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Habermann posted:What I'm really looking to find out from this test post is - other than the fact I spent 10 seconds during the co-commentator introductions adjusting the audio settings - was the audio during the gameplay alright?
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# ? Oct 19, 2012 19:29 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 05:59 |
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Audio seems fine, though you mentioned you're recording in 29.97, which is a weird framerate to record in for a PC game.
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# ? Oct 19, 2012 21:16 |
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I apologize if this has already been answered but does anyone know what happened to The DarkId? I know his ps2 died and he's been sick, but he generally gives a reason for closing his threads and this time he didn't, so I'm just concerned.
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# ? Oct 19, 2012 21:54 |
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He actually posted on the previous page.The Dark Id posted:Hey folks, how long does it take a thread to fall into Archives? Was it one month inactivity or two? I don't want to make a cheesy thread bumping post if it is unnecessary. Sounds like the LP's still on hiatus, but not abandoned.
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# ? Oct 19, 2012 21:58 |
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Habermann posted:Tech Specs Just have everyone player record their own audio and then mash all that together, that way you can mess with audio levels whenever you want. Having everyone else in with the game audio gets really messy really quickly.
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# ? Oct 19, 2012 22:07 |
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Mega64 posted:He actually posted on the previous page. How did I miss that? Thanks! Good to know everything's okay.
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# ? Oct 19, 2012 22:13 |
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Habermann posted:
Stabbey_the_Clown posted:
Watching through the video now and I have to agree with Stabbey here. Also when you level up, save your XP spending for after the mission, that's not entertaining to watch either. If anything it's actually rather distracting. I think maybe you all should be recording then edit the video to jump from important objective to important objective as they're being done. This will help also cause we don't want to have to watch you retry missions. Also maybe don't do live commentary? Do your mission, goof around and stuff then talk over so you can explain who's doing what when. That way we can understand how your tactics are coming into play and why they're important.
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# ? Oct 19, 2012 22:48 |
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Habermann posted:To be fair, it's not like I plan on adjusting audio settings or trying to explain the basic premise of the game at the beginning of every episode. I didn't figure that viewers wanted to just see us hop directly into the game without spending the time to try and set up what we're doing first. I didn't have much trouble hearing anyone that I can recall. However, it was not "10 seconds", I was being literal when I said five minutes. One or two minutes for an introduction and shooting the poo poo with the co-commentators is fine, but it took nearly five minutes for you to launch the game, and that was a bit too long. Volume posted:Watching through the video now and I have to agree with Stabbey here. Also when you level up, save your XP spending for after the mission, that's not entertaining to watch either. If anything it's actually rather distracting. I agree, we don't need to see the menu for spending XP mid-mission. If you must do that, maybe chop it out. quote:I think maybe you all should be recording then edit the video to jump from important objective to important objective as they're being done. This will help also cause we don't want to have to watch you retry missions. Another good idea. EDIT: Specifically, having everyone record a video so you have the option to splice more interesting sections together. That doesn't necessarily mean jumping from objective to objective just because. quote:Also maybe don't do live commentary? Do your mission, goof around and stuff then talk over so you can explain who's doing what when. That way we can understand how your tactics are coming into play and why they're important. I have to disagree with you here, Volume. Even though I'm not a huge fan of the group style, doing it your way is too much of a departure from the style Haberman wants to do the LP in. Asking him to do it that way may as well just be asking for someone else to do it in that style. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Oct 20, 2012 |
# ? Oct 19, 2012 23:47 |
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You don't necessarily "spend" XP, what he was doing was selecting which class to level up next. It's not something that you do after a mission, you just select the next skill that will get points in real time. Simple enough, and it only take s a second to switch it out. I don't see what's so distracting about it. If it really is a huge problem, I just recommend that the LPer remember what he wants to switch to next ahead of time so he won't be indecisive. That screen is also your objectives screen, so you might wanna take a look at it every once in a while anyway. And yeah, doing it in post would kind of defeat the whole purpose of his style, since it's all based on the team reacting to what is going on. It wouldn't work if the one dude just said "hey, remember when I shot that lady?" I also disagree with the whole "jump to the next bit" thing. Unless it takes you ten minutes to complete a certain objective (like it often does on the bridge level), what you have is fine. Just edit out big chunks of nothing if you have to. Try to get it in one take if you can, unless something funny happens (which I think did, the first run made me laugh). If people have a big problem with it, just post your first run separately so that they can skip it if they want. Other than making the intro a bit shorter, I honestly think the video was a-okay.
