not for the two most recent LPs I took over. I did rather like writing out the fight scenes (something I also indulged in for Fabled Lands). It's my opinion that even actually turn based combat shouldn't be written out / choreographed as "one guy does a thing, and then other guy does another thing" - during a fight, both sides are trying to do something at once, which is hard to write but quite a bit more interesting. Radical Dreamers: I was inspired to LP this by Dark Id's Chrono Cross LP happening at the same time. Sadly, I did not get to share in LP superstardom by way of imitation  I did get to show off a bunch of things even people who were somewhat familiar with this obscure game were surprised by. I still consider "you're making this up, no way is that in the game proper" to be the highest form of praise. Also, one of the posters mentioned being a part of the translation team literally on the last page of the thread, which is quite unfortunate - we could have had some bonus anecdotes or whatever.Sorcery: I actually started this because I thought I found a full text dump to cut and paste, not realizing it only included about half of the first book. The rest of the LP included a lot of typing. Quite a lot of typing. This around the time I gave up on describing fight scenes. Might have been why I found the thread spamming in-jokes and trying to kill us more irritating than usual. Sniping back and forth with the thread is never a smart thing to do, but by the time the second book rolled around, we managed to get over it, I found a couple of moderately neat gimmicks for the alternate runs, and we eventually completed (what might be?) the most famous Fighting Fantasy series. Could have used more thread tears during the bullshit sections of book 4 though. The reaction was more understated than I had hoped. Puzzle Agent 2: This is the one LP I look back on and wonder "why the hell did I LP this game?" Apparently I cared about it at the time, and wanted to try my hand at VLP's. I can barely remember anything about the plot except for the stupidity of the big twist, and I forgot all the valuable lessons about video and audio editing shortly thereafter. Even trying to give away some prizes didn't really raise much interest in the thread. Also, I really hate the sound of my own voice when recorded. KGB: I'm rather proud of this one. It shows off and obscure game, it's hella informative and (he said, all-too modestly) interesting, and I even managed to slip in some of my own writing, which apparently fit the games style enough that no one figured it out. All that, and someone else took care of most of the actual LPing for me. What's not to like? (Except for the embarrassing exchange of posts right when I first decided to take over, because I managed to forget everything about image editing and processing in-between LPs) Gabriel Knight 2: That was sort of an attempt to repeat the KGB LP. Except no one really gave a poo poo about GK2, and I didn't have a lot to say about the historical background 
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May 7, 2015 08:06
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Dazzling Addar posted:Donkey Kong 64 I loved the DK64 LP. In fact, there's only a few VLPs I liked enough to download in their entirety and store on my external hard drive for occasional reviewing, so that LP sits amongst the Trespasser LP and the Daikatana LP as the stuff I liked the absolute most. It also has the S.T.R.A.I.N. Doom WAD LP by Vaos and Jade Star, which kind of seems to point towards my taste in VLPing, but that's beside the point. With DK64 being a sort of nightmare scenario for collectathons, it's a perfect candidate for the "rambling pseudo-white noise" type of commentary, where commentators just find whatever to talk about because the game is just giving them nothing. Some people don't like that, but personally, I see it as a kind of critique on the game - things have gotten so long-winded and tedious that there's just nothing to talk about, and I can sympathize with that. As everybody that has 100%'d DK64 can tell you, doing so is a soul-sucking experience, and some of that should come through in the LP, otherwise the viewers aren't seeing what the game is really like. If you were to edit things down, I'm sure you could make 100%ing DK64 look vaguely appealing, but that would just be deceiving people. In essence, I think that LP was the perfect DK64 experience, and your morphing from "oh man, this is going to be great!" to "oh god why the gently caress did I ever consider this this game is terrible" pretty much perfectly mirrored my own descent when I first played the game a fairly long time ago.
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May 7, 2015 12:47
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So we're doing LP-by-LP retrospectives now, huh? Alright, I can do that. I'll have to check the Master List to refresh my memory, though... 21 entries?! Goddamn. And it doesn't even have everything I've done. Okay, here we go. You'll have to forgive me if I'm a little hazy on the order, but it's been a few years for the oldest ones and the Master List only has "date added." Disciples 2 It all began with Microsoft Word, IrfanView, and a dream. I'd lurked for months, first in the LP Archive and then in SA itself, but the day after I registered I dropped a test post, and a day after that I started my first thread. I liked Disciples 2 because it was a HoMM clone but with small parties instead of big armies and an emphasis on leveling your main hero, and those two things appealed to my playstyle. And since these heroes had no part in the plot, it gave me the chance to add my own little narrative and experiment with different styles for each faction. Unfortunately, Disciples 2 hated Irfanview's image capturerer and about two-thirds of my screenshots were unusable garbage. These days I know there was probably an in-game screencap button that would have solved my problem, but at the time it was very aggravating. Since the thread was getting little response, I decided to simply abandon it after finishing the second of four faction campaigns. Are We There Yet This was an old DOS puzzle game that confounded my childhood thanks to the answer booklet that came with the game being incomplete. The format was simple enough: For each of 50 states there were two puzzles, and for the puzzles that You The Viewer could solve I awarded points to those who bothered solving them. There were no prizes, mind you, and in the end I think one poster solved like 75% of the puzzles. Even that guy couldn't be bothered to solve the later word finds, though, and so although we reached every state by the end we never did