Before we get underway, it has been brought to our attention that there are people who do not know what a Let’s play/playthrough is. With that fact in mind we will supply a definition to get things rolling:
-Let’s play
One or more people, usually from message boards, that record themselves playing video games through screenshots or captured video (Mostly the latter). This can be any game, from Doom to Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
The most popular of the Let's Play videos come from the extremely difficult Super Mario World hack titled "Super Kaizo World". Usually Let's Play videos consist of jokes (Good, bad, and/or corny), frustration, and bewilderment by the ones playing. Some also explain gameplay, easter eggs, and general trivia pertaining to the game being played.
This will be a blind/organic Diablo III playthrough – no one in our party looked ahead at the storyline. Every once in awhile, we will do general gameplay research, but that's it. All reactions are honest, with nothing put-on.
Our episode release schedule will be one video every other day, unless something prevents us from uploading. We will also edit the original post with new links as we create them, and post weekly digests in this thread.
---If you just want the links and don't want to do any reading, scroll down to the bottom---
Overview
Opening Plot: As in both previous Diablo games, the opening plot to Diablo III is very simple. Twenty years after the events of Diablo II, researcher Deckard Cain and his niece Leah are in a cathedral poring over ancient, cryptic texts that speak of a foreboding prophecy. Suddenly, an apparent meteor strikes their location and creates a deep crater, into which Cain vanishes. At the same time, the player characters arrive in the nearby town of New Tristram and are asked to investigate the crater…
Ash and Trash: Blizzard North started work on Diablo III back in 2001, but nothing had been announced about it until June 2008 – three years, sadly, after the close of Blizzard North's offices, and five years after the exodus of most of the staff. We are all still trying to figure out what this means for the series.
The Structure of our Playthrough
In General: We will be filming our playthrough from beginning to end: all gameplay, all cinematics, everything. (You might even get to see us get dropped from the servers once in a while.) The only time we would make a cut is if there was a quality issue or similar problem and we were forced to re-run a zone, but we hope this does not happen.
Our Commentary: This will be a four-player co-op playthrough, so there is going to be a lot of chatter between players. The subject matter will likely be all over the place, but generally will revolve around the game. There will be swearing and humor you might find immature (or too mature), so this may not be for you if those things bother you. We will probably switch back and forth between our actual names and our in-game handles occasionally, as we know and work with each other in real life – hopefully this will not throw anyone off.
Other Playthroughs: Sure, other people are out there recording footage of the game and posting it online, but we not have seen many consistent four-player co-op games out there, and almost none in which everyone in the party went in blind. We hope readers refrain from pre-judging anything merely because there has been other gameplay content already released on the Internet.
Im not trying to be mean or troll here, but I have some questions:
1. Who are you and why should I give a damn about your videos? Sorry if you are someone widely known, but I have never seen your name before.
2. You say "This will be a blind/organic Diablo III playthrough – no one in our party looked ahead at the storyline. Every once in awhile, we will do general gameplay research, but that's it. All reactions are honest, with nothing put-on." Does this mean you are going to take forever with everything? Basically, are you going to take an hour to do what would take anyone else 20 minutes because you are going to take time and 'react' to everything?
3. The game has been out for a while, there are people doing end game inferno shit, and you want people to watch videos about the very beginning? Those who had even the slightest bit interest in this game probably already have it, and are playing it through. What would they need your content videos for?
In my opinion, this would have been a great idea on day 1 (well, not the literal day 1 since it was a failed launch but you know what i mean), but this is a dead idea right now. Everyone is interested in people that are at end game, and what builds and items they are using to beat inferno. Anything before inferno is of very little interest anymore.
Your audience is the brand new player that is thinking about buying the game, and MIGHT look at your video from their google search. Those people, i feel, are the vast minority. Anyone that is even half way through Normal mode probably wont take interest in these.