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# ? Oct 20, 2012 00:02 |
I liked this video quite a bit and would follow its thread. The long wait before you actually got into the game was boring, though - the pre-game chatter could be cut or highly condensed. The level up menu is obnoxiously intrusive, but that's part of the game. You should know what you want to pick ahead of time to minimize time spent in the menu, yeah. It's very hard to hear anyone but you and TurboFeminist a lot of the time.
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# ? Oct 20, 2012 01:18 |
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cKnoor posted:Just have everyone player record their own audio and then mash all that together, that way you can mess with audio levels whenever you want. Having everyone else in with the game audio gets really messy really quickly. This is what I meant when I said "for lack of a better method" in my post (regarding recording the audio): I'd love to have the luxury of recording the game audio separately from Skype audio, so I could auto-duck everything and adjust the individual commentator tracks and do all that professional-level poo poo. The problem is, I have Skype and the game running on the same computer - both outputting their audio simultaneously - and FRAPS has no way of differentiating between the two. Volume posted:Watching through the video now and I have to agree with Stabbey here. Also when you level up, save your XP spending for after the mission, that's not entertaining to watch either. If anything it's actually rather distracting. Mezurya basically got around to every counter-point I could / would make, so I won't bother rehashing what he said. Stabbey_the_Clown posted:However, it was not "10 seconds", I was being literal when I said five minutes. One or two minutes for an introduction and shooting the poo poo with the co-commentators is fine, but it took nearly five minutes for you to launch the game, and that was a bit too long. In your first post, I thought you were accusing me of adjusting audio settings for a whole 5 minutes, which is why I wanted to point out that it only takes up roughly 10-15 seconds of the pre-game footage. I understand that the introduction is lengthy. But I think it's worth taking the time to set up what the game is about and to give a sense of who the people playing it are before we start playing it, as opposed to rattling off gameplay mechanics while we're in the middle of gameplay. I only have to do it once, thank God: I don't plan on re-introducing the game in every episode or something crazy like that. Future episodes will start directly at the mission select screen, and should only take a minute or two tops before you'll actually see us in the game. Jazerus posted:It's very hard to hear anyone but you and TurboFeminist a lot of the time. Me and Jim have more experience talking into microphones than either Nervatel or Sigara, which is likely how we manage to maintain being the most audible. I'll try to get Nervatel to boost his output volume during future recording sessions, though Sigara is a notorious low-talker within our circle and is probably completely hopeless. Luckily, he was only a fourth-slot fill-in, so hopefully we can rotate someone in who has a more commanding tone. Thanks to everyone for all the feedback.