finish the game. Hell, to this day I still haven't seen the end cutscene. On the plus side, I learned how to make gifs, although at the time I didn't realize that DOSBox can record video and so I spliced the gifs together from screenshots taken of every frame of a cutscene. Fortunately, the game's cutscenes have a lovely framerate Pizza Tycoon This game had hotseat multiplayer, which means that up to eight people could take turns playing each in-game day, and so I figured I would ask for volunteers to give me orders to carry out for them. I got the volunteers, but I never got the orders except I think from Glazius. The thread died quickly and quietly after that. PS: Glazius is the real LP hero. Props, man. Quest for Glory 1-5 This LP was the reason I joined SA, and like a few other folks here I held off on doing it so I could get enough experience to do it right. I first learned how to record and edit video so I could make extras for the LP, and I wound up transcribing just about every word in all five games by hand. Lucky for me I learned how to touch type in high school, plus by that point I had set my sights on being a professional writer so pumping out pages of text was no big deal to me. Transcribing everything also gave me the chance to notice how the writing took a noticeable downturn in 5 and gave me the chance to...improve on it a little. I enjoyed constructing no fewer than four characters, one for each hero class, and I also enjoyed showing off everything about the five best adventure games Sierra has ever produced. On the other hand, like I said before I regret putting in a bunch of internet memes despite how no one really complained and I still have no idea what possessed me to change the hero's backstory to make his hometown Mordavia. Fallout 3 Some people detox from a taxing LP by going on hiatus for a while. I do so by making an easier LP. Fallout 3 was nothing more than a simple challenge run with a gimmick: I was to play the game as if I were Gordon Freeman, and as such I had to wear glasses, I could only use the lab coat or the HEV suit (modded into the game just for the LP), I would focus on standard and energy weapons (plus a crowbar that was also from a mod), and since Gordon was from a linear game I would run straight through the plot (minus one shortcut) and then end it there. Oh, and I also added the G-Man into one screenshot for every update. To be frank, I have no idea why this one was as popular as it was. There was nothing to it beyond a single joke inspired by the Freeman's Mind series. On the plus side, I suppose going straight through Fallout 3's plot meant it didn't overstay its welcome. Shadows Over Riva My next "big" LP was inspired by Captain Garlic's run through Icewind Dale 2, which turned the ordinarily silent protagonists into a rowdy group of misfits. I also solicited character ideas from the thread, but then I pulled a twist: these were not independent characters, but PC's controlled by players in an RPG group. This aspect was taken from the webcomics DM of the Rings and Darths & Droids which I had recently read, although I also drew heavily from my own years of experience as a DM. I also put up every combat in the game as a video, and I have no idea why since combat is probably the most boring part of that game even when you're playing it. Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? My next detox LP. I saw someone start an LP of an older version of the game, but it was abandoned I think before they even found the first criminal. So I figured to myself, "Hey, I've got the deluxe CD version sitting at my parents' place, why don't I find it and show everyone the voice acting and such?" And so I did. I let the thread do most of the heavy lifting with the clues and such at first, but once things started to get repetitive I skipped ahead to the big case where I was tracking down Carmen herself. Sure enough, we got her, along with a promotion, a party, and some pretty nice cutscenes. Tropico 3 I understand that not everybody likes Juanito, but I did, and so I made him the narrator of my tinpot dictator LP. I allowed the thread to vote on things, and I also named most of the island's inhabitants after them, but in true despotic form I only let people vote on what I set before them and whether the votes would actually matter was...up for debate. I counted them, mind you, but to be true to the game I didn't always do what they said. Dragonsphere My very first bona fide video LP. Dragonsphere is an obscure Microprose adventure game which had some decent puzzles, some hilariously bad voice acting, and a very imaginative setting (I'm kind of a sucker for those). The commentary was live, the capture method was DOSBox, and when I brought in a friend to get a fresh reaction to the mid-game twist we had to place my headset microphone between us and get our heads really close together so we could both be heard. I'm honestly amazed that half the videos have over 1000 views; the LP was so rough I didn't even ask for it to go into the archive. Raptor Back in '10 there was a shmups thread and I asked there about a top-down PC shooter I had remembered playing as a kid. They identified it as Raptor, and as my way of saying thanks I LP'ed it for the thread. I ran out of things to say about two videos from the end, so in one of them I read a couple of the more macabre Grimm fairy tales and in the other I brought my friend back and did a variation on the "Who's on First?" skit. I think Raptor has the fewest views out of any LP on my Youtube channel, and that includes the Shadows over Riva combat videos. Day of the Tentacle Though my commentary was still live at this point, I really enjoyed going through this classic LucasArts game again. I also threw in an SSLP of Maniac Mansion for shits and giggles, although I think I took too many liberties with the (admittedly paper-thin) characters. Thousand Arms I saw someone start a Thousand Arms LP but once again it died a couple of updates in. Might be the one Tobias Grant was talking about, but I can't be sure. Anyway, I actually enjoyed the quirky sort of humor Thousand Arms had, and so this was my attempt at doing a sort of Dark Id style hybrid where I would mostly stick to the script but throw in italicized additions here and there. I can't say it was my best work, but I do hope it's exposed more people to a hidden gem. That should be enough for now. I'll get to the other half (!) of my LP "career" later.
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May 7, 2015 15:19
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:Dragonsphere Anyone who says they weren't hooked for this one by your evil laughter at tossing the main character down a well is lying.