Last edit: 2012-06-01 08:26:24
Bippzy United States. June 01 2012 08:34. Posts 1332
Actually, i feel like the significance of the videos is that these are people playing a game to have fun candidly. While that should be common sense, it almost feels like some of TL doesn't do that, applying anecdotes from previous games and the like. So, while this is kinda weird, i would be satisfied if some interesting positive or negative points glossed over about d3 were exposed.
You bring up some good points ishyishy, while perhaps you might need better tact in asking your questions they are still valid.
1. Who are you and why should I give a damn about your videos? Sorry if you are someone widely known, but I have never seen your name before.
We are a e-sports team (not in ANY way big) however we are a group of people that enjoy many games and like to spread that joy to others. This type of media is one way we do that.
2. You say "This will be a blind/organic Diablo III playthrough – no one in our party looked ahead at the storyline. Every once in awhile, we will do general gameplay research, but that's it. All reactions are honest, with nothing put-on." Does this mean you are going to take forever with everything? Basically, are you going to take an hour to do what would take anyone else 20 minutes because you are going to take time and 'react' to everything?
By what we say above we mean we won’t be “rushing” through anything. We are all gamers who have played Diablo games or games them in the past. We are not going to take “forever” for anything however we plan to enjoy all that this new Diablo game has to offer. We will look at everything and explore everything.
3. The game has been out for a while, there are people doing end game inferno shit, and you want people to watch videos about the very beginning? Those who had even the slightest bit interest in this game probably already have it, and are playing it through. What would they need your content videos for?
These videos are a play through, this is a style of recording that is done for just about every type of game out there. There are playthroughs of games that have been out for decades. The idea is to give people something entertaining to watch and listen to while they see a game unfold.
PariahCaste United States. June 04 2012 22:46. Posts 73
I'm sort of with ishyishy. I think it's cool that you're doing your videos, but I don't really know who your target audience would be. You're promoting it here on TL, so I assume we are your target audience, but why would we watch you and your group of friends play the game when we can do it ourselves, and if we want to watch other people, why watch you and your friends over famous iCelebrities like yogscast?
Stuff like lets play are generally popular for one of two reasons: 1. The person/persons doing the lets play are already famous. Such as yogscast, TB, Day9 etc. 2. The lets play is community driven. I'm a nobody, but I play a game, videotaping it, letting the forum give input on what I should do and how I should continue, which makes it interesting for people following.
Neither rings true for you and your group, so I wonder why anyone would actually watch it.
Last edit: 2012-06-04 22:56:54
PariahCaste United States. June 05 2012 01:39. Posts 73
You did a good job asking your questions in a way that was not "ishyishy" like so thanks for that ^_^
While it's true we are not famous like Day9, yogcast, TB, etc how do you think they got that way? By posting content out there even when they were not famous for others to watch and enjoy. Will we ever get to that level of followers, odds are not but we are hoping some people will find the "show" we put on while we play entertaining.
There are thousands of people who put on lets plays some of them are crazy well know (like TD, Day9 etc) and some just have a smaller following who enjoy the way they play games or the strange things they say while they play them.
We just wanted to add more content into the community to give people more options of things they can watch/enjoy.
If people find us fun and amusing to watch great! If not I am sure they will find someone who is more their taste.
Holytornados United States. June 05 2012 01:46. Posts 623
I think the idea of let's plays are fun, but I wouldn't expect much out of them at the moment.
As previously said, you don't have much of an audience at the moment. I think if you keep at it and you are genuinely entertaining in some form, you'll get there eventually.
If you want to get big, you have to have something to draw in the initial crowd of fans to get a buzz going about you. Find something that people like and try to play on that.
Edit: Not trying to be harsh; I too put up videos of of myself and friends doing a play-through on YouTube. I was just trying to give some advice to not be too hopeful.
Goodluck man! ^_^
Last edit: 2012-06-05 01:48:44
I need your love like a boy needs his mother's side.
You have a two part question here so I will take it one part at a time.