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# ? Oct 20, 2012 03:51 |
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Habermann posted:This is what I meant when I said "for lack of a better method" in my post (regarding recording the audio): I'd love to have the luxury of recording the game audio separately from Skype audio, so I could auto-duck everything and adjust the individual commentator tracks and do all that professional-level poo poo. The problem is, I have Skype and the game running on the same computer - both outputting their audio simultaneously - and FRAPS has no way of differentiating between the two I figured out a workaround for this problem: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3486018&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=27#post407418205
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# ? Oct 20, 2012 06:43 |
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Habermann posted:This is what I meant when I said "for lack of a better method" in my post (regarding recording the audio): I'd love to have the luxury of recording the game audio separately from Skype audio, so I could auto-duck everything and adjust the individual commentator tracks and do all that professional-level poo poo. The problem is, I have Skype and the game running on the same computer - both outputting their audio simultaneously - and FRAPS has no way of differentiating between the two. Use Mico's solution or get a USB headset, both will keep Skype audio away from Fraps
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# ? Oct 20, 2012 09:12 |
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Habermann posted:Separating fools from their money. (Let's Play PAYDAY: The Heist)
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# ? Oct 21, 2012 05:20 |
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Alright, let's see how this turns out... Star Trek: 25th Anniversary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGnTfg-MUhs Star Trek: 25th Anniversary is a point-and-click adventure game released on computers in 1992. Set during The Original Series, you play as Captain James T. Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise during it’s 4th year. The game is broken into “episodes” like the TV show which contain investigation, problem solving, and the occasional space battle. Interplay rereleased the game a year later on CD with the original cast reprising their roles. This will be a screenshot LP. The game has branching dialog and multiple paths but for this run I will be playing as a model Federation captain. The reason being that at the end of each mission you’re graded on your performance; a high rating improves your officers’ abilities which are imperative to win the tougher space battles in the late game. I will include a bonus section showing every way you can die or lose a red-shirt in the game. If this turns out well I’ll see about doing a lovely "Mirror Kirk" playthrough where I act like an rear end, kill my redshirts, and get the bad ending. Pre-ramble I’m not a huge fan of the Star Trek property but I always enjoyed playing the Star Trek games because in the 90s there was really nothing else like them. As a whole, Star Trek games are generally “okay” but their faithfulness to the property really stands out. Most licensed games would poo poo out a tangentially related action game but Star Trek games feel like Star Trek. If any of you Trekkie goons wants to supplement the thread with Star Trek facts I’m all for it because I want to learn more about the series as well. Brief Primer In the 22nd century mankind discovered warp technology, allowing them to reach galaxies previously unexplored. The United Federation of Planets (UFP) was formed as a single government uniting member planets under liberty, freedom, and equality. In 2266 the Federation launched the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 on a five-year mission: to seek out new life and new civilizations, and to boldly go where no man has gone before. While the ship’s mission is one of peace, tensions with the Romulan and Klingon empires bring the galaxy closer to all-out war. Test Post
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# ? Oct 21, 2012 08:05 |
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al-azad posted:Alright, let's see how this turns out... I haven't looked at the test post, but I'm assuming that you're playing the PC version, not the god-awful NES version. It would probably be a good thing to discuss the major differences in the OP between the versions and tell us which version you're playing. Also you should note the differences between the floppy disk and CD versions, namely that most of the crew did the voice-acting in the CD version.
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# ? Oct 21, 2012 15:08 |
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al-azad posted:Alright, let's see how this turns out... Starting out with a video of the original opening was a good idea. The screenshots are of decent quality. I'm definitely not gonna complain on that front. One thing I will say, though, the character portraits for dialogue look kind of weird. It might just be me, but the way you've resized them doesn't seem to have worked all that well. I don't know a way around that, though, and all other image quality is totally acceptable (to me at least; there's a tiny bit of artifacting if you look closely at some of the images, but nothing that really gets in the way of my enjoyment.) I'd like to see a few more test posts, so we can see some actual gameplay and how you're going to handle that. As it is, it seems like you've glossed over a lot of stuff.
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# ? Oct 21, 2012 16:11 |
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al-azad posted:Alright, let's see how this turns out... The full-sized images for the character info in the OP is good, but When you're making portrait-sized images, getting the face as large as possible is better than just resizing a full-sized image. I don't need all the extra space around Kirk's head, I just need Kirk's head. It might be harder to get the headshots all the same size, but it'll look better (and you only have to do it once at least). I'll give you an example: Which of these looks better? It's the one on the right because it shows more of the face instead of the helmet and shoulders. Also, a second test post to show actual gameplay past the tutorial wouldn't hurt.
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# ? Oct 21, 2012 16:53 |
So, uh, I made a thing. http://lpix.org/sslptest/index.php?id=4860 I'd like to start my first Let's Play, so I'd appreciate any helpful critique or advice.
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# ? Oct 21, 2012 23:51 |
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Show us what a typical update would look like. That is not a typical update.
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# ? Oct 21, 2012 23:57 |
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Alright, Star Trek 25th part 2. I took everything mentioned into account by cropping photos and expanding the OP. Test Post Part Deux My only concern now is whether or not the portraits are too big. I'm on a 42" screen so they look fine to me but I can shrink them by half if necessary.
