Lurker Lounge Podcast - Episode 1 is Live.
#21
I enjoyed this week more than last week. It makes me wonder if maybe it was just that knowing some of the people made some of the history convos more repetitive for me since last week was more of an intro episode. I'm not sure, but I did want to express that I enjoyed this one much better.

Then again, maybe I just hate Frag and so him not being there made it better! I kid! I kid! Frag knows I love him. (I still say he has brought out the best of me as a player more than anyone else. He is the only one who ever really made me strive to do better.) There were actually moments where I missed him being there. He gets so into the details of how things work that in some moments I thought his perspective would have been nice. So I think that points to there being a good mix of people on the show.

The ending felt a little bit sudden. I am curious if you have any length goal in mind or if it is more a Blizzard style "as long as it takes" type format. I can't really decide if I'd prefer it short (30 min) or longer (60 min) so I'm thinking it varying based on what is needed to cover things may be best. Would be good to know what your plans are there though.

As to a previous topic of vid/audio I'd say that currently I am enjoying having the video with it, but I do think that eventually just audio would be better unless the video was somehow relevant to the discussion. That would just be a ton of work and probably not worth it though. Currently it is most of the exposure I'm getting to how the game looks (I'm lazy and don't seek things out) and so it is interesting to watch while you talk. After the game is out though I can play myself while listening and I think that will work well. I'm sure some people will find that sacrilegious since it'll be ignoring the in game music and such which for a lot of people is half the point of the game, but I tune a lot of that out anyway. Which could be a topic for you guys. How many of you play with just game sounds/music and how many end up putting other music on. Obviously you can't judge that too well for D3 yet, but with past games. For me in a D2 style game I'd probably play through once with just the game stuff, but then when I go back (or go over the same content in a harder mode) I'll add in other things since the mood only holds me typically for the one sitting.

A topic more directed at Bolty than Chess/etc, I wonder if Chess can have access to posting in this forum so he can make a new thread for each episode. It'd be a little easier to notice when an episode comes out and more content for the front page seems a good thing to me. Plus I'm much more likely to comment on here than on youtube and so a thread to reply to individual episodes could be good I think. Just my thoughts though as somebody not involved in it at all.

In a similar vain, I think it would be awesome if when the show goes audio only there would be direct mp3 files to download and not just from itunes. (I soooo hate that program and it might make me not listen if I had to use it) I realize hosting is an issue there which is why I said in a similar vain... cause I recall Bolty once saying the Lounge now has more (Bandwidth? Space? Server speed? I can't recall what to be honest.) than it can ever use and so wonder if a deal could be worked out. I know he once said he could host some software for the guilds if secure versions could be found. So it makes me wonder about this. Though this is much much heavier in requirements than that would be. Man I'm so overstepping my bounds there.

Anyway, again, I enjoyed this one more and so want to stress: Good work!





Reply
#22
I too would prefer to have a simple mp3 download.
"I may be old, but I'm not dead."
Reply
#23
(04-30-2012, 04:36 AM)swirly Wrote: Anyway, again, I enjoyed this one more and so want to stress: Good work!

You would be a good guest star. Smile

Reply
#24
(04-30-2012, 04:36 AM)swirly Wrote: The ending felt a little bit sudden. I am curious if you have any length goal in mind or if it is more a Blizzard style "as long as it takes" type format. I can't really decide if I'd prefer it short (30 min) or longer (60 min) so I'm thinking it varying based on what is needed to cover things may be best. Would be good to know what your plans are there though.

Part of that was Chesspiece editing out extra pauses when we weren't sure who was going to pipe up when and some of it was we had already been talking for a little while before we started recording and we started a bit later than we did before so had to end before folks got too tired. It's also partly just a kind of go with it for however long the conversation flows well and whenever we actually get through the topics that were thought of beforehand. So if anyone has topics they want to hear about or even *gasp* join us in the discussion, give a holler. I'm sure folks will get tired of hearing my voice before the game comes out and would welcome new voices. =)
Intolerant monkey.
Reply
#25
The ending for this episode was a bit sudden. Part of that was probably a miscalculation on editing from me. I focused a lot more on editing in this episode and it's possible that I cut a little too much of the break out at the end so it felt sudden. Another part of that was that I originally planned to branch out and expand the talk to other games this episode but the Diablo 3 talk went on for longer than I anticipated so those topics were put on hold until next week.

I'm not really sure what to do when it comes to the video/audio for the YouTube productions. A large part of me is inclined to keep background gameplay as a part of it, but I don't want that to distract from the main content. We can already see some negativity in the YouTube comments from this episode regarding the Path of Exile footage being played with predominantly D3 talk (again part of this is a mistake on my part. I originally had a caption labling the video as from Path of Exile but after multiple editing problems the caption was lost). It would be easy to just dismiss this as expected internet trollery but I also question if a more simple backdrop would be better, or if it would just make the whole production look lazy and in fact make it less interesting.