1)
...I don't really know who your target audience would be. You're promoting it here on TL, so I assume we are your target audience...
We are indeed posting here on TL so that does make you part of our audience but that does not mean you are exclusive. That being said we did post here so the question is still valid.
2)
...but why would we watch you and your group of friends play the game when we can do it ourselves...
I do a ton of gaming and plan to keep doing that in the future but sometimes I enjoy kicking back and watching other people play. Maybe it is because I'm taking a break, possibly the people I want to play with are not online or I'm stuck or frustrated with my current situation so I want to either not feel alone in that or see people enjoying the game and have that make me want to play again. I can think of more reasons but that should get you started.
3)
...why watch you and your friends over famous iCelebrities like yogscast?
Damn good question but I can't really answer that for you it falls into your hands as a viewer to figure that out. If I am a comedian and I'm new and you ask me before the show "why should I watch you over Jim Gaffigan?" all I can tell you is to watch my show. I'm not promising that I am better than Jim Gaffigan but maybe you will enjoy me as well, this isn't Highlander. Anyone famous has to go through the stage of "why should I watch you?" I would much rather show you why then tell you why.
4)
Stuff like lets play are generally popular for one of two reasons: 1. The person/persons doing the lets play are already famous. Such as yogscast, TB, Day9 etc. 2. The lets play is community driven. I'm a nobody, but I play a game, videotaping it, letting the forum give input on what I should do and how I should continue, which makes it interesting for people following.
I kind of covered this already but I will say a little more about it. To continue my comedian analogy, we are in a small comedy club right now and the street outside is very busy hundreds of thousands of people walking past. We put our sign outside and maybe two out of two hundred stop in, are we failing?
Well, I think you guys have a nice approach, so best of luck to you. Just wanted to comment on the "How did yogscast etc get famous", I don't think it's as simple as going "We'll create some content and maybe we'll build up like they did", they didn't get "famous" by just playing a game while talking, they initially did something which had pull. TB worked at a popular WoW radio, the yogscast dudes are more or less professional comedians, day9 played BW on a very very high level (for a foreigner at least). I feel like you guys also need something special which pulls people to the stream, more than just watching a group of people play D3. Are you guys funny? Do you do something special other than playing the game from the beginning, special constraints or whatever?
What I'm more or less saying is that if you want to do a lets play which people will actually tune in to, you need something which sets you apart from everyone else, I doubt many people will watch 4 people do something they themselves could easily do with 3 of their own friends, but if you have something special others can't easily mimic, you immediately become more attractive.
Thank you for the complement . I do agree with you this is not the only way and maybe not the fastest but we were going to play D3 anyway, sure the editing was a lot of work but I think it is a small price to pay to share with others our enjoyment. I do not expect just this to get us critical acclaim like Day[9] or TB but I don't want people writing it off merely because we are not "super famous".
: PC :Spacegoon
Also what Dart said in the next post. *edit 04JUNE2012* | | | v
Last edit: 2012-06-05 02:54:25
PariahCaste United States. June 05 2012 02:28. Posts 73
I like to think we are funny yes but obviously that is up to everyone who watches us.
We do have a "hook" in that we are a 4 person party who is playing from start to end blind (we didn't look up anything in the game story line etc beforehand.) We didn't play the beta or anything else so we are giving our first and honest impression of the whole game as we play it in a 4 person party setting.
We have seen some 4 person co-op videos but most if not all of them have played D3 before and know what is going on so we are hoping the fact that we are seeing everything with fresh eyes can help give a new and interesting perspective to how and why we do what we do.
ishyishy United States. June 05 2012 05:39. Posts 794
Dont blame me for being harsh on you, because I bet a lot of others will be. Like i said before, I'm not meaning to sound like a hater, but time is valuable, and there is a lot of other shit out there to watch.