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# ? Oct 22, 2012 00:41 |
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This will be a text and screen-cap LP of empire total war that I'm going to be trying out. I just wanted some help, advice etc. This is my first ever LP, so please use lube. For the record, this isn't a complete post yet, but it's basically in the style I want to use, and all the pictures will basically be used as is (unless someone tells me that I'm doing it wrong.) The text is very likely to change, so it's not heavily edited yet. The LP itself will be a completely in character "documentary" framed as being the BBC with alternate history based on how things go. As such, I want to get at least 60 turns into the game before I start (on turn 12, can get about 4 done a night easily, each post will be about 4 turns long. So don't expect a full scale start up too soon.) As for why I am doing this, I haven't seen any really compelling or interesting Empire total war LPs out there. Either they are a very slow play by play LP where the player slogs through every little action no matter how dull, an annotated version where they just show case the (often repetitive) battles at the exclusion of anything more political, or some mash up of the two. While a Scotsman in Egypt was a fun read and the kind of LP that I would want to do, due to it's close, personal narrative, that narrative style wouldn't really work for a story about forging a massive empire across Europe, which is why I chose this documentary style which is perfect to describe a conquest over the course of 100 years. BBC Radio 4 presents Empire: Total War BBC test broadcast Thoughts? Comments? Advice to make this not crash horribly? For those who want to know, I'm playing on hard/hard. I can only beat VH/VH as some factions, and the Dutch are not one of them.
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# ? Oct 22, 2012 02:14 |
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al-azad posted:Alright, Star Trek 25th part 2. I took everything mentioned into account by cropping photos and expanding the OP. Good job adding stuff to the OP, that helped. There's a word missing from this sentence: "Kirk a sample of berries. Such things always prove helpful down the line. " The portraits are better than they were before. Nitpick alert: If you want to shrink them, you only need to do that a little bit, not by half, maybe to a maximum dimension of 80 px, and if possible try and make them all square and the same dimensions. I'm interested in following the LP.
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# ? Oct 22, 2012 02:23 |
Suspicious Dish posted:Show us what a typical update would look like. That is not a typical update. I can try! MM6 part Test. http://lpix.org/sslptest/index.php?id=4912 Harder than I thought, since I don't have any plot-related things to do just yet. There's a note at the top, but I'll ask it here, too. I left the mouse cursor in for this test, since I wanted to be able to show what was being selected, but should I leave it out for future updates? What about image size? They seem large to me, but I don't think I can shrink it very much without making Wizard Eye useless.
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# ? Oct 22, 2012 02:30 |
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Yukitsu posted:This will be a text and screen-cap LP of empire total war that I'm going to be trying out. I just wanted some help, advice etc. This is my first ever LP, so please use lube. This looks and sounds really good. If I understand you correctly, you plan on having a series of more or less introductory updates before the game really gets started? In that case, it would be helpful to show how you want to handle the main spectacle: Major battles. Personally, I think it would be best to have one character dedicated to tactical analysis and others to tackling the issues of strategy and politics. There's nothing that strikes me as problematic in how you handle the main narrative, but maybe you should add some out-of-character commentary about game mechanics and how they relate to what those clever gentlemen are saying. Also, I think that your pictures should be smaller than 150 kB and that you should zoom in on important piece of information: The way it is, I had trouble reading the down-sized text. I think you can safely use Wiz' Paradox LPs to give you an idea on how to balance between showing broad outlines of the world and finer details.
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# ? Oct 22, 2012 02:36 |
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steinrokkan posted:This looks and sounds really good. If I understand you correctly, you plan on having a series of more or less introductory updates before the game really gets started? OK, I can manage most of that, especially in regards to the pictures. I don't really want to do any out of character moments, references to web culture or anything of that sort, I want a clean read of it to be an unbroken experience. If I do absolutely have to do an OOC section, it will definitely be in a specific, non-indexed post directly under the main post. The battles themselves will be narrated by David Stephens, or the appropriate other professor, since that's pretty much the exciting bit that they would all want to talk about as well, plus I'm running out of pictures to use as professors and doctors. But yes, major (not most) battles will be very long posts. I don't plan so much on having introductory episodes per se. I do plan on ramping up the action as it happens in game, but I know that total war games don't often start with really heavy action. Usually, they have bouts of it, calm sections of buildup, then conflict (episode 2 in fact, has a fairly epic and fun to write about set of linked battles). For now, you'll probably see many iterations of the post I just put up as I get all the kinks worked out. Thanks for the help.
