AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Saw some people posting some videos, so figured I might wave my arms around a bit. If this isn't a thread I should be making let me know and I'll delete it, but pretty sure it's within the forum rules.

So basically, I make videos for a hobby, and I try to lump together my own original art with the videos as well (which happens to be where my avatar comes from) to try and get practice in both.

I'm mainly looking for feedback and pointers on quality: while it would be nice I don't have any illusions of getting mass views; as someone who tends to be socially awkward this journey has been a comedy of errors so far, but that's half the fun! The video I'll be posting is of Hearthstone, since at the moment it's the only one with a decent intro.



(side note: there is a really obnoxious laugh I give a ways into the arena draft that makes me cringe, but couldn't really edit it out. sorry)

I don't really know much about youtubing, but I think you've got a great voice for it. You're easy to understand, and you speak loudly enough that your words don't get mumbled. That helps a lot.

Your videos are really long though. Guess there's not really anything wrong with that, I would just rather not watch a 40 minute long video, and other people probably feel the same. But hey, do your own thing man.

In terms of video content, it is a bit on the long side. The biggest thing to remember with gameplay videos is you're competing with everyone else's gameplay videos. The shorter videos are naturally gonna draw more attention. If you aren't looking to compete and just wanna do this because you like to this isn't even an issue.

In terms of quality, other than a small amount of reverb on the mic, it's all very good in terms of commentary.
Mic quality is really good, no mumbling or peaking the mic, you speak very clearly without stuttering or stammering, and you have a nice balance of when there's talking and when there isn't; you're never rambling and you're never just silent for too long.

Yeah, I really try to keep the videos around 30 minutes, but they always seem to go over that. The rogue I fought in this one took forever to do her turns, which kind of dragged out the video.

From what I watched it was good. The few things I would change though were that if you're trying to do Hearthstone vids maybe start your video with your deck already picked out and give a brief summary of your strategy with the deck. That should cut down a few minutes of you picking through cards and making a deck. Otherwise I think it was good.

You totally got shafted by that warlock though.

I would do that if it was constructed, but in arena the cards are kinda random.

In the long run I want to be doing multiple multiplayer games; hearthstone is just kinda the easiest format to start with. Once I figure out which game to do next, I'll be working on a cover piece for that and will add that to the list of games, doing 2 uploads a week instead of one, spacing it out across the week.

Don't ask the forum
9/10 LP's have failed after the first two updates on the forum

I'm going to give you super generic advice because I want to reply but don't currently have the time to watch a 40 minute video. Keep in mind that none of this is targeted directly toward your specific video (save for #2)

1) Be enthusiastic about what you're LPing. Good enthusiasm or bad enthusiasm, doesn't matter. If you're bored, the audience is bored.
2) I'd say try limiting your videos to ~20 minutes. Mostly because that gives you leeway to go over without getting into ridiculous territory.
3) Make sure to do audio levels well! If you're not talking over the entire thing constantly (and you shouldn't be if you don't have a partner) you should look into autoducking.

I'd say just stream the game(if your internet speed is any good), and make clips from the recordings, like crazy unexpected things that happened, or just really quality plays, or unconventional hands(I dunno much about the game, so I can't say specifically).

Nobody wants to watch just regular old footage of regular play, especially in long formats. Make short clips, like I said above, with titles or descriptions that will hook people from searches. With any luck, people will like your personality displayed in that short amount of time, and subscribe to you. If you get popular-ish, then you can take the gamble that a decent percentage of your viewerbase will watch a longer video.

With short like... 20second or even 2 minute clips, I don't even have to be interested in the game at all, I'd watch it anyways if you linked it to me.

From what little I watched of skipping around your video, it seems like you have a good voice, and possibly personality, so its all a matter of content, and the format its in.

Honestly I'm always surprised when people have no issue with my voice, I don't get what's so appealing about it.

In regards to the format, to be honest I think I'm going to keep it the same right now few a few reasons, with some attempt to dial the length to around 30 minutes: I work a 40 hour job, and there definitely is other formats I want to do that I just do not have time to do (for example, a black and white animated rant series about specific topics) or don't really have the practice or exposure to justify doing (another example, a series covering underplayed older games with unique concepts).

Success to me really isn't view count, though it is nice to have, and I'm more concerned with just making content that isn't terrible; and hell NorthernLion has done 1000 or so Binding of Isaac runs and people watch that. That being said, length concerns are a legitimate point, but unfortunately it's one that is hard to address in multiplayer game sessions. I want to have a few series running, such as StarCraft (which I'm awful at), TF2, CS:GO, Dota 2 (if I ever figure out a way to record it with all chat disabled due to the horrible community) and other titles of that nature. I'm not really comfortable just breezing through single player games because at that point I feel the story is doing most of the work and I'm just commenting on it, which is really not good practice for future work.

It took me awhile to figure out how to say that and I definitely am taking the advice to heart: the length issue is something I hear about a lot and will definitely try and work on, but I just wanted to give my perspective on the issue as well. When I recorded TF2 videos those were actually the easiest to do, surprisingly enough, just because the rounds tended to last reasonable amounts of time and there was always something happening. A lot of multiplayer games now though are extremely long-form, which can make recording them a pain, but it's what I want to do starting out that I'm capable of doing.

This thread is specifically asking for help regarding a particular subject. If you do not have anything informational or constructive to add, then please keep comments like this out of this thread. They are unnecessary.


P.S. I agree with the others Boler, your voice is super great. Most of the other suggestions people have made touch on different styles of LPing, but I think what you have going is great. It might be better for you to start out with shorter videos and intersperse longer ones like these? Some LPers can get away with long videos because they have a strong viewership that really love their work, so they'll stay and listen/watch hour-long videos. You might want to have some shorter ones for people to "test you out" so to speak?

The ironic thing about shorter content is I feel it's more difficult to do and be entertaining, ironically, without cutting out huge chunks of gameplay or just falling into one of a few generic niches.

Hearthstone videos go on for a long time. Long videos are NOT what new(ISH) youtubers have to do when they want more subs and views. People don't give a shit about you. They don't want to watch a player drone on about Hearthstone arena for 40 longass minutes even if you're a cool guy, because they don't know you at all, and they're not even going to stay for half a minute because of that. You have to make shorter videos to HOOK in more views and subs. That is the biggest issue out of MANY that are irrelevant until you fix this one.

EDIT: also, tags.

Would you care to elaborate on what the other issues are you had with the video as well? Again I'm mostly doing this as a hobby, even if I made 5 minute videos I doubt I'd get much of a following for a long time, if at all, and my main concern is quality, which I think is very relevant regardless of if I have 100,000 views or 2. I'm pretty pessimistic about my chances of "success" on youtube in terms of viewcount, because I know people a million times more talented than me who have no following.

Regarding the length thing I've given it some thought and I'm probably going to return to doing TF2 videos again as a second series running alongside this Hearthstone one (was going to do counterstrike stuff but having two longform series when the main complaint I hear is length would be rather silly), the few I did tended to run 15-20 minutes and always had a ton of stuff to talk about due to the amount of weapon and map variety.

(note I will not continue posting videos here, as I do not consider this a self promotion thread)

A lot of youtubers will record multiple long segments and just edit out the boring parts to make it short. You could consider that if you wanted.

Really, besides the length, there aren't any problems that I can find in your videos. Your voice doesn't bore me, you record in good quality, and you don't seem to suck at the games you play.