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May 7, 2015 15:28
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I find some kind of sick enjoyment out of trainwrecks like DK64 and the nearly 2 hour long tiny huge island video (not even joking I've sat through that bastard 3 times). I'm probably a horrible person for enjoying others suffering or maybe that's the goal of Let's Play, somewhere out there there some dude who will watch just about anything at 4 am and you gotta make that rear end in a top hat giggle at the cost of your mind and self respect. I'm sure there are dissertations and charts to show off the viewer satisfaction to emotional trauma ratios someplace. Anyway thanks for making me giggle with your pain and unhappiness dear people who do horrible things. Keep shooting for the sky(or ground, the awful flaming ground)!
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May 7, 2015 17:05
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Gonna cheat a bit here. I made a post just-to-make-one earlier (help thread stay relatively on-point), but I'd like to go back and cover a few things I took away from each LP. Effort-postin': #1: Shadow of the Colossus LP something you really love and want to show off to people. If it's your first LP, keep it simple. This was my first LP, though I first had decided on Dark Messiah of Might & Magic. I mostly cut my teeth with encoding/subtitle tests using it, but the Sandcastle folks (rightfully) said it was bad I briefly tried AC2, but backed off. I found a way to make Viddler display *fantastic* quality, but I had to force the game to letterboxed 4:3. Folks in the Sandcastle wanted me to trim the letterboxing, but that would've hosed the whole process.Seeing how folks were doing 100% completion stuff, I decided to do a special little game that I really enjoyed. I can only think of one person who has ever commented on my voice in real-life, so I had no real concept of what other folks thought of it. Plus, the game has an amazing soundtrack. I went subs and was grateful for having done so. It removed several layers of complexity which I would've botched (audio editing, knowing that dead-air is okay, etc). The latter half of the LP was cranked out on an almost daily basis; specifically, I recorded all the play-footage on a Sunday and every day I would sit down, do some subs, and kick out an update. Sounds low-effort? Well, I kind of found my groove. The updates weren't too difficult, so, at the risk of not getting lazy, I decided on something a bit trickier next. #2: Assassin's Creed 1 Don't be afraid to get creative. The nagging voice in the back of your head can't see the forest for the trees at times. Try something out, see how folks react, and go from there. AC had a really neat idea/setting. I remember being stoked as HELL about it, but then I got the game and was so incredibly let down. Not being alone in this, I wanted to highlight what was really neat about it. An open-world game is a pretty tricky thing to LP well, but most of the extra stuff in AC is complete collectathon-fluff. This is addressed in #2 a bit, but I saw no point in collecting the several hundred flags for no reward. Thought to myself "okay, I've just gotta do a once-over of each area, show it off, then hunt the bad guy." Colossus attempts were done mostly in single-takes (I can think of maybe once or twice that I did an edit to save time). I *had* to do editing for AC. At first, it was too tight and jarring. Later on, I got a feel for how to do it better. Something from Colossus that I really, really enjoyed was the interpretation of the colossi. Some had really neat details, and a few could be seen to have real mythological ties. This itch got scratched and I really dug in to it for AC. Given that I had a garbage job with lots of down-time, I spent it comparing maps (in-game vs real), researching stuff, and refreshing my memory on stuff I'd read previously. So, rather than trying to fill dead-air with awkwardness, I decided to discuss history/culture during this era. Looking at it, you could tell that the guys behind the art direction/city layouts (consultants from the Kingdom of Heaven movie) were loving amazing. Game design decisions didn't incorporate these too much, unfortunately, so it was like slathering loads of tasty frosting on a terrible cake. My main aim was to say "this game is not fun to play but LOOK AT THIS COOL STUFF." At first, I wasn't sure how folks would react to the long-winded ramblings in episodes. I'd TA'd in college, but I didn't know what folks wanted. People seemed receptive, thankfully! So, the LP was coming to a close and yet I had tons of pages of notes. I wrote up an overview of the ongoing crusade in the game's setting and felt it was going to waste. After having an idea and studying how to use Adobe Premiere a bit better (I started using it in this LP), I decided to try a history segment. It worked out pretty well, so I cranked out a few more! #3: Assassin's Creed 2 Be aware of what you're getting in to  AC2's LP went on for over a year. A very productive year, mind you. History segments were pretty regular things of mine for this LP, though it thankfully highlighted a lot of its historical locations (something #1 never did). Also IT HAD loving SUBTITLES. AC1 had so many points that I had to gain the audio up by 20dB just to understand what was being said. Then it got in to heavy accents and some phrases were just indecipherable as a result. Anyhow, this was an LP where I spread myself too thin. I enjoyed doing history segment videos, but they took forever. As petty as it sounds, they also had way less views than normal updates. By the end, I was pretty bushed. During the next LP, I landed the job where I find myself today. It's nice and rewarding, but it also keeps me tied up. I don't really have the time or mental "idleness" while on-the-clock to tackle Brotherhood with regular history segments, and the series itself has gone to garbage (AC1 wrapped up when Revelations was announced, and the series was going *really* well around then). AC1/2 was mostly the product of my brain not getting worked much; not really an issue I have nowadays, unfortunately #4: Dark Souls Group commentary is pretty rad. Remember that this stuff should always be fun. This was my first foray in to a few things. Group commentary, Blind LPing, and doing it all live. That said, it ended up going pretty well! No major hardware/software issues. Colossus killed a recording laptop and led to me getting an HD PVR (Gamebridge didn't understand anything past XP). AC1 killed my Xbox. AC2 did something else that I can't recall. This was the first LP where I didn't have some crippling setback. Anyhow, I learned editing was super important in AC1 & AC2. Blind LPs involve a lot of farting around, so having people around to yank on the chain makes it flow much better. Folks notice that I don't edit too much in these blind LPs, but it's because I genuinely enjoy the discussion/banter going on. It's funny, often has a lot to do with the game, and helps pass the time. I like to think that this LP gave me a good idea of when it's a good idea to edit downtime and when it should be kept in. I had an issue right after the Taurus Demon, and it was most definitely the video with the most deaths imaginable. Editing that, I definitely realized that it had to be trimmed down; pretty sure I removed about half an hour or something like that from that one stint. I like to think that even though this was fresh territory, I had a decent sense of what to chop from the start. Most importantly? AC2 toward the end wore me away a lot; I didn't