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# ? Oct 22, 2012 03:31 |
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An idea came to me to LP a bunch of solitaire wargames. I'd love to showcase some of them, they excel at creating emergent narratives and should be nicely suited for goon participation. The thing is, the only attempt at LPing a board game that I remember was a short-lived attempt at doing Paths of Glory, which turned out to be an infodump trainwreck. There are some inherent problems with the board game format, and I'd love to hear some suggestions on how to tackle them before toiling on my test post. 1) Dry graphics. As pretty or ugly a board may be, it's not really riveting to keep staring at the same piece of paper with some counters being pushed back and forth. I'm thinking of stocking up on appropriate photos, flashy headlines etc., writing fluff whenever possible and keeping the screenshots simply as a sort of status report. As for technical matters, I'm planning on doing screenshots of Vassal or Zun Tzu adaptations when possible. Probably keeping the real game on Vassal/a table and then setting up things in Zun Tzu when needed (it gives prettier results, but I hate its interface and doing every single step in there would drive me mad). 2) The numbers. Board games have a certain crunch to them, often making things difficult to intuitively grasp without the knowledge of underlying mechanics, as opposed to more graphically involved computer strategy game. I think it's crucial to avoid frontloading the explanations of how stuff works. It's long, boring and defeats the point of someone playing the game for you. These should rather be spread out along updates when appropriate - and really only present when there's something particularly interesting to rant about, or really crucial to understanding of a particular part of the game. Instead, I'll rather make sure to clearly state the possibilities and risks of particular situations and plans, keeping the "why" confined mostly to "how can we change it"? Likewise, the choices for participating goons would be distilled into a few rough, CYOA-ish options with a few words about why that could be a good or bad idea. Preferably kept in-character. 3) Any other traps I should be aware of? [edit] I've actually just noticed there IS actually a running LP of a boardgame, and it's solitaire wargame to boot! I'm talking about Silent War. It's different/specific enough that it doesn't really work as a reference for what I'm planning. Also, thanks for the link, Steinrokkan! Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Oct 22, 2012 |
# ? Oct 22, 2012 13:21 |
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There's a brilliant Risk LP that could give you some ideas: http://lparchive.org/Risk/ Risk ain't the most complex game, but it really is a well done LP and it does some of the things you mentioned.
steinrokkan fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Oct 22, 2012 |
# ? Oct 22, 2012 17:13 |
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Okay, let's give this another try. FFXII IZJS Test Video Mk. II The changes are all between 2:00 and 7:00, so you don't have to watch the whole thing again if you don't want to. The video's slightly longer and the subs are slightly shorter, and I'm no longer having subs appear beneath other subs, because that's a recipe for somebody to miss out on them. One thing I might still do is find a still image to frame the video with during the centered boss fight, because the black borders are kind of boring. Also, should the oversubs on the boss fight be higher contrast? Again, all feedback is appreciated. You guys really helped with the first attempt.
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# ? Oct 22, 2012 19:50 |
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Looks pretty good to me and the subs are very easy to read. I do have to wonder if you're gonna be chopping out most of the grinding and whatnot, since I recall there is a lot of that if you don't do that infinite exp thing.
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# ? Oct 22, 2012 20:07 |
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The subs during the boss fight work much better presented this way. BrainWeasel posted:One thing I might still do is find a still image to frame the video with during the centered boss fight, because the black borders are kind of boring. That seems like a good idea. It'd definitely make the boss fight a little more visually interesting, and everything else takes up the full screen so it's a little weird to get to the boss fight and have that suddenly not be the case anymore.
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# ? Oct 22, 2012 20:45 |
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So, I've been trying to figure out Fraps and encoding a Fraps file using Mediacoder in order to record cutscenes from City of Heroes. Here is one of the results. I really don't know what I'm doing here, to be honest - is this a good quality encode? I've mostly been following a couple of the starter links in the LP Tech thread but I'm pretty much all thumbs at this...
