26 replies to this topic

[Kite]

Hey everyone. I think we need to talk a bit about how the Let's Play forum has been going.

When we first started the forum, we were imagining it to actually function as a discussion forum or interactive forum, much like other forums on PureZC (including Message Board Games).

Unfortunately, it just hasn't gone in that direction for the most part. Most people have tended to treat the LP forum more like the Funny Images / Videos / Websites thread where they will just dump Youtube urls they want to share and move on. That's fine for a thread that's meant for dumping, but it doesn't really work as the main mentality for a forum that is overall meant to promote discussion or interactivity.

With that in mind, I have a confession to make. I'm not trying to be mean with this but I feel that I have to say it. The only reason I look into this forum besides staff duties is to check if someone is streaming. Even then, I only check it if I know the person. That's it. I barely look at the LPs. The main reason I barely look at the LPs is because almost all of them follow this format:
 

Title: Let's Play this quest
Post #1: Part 1 link
Post #2: Part 2 link
Post #3: Part 3 link
Post #4: Part 4 link

The problem here isn't that they are multiple posts without any interruption between them. If people are not replying, then people are not replying. The problem here is that there's just no effort here in trying to sell the LP and get discussion and/or participation on PureZC. If all you are going to do is throw Youtube links at me without any context outside of the thread title (if I'm even that lucky since some people dump all their links in one thread without much context), why should I bother watching? Why should I bother commenting about it? I'm sure I'm not the only one feeling this way.

Compare our LP forum to SomethingAwful and the LP Archive (which is stuff from SomethingAwful) and you can see what I'm talking about. Pretty much all of those LPs (or at least the good ones) try to engage people with descriptive OPs (opening posts) that simultaneously act as a table of contents, give their video parts descriptive names or descriptions to catch people's attention and inform them of what they might be missing by skipping the video, ask for audience participation, or start up discussions about the games in general based on what they've done during the episode.

I feel like we could go a long way with the LP forum if we just put a tiny bit more effort into integrating the LPs on PureZC with the community instead of using it as a Youtube url dumping field. I don't think it would take much effort to put in some descriptive OPs, screenshots, and stuff in order to generate some interest. People might even start replying to threads in here more often and watching stuff more often if there is more effort in posting them on PureZC.

So here's what we want to ask you all (LP creators and people that keep up with LPs): How do you feel about the current state of the Let's Play forum on PureZC? We can definitely make changes to the rules in the forum if need be, but we want to know how you all feel about how things are going and where they should go.

[Lejes]

A lot of the more prolific LPers here will record all their stuff weeks or months in advance. Knowing nothing you say will garner a response because the entire LP has already happened tends to squelch thread replies. The LPs here are also almost exclusively solo commentary, further reducing participation from anyone else. The race threads tend to counter these problems and get more replies accordingly, but something like 50% of PureZC members are using computers from 1987 so the technical hurdles of video recording, editing, and voice chat are too much to overcome.

[Kite]

A lot of the more prolific LPers here will record all their stuff weeks or months in advance. Knowing nothing you say will garner a response because the entire LP has already happened tends to squelch thread replies. The LPs here are also almost exclusively solo commentary, further reducing participation from anyone else. The race threads tend to counter these problems and get more replies accordingly, but something like 50% of PureZC members are using computers from 1987 so the technical hurdles of video recording, editing, and voice chat are too much to overcome.

 

While that stuff is true, that doesn't really change the fact I have no interest in watching link dumps because I have no context for them. Even someone posting videos they did months ago can put effort into the presentation on PureZC.

 

At least that's my opinion on that.

Edited by Nick, 13 November 2014 - 01:19 PM.

[DCEnygma]

I'd agree with Nick. I'm guilty of it as well, where I'll just post links to my current LP series. In the past I used to actually provide some context and whatnot, but I've gotten really bad about doing that. It doesn't take too much time to post a screenshot and a brief description or something and I think it does make everything seem a lot more presentable. I'm going to try and work on this as well.

[Jamian]

I don't know how we could make this work, but it would be really neat if we had a way to quickly find out who is currently streaming. Or maybe who has started streaming recently and is thus likely to still be streaming. At the moment the only way to find out is to check the updates in each streamer's individual thread, which may go unnoticed until the stream is over. If there was a way to implement something like that (again, I don't know how), you would be less likely to miss streams you'd want to watch, and streamers would be more likely to have more viewers.

Edited by Jamian, 13 November 2014 - 01:32 PM.

[Avaro]

Yeah, I agree with you Nick. I hope more people will actually try to spark discussion on their LP threads.

[DCEnygma]

I don't know how we could make this work, but it would be really neat if we had a way to quickly find out who is currently streaming. Or maybe who has started streaming recently and is thus likely to still be streaming. At the moment the only way to find out is to check the updates in each streamer's individual thread, which may go unnoticed until the stream is over. If there was a way to implement something like that (again, I don't know how), you would be less likely to miss streams you'd want to watch, and streamers would be more likely to have more viewers.

 

Well, there is the option to subscribe to them, which means you'll get email notifications when they go live. Similarly, could also follow the thread they post in and receive notifications either through PZC or email (or both).

[Omega]

Yeah, this forum usually seems like a wastland to me. I rarley come here, because, as Nick said, it's just a bunch of URLs with no information or enticing going on. For shame! I don't think I've watched ANY videos that were just linked in this forum.

[Jamian]

Well, there is the option to subscribe to them, which means you'll get email notifications when they go live. Similarly, could also follow the thread they post in and receive notifications either through PZC or email (or both).