hate doing it, but it was tiring and not a ton of fun. Dark Souls was a nice, fun experience. #5: The Last of Us Not sure if I *learned* anything on this LP, per se. It was pretty organic from start-to-finish, and it was my first post-commentary stuff with a blind co-commentator. Collect stuff, pay attention to textures/set-pieces (Kamoc did this a lot in Silent Hill: Homecoming, and I really enjoyed it), and make sure to stretch things out between stealth/combat segments. I usually play a turtle-style person in stealth games, but this got me to be much more aggressive to make it interesting. I think seeing how Chip handles Uncharted made me go "whoa I'm super boring when I play these games". So I decided to take more risks, and it was very enjoyable as a result. #6: Killer is Dead Tying back in to #1: BE SURE YOU LIKE THE GAME YOU ARE LP'ING. I thought I liked Killer is Dead, but it just rubbed me completely wrong in the second playthrough. I think a lot of it was I kept thinking this "clever" Suda-ish stuff would somehow be more relevant. Sure, I didn't expect certain plot holes to ever be addressed, but the part of its flow/layout that vaguely resembled Cowboy Bebop totally went out the window when I saw the game was short, padded re-used maps, had lazy dream sequences, etc. A lot of the charm with this game early on was me going "oh man where is it going with this. I wonder when this plot thing will come up again." Then you realize "oh. THAT STUFF IS NEVER ADDRESSED. IT HAS NO IMPORTANCE." Y'know, I expected maybe 2-3 missions with some backstory/angle focusing on a certain character from the group (maybe more for Mondo), but it never came out to this. I should've decided after my first playthrough against doing this, but something in my mind said "nah, let's push ahead." Reinhold's (rightfully) skeptical approach to the game made me very quickly change my mind. To quote Panzer, it just turned in to an LP with two angry old men grumbling about a game.
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May 7, 2015 18:11
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I broke out into the community with a lovely Cave Story LP that fell apart because my turbogarbage computer could barely run it and the recording software at the same time. Then I embarassed myself by starting Mega Man X3 and being so bad at it that the thread came together to show me up at Volt Catfish. Then I was on Desert Bus with Schildkrote, I think I read Sonic fanfiction? That was a pretty crazy time, I remember Schildkrote talking about 'taking down the subforum' with 'his people'. I was almost in one of Prime32's Granstream Saga videos with Deceased Crab but he made recording a bit hard with his attitude and talking over people, and IIRC that episode's commentary never saw the light of day anyway. I loved every single one of them and want to do another. Sorry my retrospectives aren't extremely long but I didn't feel the need to go into details anyway since all of this happened back in the dark early days of the subforum. vvvv Seriously Dazz you are a treat and your Dark Souls 2 LP is really good. vvvv Kobold eBooks fucked around with this message at 18:25 on May 7, 2015 |
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May 7, 2015 18:17
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Did anybody watch my LPs? I feel like I should write some words but nobody would care about them. Also Dazzling Addar your DK64 LP was loving amazing and it's quite possibly one of the best out there. Also I think you should know that I think about the ghosts / spirits pun in that SM64 LP almost every day and smile because of it. It is burned into my memory as the best LP joke ever made. Dazzling Addar, please continue to LP. I will watch whatever you do because you are a genuinely funny person.
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May 7, 2015 18:18
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I'll reminisce about the ones in the archive because I don't remember some of the other minor ones I did or didn't finish. Mega Man X8 After utterly failing to complete my FF9 screenshot LP, and after seeing (or rather, hearing about) slowbeef's VLP concept, I thought it sounded a lot easier and I might even finish a game that way! No more writing Witty Caption! underneath hundreds of screenshots, meticulously organizing them into vbcode, and pooping them out in a forum oversaturated with bland screenshot LPs. I was going to use my voice! I had been playing a lot of X8 recently and having a blast with it so I fired up my pirated copy of Fraps on my single core AMD desktop and started doing one video per stage. This is about the time I learned that I am not a solo LPer. The first few videos in the series with extremely dry. I had the vague idea that I was supposed to be funny, but I'm not that kinda guy. So one day I swiveled around in my dorm room chair and asked medibot if he wanted in on this. Overall I think the LP is dece. I had actual fun making it. It was short, complete, and good quality video for the time, and I learned a lot about life and other stuff probably. Kingdom Hearts 2 One thing I liked to do was play KH2 all the way through so that friends and acquaintances could experience the joy. Naturally, I had to practice on my own a few times. And skip all the cutscenes. I thought why not put a run on the internet? This LP is not good. It was the seed of inception for the Sonic 06 LP, but I bungled this one quite badly. First off, I didn't practice for it. Secondly, I spent forever on the final boss. Thirdly, I had to play through the whole thing twice because my hard drive with the first run died. Medibot and I did makeup sesh commentary in my bedroom for a couple hours. Whatever, people had fun watching it, and I had fun in the initial run of the game. Marathon LPs are tricky to make entertaining and are generally terrible. This one wasn't really an exception. GOD HAND My best LP ever and nothing will top it. Aside from using SD capture and not expanding the colorspace to PC range (all blacks are grey), the technical quality is good. I rehearsed each level and recorded multiple takes. All commentary was done in post with meticulous audio mixing. I tried to teach gameplay while joking about it and succeeded. The game itself is without peer and speaks for itself most of the time. I felt like I was hanging out with a friend instead of playing a video game. Also I had friends with me all the way through. One thing that I appreciate even more looking back is how you can watch my skill improve over the course of the LP from barely competent to Better Than You. This LP made lots of people buy the game. It fulfilled my ideals of evangelizing a video game I love through LPing. Shadow Complex I mean, it was ok. Just an LP, tryin to get by. Final Fantasy XIII-2 I was goaded into this and was pretty optimistic to start. After getting every single crystal thing and all but 2 cheevos, I was well and truly sick of the whole thing and swore never to touch it again. Technical quality was up to par, but editing so much audio and video was a real drag. At this point I had a real job and I didn't feel like spending my time doing an LP of a game I hated, but I soldiered on anyway. I should have learned my lesson to not make LPs of this sort, but I tried Lightning Returns and you all know how that turned out. Oh by the way, the remainder of the footage for that LP is on my youtube now. Uploaded it a couple weeks ago. Long rambling couch commentary LPs done blind of stupid rear end boring JRPGs are my bane and probably have killed my enthusiasm to ever do a proper LP again.