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# ? Oct 22, 2012 20:47 |
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S.D. posted:So, I've been trying to figure out Fraps and encoding a Fraps file using Mediacoder in order to record cutscenes from City of Heroes. You should probably go to the Tech Support thread for this rather than the Sandcastle.
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# ? Oct 22, 2012 20:50 |
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Brainamp posted:Looks pretty good to me and the subs are very easy to read. I do have to wonder if you're gonna be chopping out most of the grinding and whatnot, since I recall there is a lot of that if you don't do that infinite exp thing. FFXII isn't that grindy. You level up easily enough just going through the game and if you do the sidequests as they unlock you'll be pretty powerful. Plus they give you an item that doubles EXP pretty early in the game. (And an item that makes you get 0 EXP even earlier. ) Still, it's a long game with a lot of walking through areas fighting random monsters, which can be fun to play but boring to watch. I assume there will be a lot of cutting and editing since this is a video LP. Edit: Also, BrainWeasel, will you be having people vote on which jobs you use?
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# ? Oct 22, 2012 21:39 |
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Dr Pepper posted:FFXII isn't that grindy. Still, it's a long game with a lot of walking through areas fighting random monsters, which can be fun to play but boring to watch. I assume there will be a lot of cutting and editing since this is a video LP. Precisely. Dr Pepper posted:Edit: Also, BrainWeasel, will you be having people vote on which jobs you use? ...Something like that... Not actually voting, though, or I'd end up with six Machinists.
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# ? Oct 22, 2012 21:51 |
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All Time Mage game coming up.
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# ? Oct 22, 2012 21:53 |
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Dr Pepper posted:FFXII isn't that grindy. It's been several years, so I wasn't sure. I just remember hitting bosses that necessitated a bit of grinding.
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# ? Oct 22, 2012 21:59 |
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Question, I'm thinking of LPing Folklore(ps3) which is a...bit of a quirky and pretty unknown game that I think deserves some more exposure. Only I'm not sure about how to approach it because it's very weird in some points. I'm gonna ramble a bit on the issues I'm having when planning the LP, so if somebody could just comment on how I'm planning to tackle the thing and mention issues I probably haven't thought of, that would be fantastic. Alright, so about Folklore, most of the game's cutscenes do not have voice acting and are sort of told with text boxes and some vague pictures as opposed to, you know, actual character models doing things. Which make them a bit of a pain to watch if you are not clicking through it. If you are actually playing it, the cutscenes have this weird charm but just watching it is a bit boring. In addition to that, the game's combat is very, very repetitive, even though it's fun. The game's main draw is its story and atmosphere and those are a bit hard to get across. So I was thinking of doing a screenshot/video hybrid, with the videos being subtitled as opposed to having commentary. This would cut out the issues with repetitive combat and preserve the atmosphere. Plus some .gifs would get the still picture/pseudo comic book cutscenes across much better. That's basically what I'm planning on doing. Any issues I should be watching out for? (Also, I'm going to be posting here on the sandcastle a lot before opening a thread. Really like the game and it would be a shame if a bad LP I made gave people the wrong impression about it)
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# ? Oct 22, 2012 22:07 |
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Sherringford posted:So I was thinking of doing a screenshot/video hybrid, with the videos being subtitled as opposed to having commentary. This would cut out the issues with repetitive combat and preserve the atmosphere. Plus some .gifs would get the still picture/pseudo comic book cutscenes across much better. This seems like the best way to handle Folklore, yeah. It's a game that relies very heavily on visual design and on atmosphere. I'd also suggest including snippets of the soundtrack for similar reasons.
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# ? Oct 22, 2012 22:14 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 05:59 |
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If you have a million years, I'd like to see you beat all the hunts and get all the trophies, even if it's after you win the game. Also all the missable side quests. It took forever, sitting there with a guide at my knees because I knew if I progressed too far that would be it and I'd have missed a quest. But I did manage to 100% FFXII. I really preferred the non-random encounters fighting style where the creatures appeared on the screen. The fact that it's so different gameplay wise is what attracted me to it, the non-pausing fight menu is a huge plus for me. The subs seem presented well enough to me and are quite engaging. I'd watch this.
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# ? Oct 23, 2012 00:56 |