LP's and You/Youtube

[Chrono]

Alright, I'll try one. I play Mindcrack, but should I watch Direwolf? Because everyone seems to like him.

In the end it is not about everyone, it is about YOU, do you only watch popular tv shows,?
Do you only play popular games?
Watch one video, and maybe only half of it and them ask yourself "was that entertaining?".
IF you like it keep watching his stuff, if you don't, try another guy.
Direwolf let's play is more of a "teaching of stuff" type of deal, but yeah I personally recommend his latest mutiplayer series.

 

[Enigmius1]

I don't produce youtube content or watch the content others produce for the 'community' aspect. I tend not to read the comments under videos made by others. To me, whether its my content or someone else', the comment section is for communication from the viewer to the producer. It's gratifying and appreciated to see viewers helping one another out with questions in the comments section, but as far as a place to go for ongoing discussion, it's about as effective as Twitter. For the most part, the nonsense visible in the comment section are the fringes of the 'community'. I have one video on my channel with 290000 views and only 750 comments. The majority is not represented in the comment section by any stretch of the imagination.

As far as the Minecraft LP content, most of the time it doesn't entertain me. Minecraft is an extremely boring game to watch someone play just for the sake of playing. One of the things I learned in other games is that if you want to get an idea of what kinds of mistakes you're making as you play, one of the best ways to do so is capture video footage of yourself playing and then watch it once or twice. What you see when you play and what you see when you watch yourself play are often night and day and that's what a lot of LP producers don't get. They're having fun playing...the 20 people who will bother to stop by to watch are bored stiff. The very small handful of people who manage to achieve success producing Minecraft LPs do so because they have entertaining personalities and would be successful with any game. That's why I stick to guide/tutorial style videos. There's a defined purpose and topic for each episode and that's what people are there to watch, not me running around in circles in my shoebox for 20 minutes.

It's also extremely difficult to produce entertaining commentary while you play without looking bad in some way. Either the commentary is awful or you make mistakes in the game because you're splitting your attention between two things. If you have a youtuber (or several) who do a good job of gameplay + commentary, show them a little love every once in a while because it's a practiced skill. There's one fairly well known youtuber out there who can do good commentary, or good gameplay, but rarely can he do both yet he insists on doing so day in and day out. And don't even get me started on First Impressions videos.

I think the bottom line (TL;DR) is that youtube is a medium whereby people can post videos and share them with the internet. As soon as I, as a viewer, try to make it more than that, I'm setting myself up for disappointment. And as soon as I, as a producer, lose sight of what youtube is primarily for, I risk losing a big chunk of my viewers. Minecraft LPs are a dime a dozen and most of them are awful, but if you find one you enjoy then that's awesome too.

 

[Mero]

I think it really depends on what you would be watching them for.

I watch (misleading really as I just listen to them while I play) them for entertainment. I will watch a mod spotlight occasionally but I don't watch them for inspiration or anything like that. I have more than enough ideas rolling around in my brain.

That is why I would much rather listen to the B-team or Guude over somebody like Etho our Direwolf.

If you are watching them to learn stuff, it really depends on if you learn better by reading about something or by seeing an example. Everybody is different in that regard.

As to the twitter and ail of that your of crap I don't and won't but I am Gen-X not the Look at Me generation that needs all of that in their lives.


BTW, I do both at the same time due to my limited free time but that isn't an option for you.

 

[jumpfight5]

I think it really depends on what you would be watching them for.

I watch (misleading really as I just listen to them while I play) them for entertainment. I will watch a mod spotlight occasionally but I don't watch them for inspiration or anything like that. I have more than enough ideas rolling around in my brain.

That is why I would much rather listen to the B-team or Guude over somebody like Etho our Direwolf.

If you are watching them to learn stuff, it really depends on if you learn better by reading about something or by seeing an example. Everybody is different in that regard.

As to the twitter and ail of that your of crap I don't and won't but I am Gen-X not the Look at Me generation that needs all of that in their lives.


BTW, I do both at the same time due to my limited free time but that isn't an option for you.

What are the B-Team and Guude like compared to Etho and Direwolf? Do they just joke around and stuff? I honestly think I'd do better by watching, but it's just...inconvenient, as I can't have youtube playing at the same time, like you're able to.

One of the things I learned in other games is that if you want to get an idea of what kinds of mistakes you're making as you play, one of the best ways to do so is capture video footage of yourself playing and then watch it once or twice. What you see when you play and what you see when you watch yourself play are often night and day and that's what a lot of LP producers don't get.

I think the bottom line (TL;DR) is that youtube is a medium whereby people can post videos and share them with the internet. As soon as I, as a viewer, try to make it more than that, I'm setting myself up for disappointment. And as soon as I, as a producer, lose sight of what youtube is primarily for, I risk losing a big chunk of my viewers. Minecraft LPs are a dime a dozen and most of them are awful, but if you find one you enjoy then that's awesome too.

