darkSpyro

Hey everyone,

I may have the joyous task of churning out some video footage of Swap Force for FamilyGamerTV. I'm hoping to churn out quite a few Let's Play style videos with my son and I'm interested to get your opinions on what you look for in those kind of videos. Not sure yet whether we'll be able to do video capture of the game or whether it'll be off screen footage, but how do you feel about the commentary? Should there be some? Does it have to be funny? Do you want to see whole levels explored or just segments? Should we show where secrets are located in levels? Are the character choices important etc?

Let me know and I'll try and bear all your advice in mind when/if we start making the videos. We'll likely have the basic starter pack, plus a tonne of figures from the previous two games (and the Adventure Packs).

Cheers!

You Should show off all of the older figures and it's ok if you talk, it's a let's play after all!

Quote: Haseo

You Should show off all of the older figures and it's ok if you talk, it's a let's play after all!

It's surprising how many people I hear that don't like any commentary on Let's Play videos. I figure those folks can just mute us.

i like if you talk as well, i want to hear what you guys think!

All of those ideas are nice. There's a market for each kind of video. I would experiment and see which garners the most positive responses.

I think you should talk in them, you don't have to talk the whole way through nor be funny, but if you find something funny put it in.

Try to be funny and also make sure to not center it on like one character alone.
mix up the characters you use.

Also do the parts by level

For the rest idk

Let's Plays are designed for commentary, don't want commentary, read or watch a walkthrough or the Meet The Skylander vids.

I think you just shouldn't be talking all the time. This is my biggest problem with Andy's channel- he's a nice guy who treats his community well, but doesn't really have many moments in his videos where he just lets the content do the talking. He talks over pretty much everything or is talking while showing something you need to watch at the same time a lot. Honestly, it tires me.

I'm not sure if this could work well for FGTV content, but if you're looking to do something unique- try to do more mature Skylanders videos. I don't mean you can't put jokes in or you need to go hardcore competitive or something, but the overwhelming majority of Skylander videos seem to focus on how tough a Skylander is and getting through the game instead of using strategy or just going through levels for fun. * It's kinda like they just don't feel wonderfully enthusiastic about it, or some just plain don't have content I enjoy, because they try so hard to be random or don't have great commentary and it falls flat.
I mean, just observe the more popular Skylander channels- you can easily see how there aren't many that do these kinds of things like playing the game without a purpose such as upgrading very often, I only find them good for looking at Skylanders' skills to be honest and they aren't fun to re-watch, etc.- which I think a Let's Play should be. I'd love to see a video series that just focused on having fun while bringing up some genuine discussion instead of just which upgrade paths to choose and how to get through levels. ** It turned me off from the Skylanders video community and I haven't given a channel a shot in three months because of it. I don't mean any offence to any of the YouTubers, these are just my thoughts on the content itself. Of course, I'd love to make this kind of content myself, but have no good capture material or a YouTube channel at all.

* I realise a lot of them have PVP videos they do for fun up, but I'm more pining for story mode videos because there is a sore lack of ones I like.
** I realise there are Skylanders Boy/Girl who have pretty decent shorts and extras, but I'm just talking about gameplay videos in this rant.

Great feedback everyone, keep it coming.

I would imagine our initial play through will be an exploration, enjoying the story, checking out as much of the environments as we can and getting a feel for the starter characters, plus seeing how old characters translate into the new game. We're both huge fans of the games, story and universe, so we'll try and get that across in the videos. I like the idea of doing more mature Skylanders videos (thanks for the suggestion) and I might consider doing some separately, perhaps with me playing through it on hard mode so I can explore the tactical aspects of the fights, puzzles and what each character brings.

Glad that you're all keen for there to be conversation in the videos, my son can get quite wrapped up in the game sometimes, but we'll be sure to try and add something to the video through our commentary, but I'll take note of your comment about talking over everything.

Love the community here, hope I can make some content you enjoy.

Quote: wideawakewesley

Quote: Haseo

You Should show off all of the older figures and it's ok if you talk, it's a let's play after all!

It's surprising how many people I hear that don't like any commentary on Let's Play videos. I figure those folks can just mute us.

I'm actually one of those people. I prefer to hear and see what's going on with the game rather than have it all drowned out by commentary. No offense.