 

That is true, but:

- I don't use any program that tells me whether I have new mail, and as a personal preference I also have email notifications deactived (but that's me, I know I'm being picky here).

- Notifications may simply be comments about past streams, or giving reasons for the lack of streaming activity lately, etc.

- Notifications may tell you when an upcoming stream is due to start, hours or even days before it actually happens. By the time it starts I may have forgotten about the scheduled time.

- Notifications may repeatedly tell me that someone is going to stream when I'm unavailable, so that creates a lot of clutter.

- etc.

 

Don't get me wrong, this is far from being a big issue. I'm just throwing the idea out there because I think it'd be neat if we could make something like that happen. But I can totally live without it.

[LikeLike on fire]

I'd agree with Nick. I'm guilty of it as well, where I'll just post links to my current LP series. In the past I used to actually provide some context and whatnot, but I've gotten really bad about doing that. It doesn't take too much time to post a screenshot and a brief description or something and I think it does make everything seem a lot more presentable. I'm going to try and work on this as well.

  would be guilty as well as i am slob with let's play uploading. i just dump and move on youtube.  I do it mass production factory style

[TheLegend_njf]

I don't know what to think about this, but the current approach you described here is exactly what I do.

 

I share my LPs and streams. I share when I am streaming, than I post a link here on the forums. That's pretty much all I do. If people are interested in watching my LPs than great, if they are not, than that's too bad.

 

If the responsibility is left up to me to make certain that people get more activity in my LPs outside of what I am already doing. Hell, if I'm expected or required to do more than I feel like I really need to, I'll just stop doing LPs altogether. This will just give me much more time to focus on quest design. 

 

I understand that the idea is that if we want more viewers, we should actively promote our streams or convince people why they should be interested. But I don't consider my streams that much of a big deal to be putting in that extra effort. I just want to stream and post the LPs. If that is no longer acceptable, than I'll know where my time is more productive. In my quests.

 

The truth of the matters is, some people just have better personalities for public streaming. Some people just doesn't have the personality that everybody is going to jump on board and say "I got to watch this person". I know I don't have the most entertaining personality to watch, but I find it entertaining enough for my needs. But now I feel that if I am to cater more to just my needs, but also to new changes and expectations. I'll simply just be opting out.

 

Its a shame too, because there are some people who do enjoy watching my streams and LPs. 

 

So in conclusion. I agree that if an LPer wants more activity and more views, perhaps encouraging more interactivity towards their LPs and the forums that contain them is a great idea. But some LPers, much like myself, just wants to stream, and just share it, and just let the discussion and interactivity happen naturally. Regardless if it does, or if it does not. I know right now this is just a matter of debate or suggestion, but if policies are considered and enforced about a format LPers should take towards how they share their LPs, I will most certainly just stop sharing them. lol

Edited by NewJourneysFire, 13 November 2014 - 03:14 PM.

[Fabbrizio]

I was actually about to start posting some of my Let's Plays in this section. Glad to be forewarned of this pitfall.

[TheLegend_njf]

With some thought, and a little less emotion, I'll go as far as to say that I am willing to make little productive changes to my LPs. But what fueled my point of view is the fact that I uploaded over 80 videos just for the halloween special series alone. But with some thought, it doesn't mean I don't have to do some slight changes to make my LP page more interesting. Like instead of adding a description for each and every video, I can add a description for the gallery itself.

 

But I don't think I should be expected to. I am against the ideas of policies being enforced about it. This is an ideal approach at best, but not too feasible under some circumstances. . 

 

I'm going to take the time to update my LP page in a couple of hours. I am posting this to show that I'm not against the idea, but I do think the idea needs a lot of careful consideration. There's also no guarantee that it will even make a difference for most LPers, just extra work for no bang. 

Edited by NewJourneysFire, 13 November 2014 - 03:40 PM.

[Kite]

Yes, NJF. Some people are just better at being public personalities than others. I really do get that. Some people really don't need to advertise themselves to get their big break or get the people they want watching their videos and streams.

 

But I think you might have missed the point of this topic. The point of the topic wasn't to force people to put more work into getting more subscribers for their streams and Youtube channels. I brought that up as a possible benefit, but that wasn't the main point of the topic. The point was to discuss possibly making this forum into an actual discussion forum instead of a repository of featureless Youtube urls. It may not seem like there's much difference between those two things, but there is.

 

Imagine if the quest database were just a big dumping ground of quest file download links with pretty much only the quest title and maybe the creator shown. Something like this:

 

 

No additional information would be given at all. There would be no convenient place to review the quest, no convenient place to discuss the quest, no idea on what the quest is about, and so on.

 

That's kinda how I feel that the LP forum is going right now and it really discourages me from exploring the forum to find LPs I might want to watch and talk about. It discourages me from really digging into the forum much of any, really.

 

I understand if you still don't agree with me here. I really do. If the majority of people here want to keep things as they are, I am fine with that. There's a reason we made this a public discussion topic, after all. But I thought I'd clear things up on just why I made this topic.

 

 

[Aevin]

I was actually about to start posting some of my Let's Plays in this section. Glad to be forewarned of this pitfall.

I see it less as a pitfall, and more an opportunity. Wouldn't it be more fun and better for everyone if there were more activity, energy and discussion around LP threads? Would you prefer to post your LP's out into a void and never know if anyone is watching?

 

And I really don't think anyone is saying "cut this out or you can't post here."  It's a suggestion for how to improve activity that will benefit LP'ers and watchers alike. I really don't believe it's too much to ask to take a minute or so to write a description or ask questions.