What's TL;DR mean? Heheh, and PITA, I see them so often but never thought to ask, because I understand what they're saying.
Also, if I can upgrade my computer, I think I would really learn a lot by watching myself play (like playing a sport and watching it, it WILL get boring). Though I believe the Lets plays seem really overused, I have always wanted to try to do one, even if I fail

 

[Chrono]

What's TL;DR mean? Heheh, and PITA, I see them so often but never thought to ask, because I understand what they're saying.
Also, if I can upgrade my computer, I think I would really learn a lot by watching myself play (like playing a sport and watching it, it WILL get boring). Though I believe the Lets plays seem really overused, I have always wanted to try to do one, even if I fail

Google is your best friend...
tl;dr = Too long; didn't read, used after massive walls of text.
pita = pain in the ass, you know...
Boring is of relative, I have a friend who play and watch football, and he can't get enough of both.
This new youtube job is super new, let's play are still mostly a hobby, you just record yourself playing a game and post it on youtube for fun, that is the true essence of a let's play, minecraft just happens to be a popular target for it, but pretty much every single "big" game has hundreds of different let's play series.
Just go to youtube Chanel and watch a video, if you like it good, if you don't...do something else.
You're overthinking this way to much.

 

[Mero]

What are the B-Team and Guude like compared to Etho and Direwolf? Do they just joke around and stuff? I honestly think I'd do better by watching, but it's just...inconvenient, as I can't have youtube playing at the same time, like you're able to.


What's TL;DR mean? Heheh, and PITA, I see them so often but never thought to ask, because I understand what they're saying.
Also, if I can upgrade my computer, I think I would really learn a lot by watching myself play (like playing a sport and watching it, it WILL get boring). Though I believe the Lets plays seem really overused, I have always wanted to try to do one, even if I fail

Guude likes to tell stories and he did standup comedy he said.
B-team are a couple of derps who interact well together and I personally fine must of their stuff funny.

That is just me. Really it various from person to person as to what they find entertaining.

I don't know that I would just sit and watch anyone's videos without doing something else at the same time though. I can't even just sit there playing a game and nothing else. I usually have to have a video or two up along with a forum our wiki while I play.

 

[Aceldamor]

As a "LPer" , I can say that most of what I post is just me running around trying stuff, seeing if I like it then "teaching" peeps how I did it. While doing that I ramble on about various topics, or interact with my peeps I play with. I watch other LP channels to see how some do things, as DW does things differently than Bdouble0 does. Mead does things differently than the Yogs guys do. I personally have no agenda, I record while I play. While I'm building i'll try to explain to the best of my ability / knowledge (fumbling through is half the fun) to my audience what i'm doing and how it'll work.

What the wiki's and things of that nature lack sometimes is HOW the machines function in a single capacity, in a chain, or where they are in the tech tree. I've gained a lot of knowledge on how to do things, and what machines function well when starting complex systems like sorting machines, pipe networks, and power sources.

I understand that some folks don't want to watch someone fool around with banter and nonsense, so for people who just want to see how a machine works, i'll add chapter shortcuts directly to the build process it's self and save those folks only interested in a "mini tutorial" 20 minutes or so.


Hope that gives you a perspective from a relatively small "Lper"

Ac3ldamor

 

[Freakscar]

Just to throw my 2 cents about wikis versus videos in here:

I see it like this: Wikis are, when done, more along the lines of "This is a Wrench. It is made from these ingredients. You hold the wrench like this. You use it to do *stuff* with it." Where "stuff" usually ends with about two, to three sentences. Meaning, it gives you a more or less good understanding of what this "Wrench" is, what it does and where it's useful. Now, videos on the other hand start, where wikis usually end - with said "stuff" one can do with "the wrench". All the describtive little details and ways to use it would be waay to much information for a wiki. But in viewable form, it's a matter of minutes before you are shown all the awesome stuff "the wrench" can achieve. Obviously "the wrench" can be replaced by whatever floats your boat.

tl;dr - wikis describe the tools themselves, videos show you how and where to use them.

 

[CalmityJack]

For me it's like a TV show. There are the added benefits of learning some mechanics i didn't already know or being inspired to build something. But really I enjoy watching people play minecraft. It keeps me in love with the game. Not every LPer has spot on videos every time. But I watch what I enjoy. Kinda like people who watch all those cop shows on TV.

 

[baw179]

I agree with much of enigmus' comments above. As someone that doesn't make YT videos I'm putting myself directly in the firing line here, but imho the vast majority of minecraft LPs are incredibly bad. I think primarily you need to have that natural "gift" of being able to do good commentary and it's something that very few YTers possess. On top of that you need to know how to edit and actually do it in order to maintain a decent level of in-game progress for your viewers. What I mean by that is if you suddenly find yourself out of mats when you're recording, don't upload the 30 mins of you wandering around caves mining iron and coal; instead do a cut and resume once you've got the stuff you need.