Though with Skylander playthrough vids, I am ok with one guy who does it. He'll do a light commentary during battle segments, yet for any cutscene or any other speaking part other than a Skylander's intro, he turns himself off and ups the volume for the game, so you can hear the game perfectly. I tried to sit through one before I found this guy, who would just do awful commentary over the cutscenes, could barely understand what was going on. -.- The guy's name is OctaneBlue.

For the most part it all depends on the commentary. If the guy talking is trying to hard at being funny, wacky, or whatever, and not just talking about the game in a nice voice, then I'll be eh towards it.

Though this can vary with games, as alot of the time I only want no commentary.

^ It's funny that you posted that now, I was just about to post about that too.
I really don't think you should talk over cutscenes, because then whoever's watching just can't understand them. After an initial LP I would recommend just skipping cutscenes entirely as they are unimportant and slow down the gameplay, unless you're doing a just for fun recording and feel like taking your time, which isn't a bad thing. Honestly, I don't understand how so many LPers fall into that trap. e_o

The only thing is, you'd need to either a) stop yourself and anyone playing with you from talking during cutscenes entirely, which I realise would be very annoying to do if you pop into an unexpected one or were having a long discussion about something, or b) use a capture card so that you can record the video and commentary separately, to edit out any chat during cutscenes that isn't interesting or entertaining enough to leave in.

Oh yeah! I forgot, I'm looking for a relatively cheap capture card myself(< $150 is fine), so if you manage to find one, let me know. I know I found one the other day on Amazon that was about $110 and had really good quality but I can't find it again. :/

I have also been thinking about if there is anything the community would want to see videos of, as I have the equipment to at least do 480p widescreen captures directly plugged in to my computer. If there turns out to be something in the game that is particularly hard on the higher difficulties I'd definitely be game to record some how-to for it. As for launch day, if I did my own videos I wouldn't want to just do that same thing everyone else was doing. I don't have any particularly interesting ideas at the moment.

I've loaned a capture card to test out, so I'll give that a go, but I'm in total agreement about not talking over story segments, whether it's a cut scene or in game dialog. I will also see if I can crank the volume up on the game during those segments (if we record the screen). I guess the best thing about using a capture card (apart from visual quality) is the ability to record the commentary separately, either during or after the game and silence ourselves if we accidentally talk over story moments or ramble on about a load of garbage. Andy does all the editing, so I'll have to bring these points up with him.

If we do record the commentary audio separately, we might be able to put out versions with and without commentary. I guess some of you would appreciate that?

Quote: wideawakewesley

I've loaned a capture card to test out, so I'll give that a go, but I'm in total agreement about not talking over story segments, whether it's a cut scene or in game dialog. I will also see if I can crank the volume up on the game during those segments (if we record the screen). I guess the best thing about using a capture card (apart from visual quality) is the ability to record the commentary separately, either during or after the game and silence ourselves if we accidentally talk over story moments or ramble on about a load of garbage. Andy does all the editing, so I'll have to bring these points up with him.

If we do record the commentary audio separately, we might be able to put out versions with and without commentary. I guess some of you would appreciate that?

As long as the commentary and game are on separate audio tracks, as you'd get with a capture device, there would be no need to crank the volume up on the game as that could just be done in editing if it's needed.

not spamming you but if you haven't been to my channel - I do tons of Skylanders content with a large variety of different types of videos - If your seriously gonna jump into the game I would suggest trying to think of fun ways to use Skylanders and original content of your own together - enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/user/coinoptv

Well, I would suggest you...idk...play it?

I can't think of much, but I DO have a question, when will these video's be up? Day after launch?

Quote: pennyman

not spamming you but if you haven't been to my channel - I do tons of Skylanders content with a large variety of different types of videos - If your seriously gonna jump into the game I would suggest trying to think of fun ways to use Skylanders and original content of your own together - enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/user/coinoptv

Hey Pennyman, very familiar with your work, you do a great job.

Hope you can throw some constructive criticism my way when I'm up and running.

Quote: matrix

I can't think of much, but I DO have a question, when will these video's be up? Day after launch?

Hoping to provide a review pre-launch (embargo permitting), with Let's Play video's to follow as soon as I can. Obviously because this is a father and son gig, a lot depends on my son's availability.