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May 7, 2015 18:39
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Gonna have to second that on God Hand. It's been...six years? I still want to LP it. And yours is still really drat good. It's intimidating. Still probably going to LP it. Sometime after Arkham Origins.
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May 7, 2015 18:54
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Small Things Which Were Not LPs But I Feel Are Important Anyway Being asked to do a level in Mega Man X3 by diabetus (video). I had never been in a collab before and I was honored! Also in this category are the mega man race tournaments we had back when our Lord Of Megaman Oyster was still in our midst. RIP you wonderful flat-footed fellow. Hijacking the Sonic Advance 2 thread with some videos of bizarro versions of LPers, sometimes talking to each other or lying about easter eggs (video). I was known as Beaver Emancipator during this time. I think these really added to the thread and I'm glad I did them. Just a fun couple of videos and it's a Sonic game so no one bats an eye. Trolling yospos with a fake Let's Play Stepmania video. I got the reactions I wanted which were LOL THOSE NERDS WILL LP ANYTHING. Mission accomplishment. Draculax I am particularly proud of the time I teamed up with Kaz to absolutely loving destroy the Draculax contest. This is some of my best work and I was so proud of it that I showed it to my entire family. It's the only LP thing I've ever shown them because I am deeply ashamed of making videos like this for the internet. At this time in my life I worked in a university "media lab" which had access to some strangely high-end a/v equipment like an HD video camera that recorded to tiny tapes! I had access to professional light kits that used power supplies that got nuclear hot, microphones that cost several thousand dollars, and all the adobe software I could figure out how to use. The end result was the peak of my creative capacity, which was to ape an existing style on an absurd subject matter. Kaz, for his part, was writing an alternate Dracula history and took great pleasure in crafting the interviews and voiceover narration scripts. video My least favorite parts of this were a) some people got mad that I didn't actually "LP" the game and hurt my feelings about it and b) the contest sort of fizzled out because they thought (rightly so) that it couldn't get any better than us. Mic drop.
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May 7, 2015 18:58
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dscruffy1 posted:Still probably going to LP it. Sometime after Arkham Origins.
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May 7, 2015 19:08
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Suspicious Dish posted:Did anybody watch my LPs? I feel like I should write some words but nobody would care about them. Please finish de blob 2.
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May 7, 2015 19:09
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the only thing i know about god hand is the end credits song where the dude talks about his pimp arm and a girl says "roulette wheel" a lot to the tune of mazinger z
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May 7, 2015 19:09
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In all fairness if that's the only thing you know about it and you don't get a boner you're probably a broken human being.
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May 7, 2015 19:13
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the super mario 64 (with feet) lp was amazing but slowbeef and diabeetus's guest appearances absolutely killed it. "How would you feel about doing Super Mario 64 DS with your feet?" "I'm not sure that's possible." "Let me rephrase that: how would you feel about doing that under threat of ban?"
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May 7, 2015 19:13
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dscruffy1 posted:In all fairness if that's the only thing you know about it and you don't get a boner you're probably a broken human being. I'm worried that the game can't top it. That this was the big reveal and I'm mad I spoiled myself on it.
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May 7, 2015 19:16
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MooCowlian posted:Please finish de blob 2. Maybe at some point! I felt the gameplay was just too samey. It's a fun, chill game you should play but like Scott Pilgrim, it could be sped up 10x and nothing interesting would be lost. You're the second person to ask me this, so maybe I'll do it after Neopets.
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May 7, 2015 19:20
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Suspicious Dish posted:Did anybody watch my LPs? I feel like I should write some words but nobody would care about them.
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May 7, 2015 19:26
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Suspicious Dish posted:I'm worried that the game can't top it. That this was the big reveal and I'm mad I spoiled myself on it.
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May 7, 2015 19:43
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Suspicious Dish posted:I'm worried that the game can't top it. That this was the big reveal and I'm mad I spoiled myself on it.
