Let's Play King's Quest

[mateo360]

I got my first jerk comment. It was on my Let's Play Sam And Max Save The World Episode 1 Part 1

"Pardon, but can you please upload a commentary-free version? I prefer more traditional playthroughs."

Seriously? That kind of defeats the purpose of a let's play and I post a link to telltale's site in each of my Save The World vids. He can go buy the game if he doesn't want to listen to my commentary or go find another vid.

[crayauchtin]

Like I said I don't think there should be NO commentary at all, I just think there's often lots of unnecessary or distracting commentary. Having no commentary is just as bad, you *need* commentary to make it useful.

[Jafar]

I think uploading a silent playthrough when you're already doing a Let's Play is kinda redundant.
It sounds easier to search for a different playthrough than bug someone to do it differently to me. Don't let it discourage you.

[MangoMercury]

I personally prefer to watch non-talky walkthroughs, especially when a game has good dialogue and music.  When people are talking over that, and they haven't got the sound turned down very far on the in-game audio, I find it difficult to hear what they're saying.

There are exceptions, though.  If someone can make a genuinely funny (which is very difficult) Let's Play, I'll watch it.  Or if someone can make one that is informative, I'll watch it.  But far too many of the things are people trying to be zany and just coming off as annoying.  The best thing I've personally found was someone who was doing glitch videos and using the annotations to explain them instead of talking.

[Jafar]

Ah, yes, audio levels...one of the most annoying things is when the person talking and the game talking blur into each other and you can't understand ANYTHING.

Too bad there's no convenient way to turn commentary on\off...that'd make things so much easier.

[crayauchtin]

That's why annotations are a good solution for some people -- they can be turned on or off, and they never interfere with sounds.

[mateo360]

I actually try to have the game volume up to where it can be hear without my voice dominating the whole video and so people can hear the music and dialog.

[MangoMercury]

See, that's still a problem for me; as a person with hearing impairments, I find it very difficult to just pick out one sound (as well as the source of noise, but for a video, that's irrelevant).  I love my videos with subtitles, but failing that, they need to have one channel of sound to work for me - either the original audio, or the commentary.  Both just makes a video frustrating for me to watch.

I would love Jafar's suggestion, on the other hand, of customisable levels.  Shame that'll probably never happen on YouTube!

[Jafar]

Hmm...subtitled LPs...that's an interesting idea. I don't think anyone's ever had subtitles for what they were saying. Probably because it'd distract from the game itself, but it might be an idea worth exploring...

[mateo360]

That would be interesting but no only would it distract, it would take more time to make the vids. You would have to watch your own videos, pausing every line to get the time span & wording, Then you would have to program it all into the vid.

[Jafar]

Yeah, I guess it isn't really practical. I've seen people do crazier things though.

Oh, you know what'd be useful though? You know how most of the early Sierra talkie games only have voice acting OR text, not both?

Adding captions to go along with the voice acting would be pretty nifty, whether you're doing a silent LP or not.

[MangoMercury]

Actually, as a veteran watcher of television programmes with subtitles (pretty much as long as I can remember), they're not all too distracting as long as they're done properly.

[KatieHal]

I recently discovered LPs on youtube. They're great background listening while I'm working. I really liked QFG 4 by Hercrabbiness and LateBlt in particular so far. I listened to the LB1 LP, and I'm partway into the LB2 one now. I also listened to/watched the very amusing LP of Phantasmagoria that Hercrabbiness and Resulka did. I had never gotten the chance to play that game myself and I now think I would never have the patience for it! But, fun to watch.

[mateo360]

Since we were talking about subtitled commentary, I just noticed that youtube has a beta going for transcribing commentary and other vocals in to subtitles. It uses Google Speech recognition software.

[Jafar]

From what I've seen, it doesn't transcribe english, it transcribes misheard gibberish.

"I am shocked that they have traditions of baseball."