I definitely want to release these as basic mp3s at some point and when I do figure out how best to do that there will be a direct download. This is one of the reasons that setting up for iTunes is so complicated at the moment. Any podcast through iTunes is hosted independantly. I'm looking into the free podcast hosting options but I'm not sure yet what sort of limitations those services have. Barring that, cost starts to come into question as well as issues of bandwidth etc. The raw file size of one of these episodes in mp3 format is anywhere from 40-90mb so there are a lot of things to take into account.

We shall see. On the upside the quality of the audio should continue to improve and hopefully we will all be able to keep coming up with interesting stuff to talk about. =D
Reply
#26
(04-30-2012, 05:38 PM)Chesspiece_face Wrote: We can already see some negativity in the YouTube comments from this episode regarding the Path of Exile footage being played with predominantly D3 talk (again part of this is a mistake on my part. I originally had a caption labling the video as from Path of Exile but after multiple editing problems the caption was lost).

I have to admit I didn't realize it was Path of Exile. My reaction was vaguely along the lines of "Man... this portion/class of D3 doesn't look nearly as good as what I've been seeing up till now." So I'd say that some kind of disclaimer in the video would have been good. It definitely gets assumed that what is seen is D3 since it is a D3 podcast. Possibly also worth noting is that I never read the descriptions nor comments on youtube. So if it isn't in the audio or video itself I probably won't get the info. Not that you are communicating directly to me anyway. Just a perspective of one person. I did wonder if you would be linking to the lounge in the youtube posts any. Like to the specific thread for each episode if that ever came about. Just to encourage more indepth discussion that youtube comments only might.
Reply
#27
(04-30-2012, 07:48 PM)swirly Wrote: I did wonder if you would be linking to the lounge in the youtube posts any. Like to the specific thread for each episode if that ever came about. Just to encourage more indepth discussion that youtube comments only might.

I'll leave that up to other lounge people to decide if they would want that. The upside is that it could bring more in-depth comments, but the downside is that it could just bring more troll comments here. I'm perfectly fine with the trolls staying on the YouTube comments.
Reply
#28
I really enjoyed this episode, even more than the first. More stuff directly linked to D3, the start of a "technical" discussion on canceling spell animations and better sound quality than last time (though I still think there's a little room for improvement Smile)

I found myself wanting to chime in and offer my point of view a few times. E. g. I think that part of the fun of the new skill system is that you can not only try out everything (which amounts to an insane amount of combinations, with runes), but also quickly tailor your character in a way that seems fun for a bit, like focussing on heavy-duty AoE skills/runes without negative consequences, as it's not a "build" where you have to invest a lot of time to earn skill points.

This might also benefit group play, as you can optimize your skills for co-op on the fly (or create a funny "variant" combination).

Anyway, looking forward to hearing more of you!

take care
Tarabulus.
"I'm a cynical optimistic realist. I have hopes. I suspect they are all in vain. I find a lot of humor in that." -Pete

I'll remember you.
Reply
#29
I'm fine with giving Chesspiece access to create news items if he wants to make a new thread for each episode. I just flip a switch on his account here. Smile

As for hosting the vids, I have a terabyte of monthly bandwidth. I could directly host them, at least until Chesspiece strikes E-Fame and leaves us all behind for Internet Stardom. I don't think it's really necessary for them to be hosted here as long as Youtube is so willing to freely give up their bandwidth, though. And a tip for downloaders: there are several mods out there that let you download things from Youtube with ease on several different browsers, such as Video DownloadHelper for Firefox. There are other mods that will let you rip from YouTube to mp3 and cut out the video, which is good for those of you with iPods or somesuch who would just want to listen while doing something else.
Quote:Considering the mods here are generally liberals who seem to have a soft spot for fascism and white supremacy (despite them saying otherwise), me being perma-banned at some point is probably not out of the question.
Reply
#30
(05-02-2012, 03:46 PM)Bolty Wrote: I'm fine with giving Chesspiece access to create news items if he wants to make a new thread for each episode. I just flip a switch on his account here. Smile

As for hosting the vids, I have a terabyte of monthly bandwidth. I could directly host them, at least until Chesspiece strikes E-Fame and leaves us all behind for Internet Stardom.

HAHA. I wouldn't count on that happening any time soon.

Regarding News Items, I'll send you a PM if you want and we can figure out the details about front-paging certain stuff.

I've actually looked into free hosting for MP3 files of the podcasts. I've settled on trying out Archive.org as it seems simple and effective for what we are looking for. I've put together an MP3 file for episode 1 and it is live. I've also updated the original post here with a link to the location of the direct download for that. I should have Episode 2 live in a day or two and plan to just have an MP3 version of any new episodes live with the YouTube publications.

If this seems to work out for hosting I will be looking into putting together an RSS feed which can be used to set up iTunes subscriptions etc. When we get to that point that may be something that can be hosted at the Lounge if you are intersted. Shouldn't be too difficult or resources intensive.
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)