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May 7, 2015 19:47
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It took me like half an hour of "okay, you can do this" and just quietly mouthing the word "gently caress" over and over before I managed to post my thread. It's been a while since I was this nervous about a thing. Thanks go to Nidoking for tipping me over the edge.  Also Dish, you know I watch your LPs. Well, the last two anyway.
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May 7, 2015 19:52
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Suspicious Dish posted:I'm worried that the game can't top it. That this was the big reveal and I'm mad I spoiled myself on it. God Hand is just one moment after another of the game one-upping itself. The credits song is more of a victory lap than a crowning point. I've toyed with the idea of doing my own LP of God Hand. Then I saw a "stylish" playthrough of the game and realized that if I wanted to come close to even touching that, I'd need to practice the game for at least an hour a day for several months. gently caress it, somebody else can hoist that banner. I mean, I can beat the game on hard without much difficulty, but it's a lot of boring dodging and fishing for counter-hits and guard breaks, which isn't very fun to watch.
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May 7, 2015 20:00
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Great Joe posted:It took me like half an hour of "okay, you can do this" and just quietly mouthing the word "gently caress" over and over before I managed to post my thread. It's been a while since I was this nervous about a thing. Thanks go to Nidoking for tipping me over the edge. I know I give you poo poo about your posts a lot but you're good in vids so don't lose confidence. 
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May 7, 2015 20:06
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That means a lot. Thanks!
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May 7, 2015 20:20
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inthesto posted:I mean, I can beat the game on hard without much difficulty I'm not sure I believe you. But I'll buy it. If I do a playthrough I'm dodging wall bouncing and chain yanker/yes ma'am kablams. But doing the game on hard always got me a hard stop at Mr. Silver and Mr. Gold. That might have been an initial attempt at a KMS run though. Basically what I'm saying is beating the game on hard without much difficulty is a bold enough statement that I'd want to see it even if it is boring.
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May 7, 2015 20:20
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dscruffy1 posted:I'm not sure I believe you. But I'll buy it. If I do a playthrough I'm dodging wall bouncing and chain yanker/yes ma'am kablams. But doing the game on hard always got me a hard stop at Mr. Silver and Mr. Gold. That might have been an initial attempt at a KMS run though. Stage 1 is actually the hardest part of the game, because as you've noticed you don't have your best moves (chain yanker and YMK) yet. Once you have those, it's becomes a game of meter management. You memorize the hard spots where you're going to have to burn the god hand and where you're going to spend your roulette orbs on chain yanker to rebuild your meter. And no, you do not spend your roulette orbs on anything other than chain yanker (exception to Mad Midget Five fights). I can think of two fights that are consistent wallstops once you have those two moves (Three Stooges revisited and stage 7 midget boss). Naturally, any point of the game can and will kill you because it's God Hand, but more often than not it's just the result of being sloppy. Maybe if I ever cough up money for a better computer and an HD capture card, I'll put my money where my mouth is, but until then rest easy knowing there are already people who are way better at the game than you or I ever will be
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May 7, 2015 20:43
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Time to strike that old ego talking about myself for a whole post. Fluidity The shameful admission: I joined for LP. I lurked for a while, and I knew I wanted to LP some game, because I wanted to try my own hand at this, I just didn't know what. I actually learned about this game from some random person who did a RollerCoaster Tycoon game, and that mentioned the music was written by one "Allister Brimble", who had then just worked completing a new game, "Fluidity" / "Hydroventure". So I bought it, cracked it open, and was immediately hooked. A great, chill open-world platformer game with a unique mechanic, that totally deserved more recognition and success than it got. Perfect for my opening LP game. Even though this LP is solo, and I sound super loving awkward, I still really love my first LP. It has a super chill feel I haven't been able to match since, as I've been getting more and more excited in my videos and more comfortable with commentary. I'd love to find another game to LP in the same fashion. All throughout the LP, I knew this game reminded me of something. Some small comfort that made me super happy earlier in my life. Today, I finally figured out what it is.  A simpler time... Elebits I think this was my worst LP. After my first one, I was like "well, uh, what now", so I just picked a game I grabbed off my shelf and decided to LP it. This was my first co-commentary experience, I was super awkward. The game itself starts off really awesome, and then nosedives in the final third when you go to an amusement park and something happens? I don't really know, the levels just suck at the end. I had never actually beaten it before, I had gotten stuck somewhere at the beginning there, so I didn't really know that the game just sort of had a wet fart for an ending. The "Challenge Missions" are ridiculous and involved me glueing a Wiimote to a tripod to beat them. I also put in a ridiculous amount of effort into the thread itself, sharing texture dumps, making my own font for the thread based on the game. I had a lot of fun recording and doing the art-y things, but I don't think the videos came out well at all. Twilight Princess Glitching A mini-series I recorded as a bonus thing for ThornBrain's Twilight Princess thread. By far the most popular thing on my YouTube channel, but I had to abort it since I couldn't beat Morpheel. I have no idea if people liked it. I don't really talk to ThornBrain anymore, but I can't imagine I gel'd very much with him and his two friends. Always felt like I was being awkward and intruding in somebody else's thread, and it's probably the thing I would take back the most. Sorry, dude. I tried de Blob 1 / 2 Third LP, I think we had finally gotten our style down. Managed to meet Instant Grat, who is still my bff and in my videos today. A super cool, chill dude. I put a lot of work into the thread OP itself, with more artsy things, but since the thread's been thrown into the abyss of time, I can't pull it out. The game is really awesome and cool and about painting it up while horns and a DJ blare in the background and you should totes play it, but I let it go after we tried to record the same video 3 times and just couldn't keep it interesting. I do want to bring it back some day. Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy Grabbed this game after somebody in the Dolphin Issue Tracker reported a bug with it, and I borrowed the game to test it. Enjoyed it so much to go back and do an LP of it. Super fun not-Zelda clone. It's by far my best work, I love the game and the LP a lot. Again, I put a lot of work into the thread OP and videos themselves for no specific reason, other than it being fun. We had a few dedicated posters dropping some really cool ancient Egypt knowledge which I super enjoyed. I think by now Grat/I have some chemistry. Don't have much to say on this one, other than it was extremely smooth, I enjoyed it a lot, and Vicas and Mr. DJB were both excellent funny guests. Neopets Current thing. Brought back our mutual friend Juliana as a perma, and I think it's going pretty well? I have no idea. Lots of people seem to be enjoying it. Yes, the thread title and OP are supposed to be dumb clickbait things to get people to hopefully watch my videos. And yes, I did work far too much on that OP. I'm still way too proud of it. It's been slow, because I have work M-F, Juliana is busy finishing up her undergrad studies, and Grat has school. Also, we're all in different timezones and that's hell. Thankfully, Juliana's mostly done with school so we're able to record again. Other Bonus Things I did five or six race videos, which were all really fun, and are the second most popular thing on my YouTube channel. I'd love to do more of them! The race scene just sort of died after that one summer. Anybody want to do a race? also i helped make geop eat an appetizer and i'm super proud of that one.