People like DW and Etho have got both of these things very well sussed. DW in particular has just the right balance and his LP and mod spotlights are very good. In fact his recent 2 parter on AE was superb and I particularly enjoyed seeing him spend the time working out what everything did and then presenting us with a fully functioning example of how you could utilise a sorter/processor/storage set-up in your own world. THAT is something that every other minecraft spotlight/"tutorial" never does - they just show you the absolute basics of what a given machine does (which you'd already figured out for yourself) and their high amount of views but single digit amount of "likes" reflect this. There's one such YTer who seems to have a "spotlight" video linked on pretty much every page of Tekkit & FTB wiki who is guilty of this.

Another thing that most YTers fail at is the "rate, comment and subscribe" BS. This REALLY irritates me and if anyone mentions those 3 words or fills my screen with 'subscribe' annotations to click it simply means that the 'like' button does not get pressed and if they go really OTT then the 'dislike' button gets pressed instead. YTers whine that if they didn't mention it then how would their channel grow, blah-de-blah... well guys, why don't go and speak to Etho or DW about that - 800,000 subscribers between them and neither of them have ever been "like, comment, subscribe" attention whores.

As for who and what I watch, well very few YTers to be honest. DW definitely my favourite at the moment for FTB stuff, Etho's multiplayer vids like Nail and the 'mini' UHC upload yesterday were very entertaining for me; his FTB series is okay too but I find his normal LP to be very boring. I can't get on with any of the other Mindcrackers at all, nor the Hermitcraft guys either although there's 1 or 2 decent aesthetic builders on Hermitcraft. JL2579 is on my subs list for all the crazy contraptions they build on their vanilla server and a couple of other small-time tutorial guys.

I'm not into twitter/twitch or any of that live streaming stuff - there's only so many hours in a day.... What I don't learn from DW or the FTB wiki I can usually find on this forum and I'd personally like to mention Omicron, MilConDoin, Abdiel, Peppe, Saice and slay_mithos as members who stand out as being very knowledgeable and actively spend their time helping us minions solve our FTB problems.

 

[Death-A-Lot]

YouTube videos to me are mainly entertainment. I will come home from work and watch a DW20 video whilst I eat my tea before I then jump into my game.

I generally won't watch a YouTube video tutorial as I find the majority of them to be inadequte(?) To say the least, and because I'm normally eating I don't tend to take notes.

The majority of wikis out there are apalling and I really do miss the written detailed guides that I can quickly digest when I have a couple of spare minutes.

 

[Antice]

-- snipped for brevity--
Not trying to start a flame war, I don't really know, and I was wondering if it were worth my time watching LP's, streams, and following twitter accounts (the hollywood side of Minecraft), or just play the game and watch the forums (because I can read faster than most people speak, and actually reading it is easier in public than watching a video that will drain my phone's battery and data, compared to looking at a screen of text that won't kill my battery or any bills, and if I really need something, I can save it on a document or print it out.

Did I mention my laptop can't handle Youtube AND Minecraft, while it is fine with a few tabs up.

I'd like to address this as one who makes an LP for his own amusement rather than the profit motive.
Because at the end of the day, that is what most LP'ers do. youtube LP'ing is not a profitable job for anyone but a select few. like Direwolf. bdubs, Ethos and a few others.
In order to get even a half decent payoff from youtube videos one needs to have hundreds of thousands of views per month. and one needs to have that kind of attention every month 12 months per year. your personal choice about viewing or not viewing aren't going to negatively affect these big LP'ers any, so save your battery and phone bill.
youtube viewing is a voluntary action after all, and there is no duty involved.

For anyone that wants to start an LP i have the following advice: forget about making serious money on it. Do it because you want to make vids of yourself playing. have fun with it, and most important of all, don't force it. if you force it, then the quality of your work suffers, and bad work will scare people away from your good stuff.
As far as LP's go, minecraft is one of the better games to do this with. the reason is simple. it's a sandbox game, and the content you make is only limited by your own imaginations, So use that imagination and build something different.

 

[Jeff Fisher]

To be honest if it wasnt for Folks posting there ftb videos on youtube I wouldnt know 1/10th of what I do now.. I would have been lost without some of those videos. Lets face it some of the wikis are not that helpful for particular things. I will admit tho some mods wikis are great others are lacking.

I watch there videos to learn and for entertainment. I mostly watch them for entertainment nowadays since I know most things about the mods now. I like to watch a video or two in the morning when I wake up before I play some minecraft.

 

[jumpfight5]

I tried out this video by Etho, it was about super tools and enchanting.
I can say I did learn stuff, I didn't know anything about Thaumcraft before except the basic principles of Vis and Flux (or aura and taint, whatever), and I've learned about the Arcane Bore, a few tools, Crystal Clusters, and Thaum-Batteries!

I can say I did know most of the other stuff, and in some cases more than Etho (Spawners should be Soul Sharded with his setup it'll be easy to get Tier 5's, and a bit more about Enchanting, as well as SC not working with non-vanilla mobs). But I can say it seemed useful, though he could have put links or times to different things he did in the description, which would be useful for people just looking for a bit more about enchanting, as it wasn't covered until the last half or so of the video.