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May 7, 2015 20:52
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I feel like I've said the general things I felt about the LPs I've done already in this thread, but I figure going into more detail about it wouldn't hurt. Armored Core: The game itself is one I've enjoyed playing multiple times and was very good at, so choosing it for my first Let's Play was a smart pick, not to mention there not being many attempts at a playthrough of the series. I remember almost having it just be an SSLP before receiving feedback in the Sandcastle to include video, so it ended up as a Hybrid. I didn't want to make it something I'd look back on and regret if I didn't do a good job of commentating on video (especially without any co commentators as trying to schedule these things with people in other time zones feels like such a hassle at times). The structure ultimately worked well. Videos of the mission in full with no edits, and screenshots with commentary for things that were relevant and all I had to worry about was potential typos and not me tripping over my own words on camera. That said, my work process was sloppy and time consuming, even if the end result was something that I and the people following the thread found satisfactory. I recorded everything I did in the game, both menu stuff and missions so I could get the screenshots I needed, but I would press record and stop recording to segment the videos that I was actually going to upload as opposed to using actual video editing software. It was only on the final mission that I actually started messing with Windows Movie Maker as the length and difficulty of the end game was something that I didn't want to scrap a dozen recorded videos that would end in failure, and so I needed to start taking the best parts from it if necessary. Taking screenshots was also something I had no idea how to efficiently do. Because I recorded the game in widescreen with black bars on the sides to maintain aspect ratio, I had the "amazing" idea of print screening my desktop with the video open, then crop and edit the image to something that could be used in a post. And then there was the schedule at which I was doing things. With more free time than I knew what to do with, I was putting out updates almost every two to three days until around E3 that year when my output slowed down, till I eventually had to push myself around the end of August to start putting together the last three updates. I was having fun with playing the game, but because I wasn't taking the time along the way to better manage my work load the whole thing was almost starting to feel like a chore. Alas, it eventually got finished months later than it should have been, and then put on the archives half a year later. Even with the poo poo I ran into, it says something that I still look at the whole thing and go "yeah, this was worth it in the end." Well, except the moment where I had a batch of footage that had no audio due to me forgetting to fix some settings in OBS. I'm not living that down. Armored Core Project Phantasma: If the last LP was a fun game with a tedious work process behind it, then this one is basically those switched around somewhat. The game is fun enough yet it has various flaws, but having a considerable break between the first Armored Core and this let me better figure out how to do things more efficiently. I ended up recording the footage at 4:3 without black borders and only needing the resolution as high as 640x480. Then there was the wonderful discovery I had where I could take screenshots directly within VLC so all I needed to do now with them was just rename the images for ease of ordering. It was still the same hybrid style for the LP, which I figured would be something I'd keep consistent for these PS1 games, though the content of Project Phantasma led to its own set of challenges regarding how to show everything the game has while still being entertaining and maintaining good commentary. The one thing that was slightly disappointing for me was the turn out on people commenting in the thread during that time. My AC1 LP had a pretty decent number of people checking it out, especially when I gave them the opportunity to vote on a particular mission to take partway through the game. For Project Phantasma, it's been a lot of the same few people, and I still appreciated that (thank you especially Seiren for all the AC part sperging and effort posts), though I've had the feeling in some cases that including some audience participation could have done interesting things for the game. I did my best to keep the Arena mode interesting with its 49 matches by mixing up play styles and builds, but the whole thing overall was playing it in the specific order that I had planned out from the beginning and didn't really consider a lot of means to mix it up further for entertainment purposes. I was definitely more relieved once I finished that playthrough as opposed to AC1, as not only did it mean I could move onto a better game, but I finished it within the time frame I had initially set out for. And given the stress I was facing finishing up my classes last month, I'm glad I got this done before I had to focus all my effort on important matters. Hopefully the same will apply for when I finish Master of Arena. Assuming Movie Maker stops trying to keep me from editing footage with it saying it's corrupted or some bullshit. So yeah, not a long LP career, but nothing's made me swear of doing any more. That's definitely something, right?
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May 7, 2015 21:35
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Dazzling Addar posted:
I've watched through those two LPs with my girlfriend so many times. We both think you're an absolute star. She did however set the Yoshi song as the alarm on her phone soon afterwards. I wake up every day to that song and I blame you entirely for that 
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May 7, 2015 22:02
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I'm sure all three of mine sucked, but eh, I had fun with two of them. Still Life: A flawed as hell but neat adventure game. I love murder mysteries, and this one danced the line between kind of spooky and silly bullshit. It was my first LP, so my biggest problem with it was that I was disorganized as all hell. I had the images themselves labeled as stuff like "C1", "C2" for Chapter 1 pic 1, pic 2, etc. That was not fun trying to sort things on Baldurk's site and I am functionally retarded for doing so. I still like to think the love showed through for the game itself though (except for the cookie puzzle. drat the cookie puzzle to the hellish abyss that spawned it). Also Gustav was a really neat character. Enough so that I would have tried playing the third game in the series, Post Mortem, except for... Still Life 2: Yeah, here's a twofold lesson. Do not LP jump into a sequel because you liked the first game. Especially do not do that poo poo blind. At some point it became a documentary on my pain playing it as I screenshotted me running back and forth through the drat pixel hunts, I put it off a long time at one point when the nonsensical story broke me like a twig, I picked it up again for completion's sake and to see what bullshit they were going to pull as far as the plot went, and then I cried a lot and stabbed myself with a fork until the pain blocked out the pain. Holy penis but I hated this game, doubly so for taking a big dump on the story of the last one. And no Deputy Dawg. Really, what's the point without him? Maximum Carnage - No Death Run: For the Hard Games thread...in which I made the drat game even harder for masochism's sake. Surprisingly I liked what I did with this one, though my doing it with subtitles rather than audio probably wasn't a great idea no matter how much I liked the music. I blame the Sandcastle making fun of my microphone on a previous LP and making me cry. It took me like a solid year to actually finish this (although in my defense, my computer died and lost most everything. By the time I got it back I just didn't care much), but it was a drat nice feeling actually clearing a level in this game without a death, given how much it beat me up as a kid just trying to play it straight.
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May 7, 2015 22:43
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I had a talk with a few people today who saw my post in this thread and are encouraging me to do the LP business, so I'm thinking of starting with Ys Origin like I claimed I would in the initial LP sandbox post. I need a cocommentator or two though for a few episodes, and I need to learn how to edit again. If anyone wishes to be a part of this, then shoot me a PM, or send me a message at http://steamcommunity.com/id/incomprehensibleslur
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May 7, 2015 23:35
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you know i'd be more than happy to do it, slur. you down for sunday?
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May 7, 2015 23:40
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Suspicious Dish posted:you know i'd be more than happy to do it, slur. you down for sunday? Sunday seems reasonable, assuming I'm not burnt out. It might be later in the day though; I have something to attend in the morning.
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May 7, 2015 23:41
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yeah, sorry, we have a company retreat friday/saturday, and i'm going to a concert with rjwaters2, so my weekend is sort of packed.
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May 7, 2015 23:43
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Suspicious Dish posted:yeah, sorry, we have a company retreat friday/saturday, and i'm going to a concert with rjwaters2, so my weekend is sort of packed. It's fine. Things are busy on my end on Saturday as well. Have fun out there.
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May 7, 2015 23:46
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Oh hey, a place for both nostalgia AND self-loathing? I'm in! Honestly, I kind of hate every LP I have ever made outside of Monster Rancher 1 and DS. And maybe Make My Video, but that one's been killed off by Content ID matching hell. I remember being all excited about this new Let's Play thing back in '07, wanting to show off Parasite Eve, and then proceeded to blatantly rip off The Dark Id wholesale. I think the only good part of that LP was photoshopping Danny Glover's head on Daniel every time he showed up. I ended up with a huge .psd full of Glover heads. God knows how I'd be able to explain that file to the police if they looked at my image folder. But I still had fun making that thread, and had all these photoshop macros handy, so hey! Why not make another one! Why not do an LP of Tecmo's Deception? That shouldn't be too hard, and people might find the concept of playing as the villain kind of neat. Somehow that turned into me doing the entire series (at the time) within a 2 month period, because I was unemployed at the time and had nothing better to do than take screenshots of videogames for the internet. The quality steadily went downhill with each update as I burned myself out, due to my idiotic lack of pacing. No one sane should ever do daily updates for a screenshot LP, with extra video highlights. Before I even finished Trapt, I started up Monster Rancher. That was more of a fun break from the heavy workload. I'd just type out whatever stupid poo poo popped up in my head, and have the thread dictate what I do in the game. It was fun as hell, but started to get a little long in the tooth. MR2 was passable. I swore off ever doing another Monster Rancher LP, unless I could do something other than the same fanfictiony format I wore out with the first two. Monster Rancher DS gave me a great idea-- instead of making up the dialog and story, I'd make up the gameplay. A fake expert tutorial, where I'd make up all the key game mechanics. I even included a fake setting where you could change your assistant to Holly, the assistant from MR1, and some people actually believed it. Lies give me power, you see. There were some other LPs that were pretty mediocre. They were there. I made them. Sometimes there were animated gifs. I don't think I could come up with any interesting ideas for another LP, and I've definitely lost my taste for making straight playthroughs with the occasional joke/photoshop/drawing I forced a talented friend to make. But it was still pretty neat making something that was kind of popular once.
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May 8, 2015 00:04
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