Here is something to think about:
- In general sports and gaming, what do people like to watch? Competition. 1 or more players competing against another 1 or more players. To do this, these players must be very good at what they do. Why? Because people that view themself as "not good players" are hesitant for competition. A couple months ago, there was this explosion of "omg I'm so afrade of playing 1v1 ladder on sc2 because I'm not any good and I'm gunna lose and it's stressful.....but I sure love watching MLG!" I think this says it all.
Sc2 is a watchable game because your everday casual player gets to see people that make a living playing the game play vs each other, and play at a level which that casual player could never even hope to reach.
Diablo 3, especially playing normal mode, is nothing even close to competition. The difficulty level of Normal is laughable, and you guys will probably melt through it. This shit isnt entertaining to watch. In fact, even WoW raids arent entertaining. There are like...2? WoW raid streams out there that get 100 viewers or less. For a game with 10+ million players, that is nothing.
Melt through Inferno, and you might turn some heads.
Jesus christ what is wrong with you people? This guy is trying to raise publicity for his stream and you guys are bringing nothing but bad publicity.
The fact that your asking your ridiculously harsh questions under the guise of helping him is hilarious. If you wanted to help, you would either a-watch the stream, b-post a blindly positive comment such as "great idea, will tune in!" or c-keep ur criticisms to urself.
I dont know where this community gets this false sense of entitlement from. Unless your getting paid to share your opinion, keep it to yourself if its degrading to the OP. There is absolutely nothing you could say that will stop this guy from streaming this.
Keep streamimg brother, i think this is a great unique experience!
On June 05 2012 05:39 ishyishy wrote: Dont blame me for being harsh on you, because I bet a lot of others will be. Like i said before, I'm not meaning to sound like a hater, but time is valuable, and there is a lot of other shit out there to watch.
Here is something to think about:
- In general sports and gaming, what do people like to watch? Competition. 1 or more players competing against another 1 or more players. To do this, these players must be very good at what they do. Why? Because people that view themself as "not good players" are hesitant for competition. A couple months ago, there was this explosion of "omg I'm so afrade of playing 1v1 ladder on sc2 because I'm not any good and I'm gunna lose and it's stressful.....but I sure love watching MLG!" I think this says it all.
Sc2 is a watchable game because your everday casual player gets to see people that make a living playing the game play vs each other, and play at a level which that casual player could never even hope to reach.
Diablo 3, especially playing normal mode, is nothing even close to competition. The difficulty level of Normal is laughable, and you guys will probably melt through it. This shit isnt entertaining to watch. In fact, even WoW raids arent entertaining. There are like...2? WoW raid streams out there that get 100 viewers or less. For a game with 10+ million players, that is nothing.
Melt through Inferno, and you might turn some heads.
You are clearly not their target audience. There are a lot of people that watch these kinds of playthroughs (not streaming, that's something else), especially on youtube. Often it's just as much about the people playing as it is about the game, you can't just say the game is not challanging and therefore it's no point. It's also not about showing competitive play as many of these kinds of videos are meant to be entertaining rather than providing some kind of showcase of skill.
Last edit: 2012-06-05 07:03:48
ishyishy United States. June 05 2012 07:04. Posts 794
On June 05 2012 06:48 oncearunner wrote: Jesus christ what is wrong with you people? This guy is trying to raise publicity for his stream and you guys are bringing nothing but bad publicity.
The fact that your asking your ridiculously harsh questions under the guise of helping him is hilarious. If you wanted to help, you would either a-watch the stream, b-post a blindly positive comment such as "great idea, will tune in!" or c-keep ur criticisms to urself.
I dont know where this community gets this false sense of entitlement from. Unless your getting paid to share your opinion, keep it to yourself if its degrading to the OP. There is absolutely nothing you could say that will stop this guy from streaming this.
Keep streamimg brother, i think this is a great unique experience!
posted from my phone, forgive any typos
Public forum, public critisism. For that matter, anything posted on the internet is subject to critisism. The guy even said all of my questions were "valid", and I even had someone else on this thread agree with the general questions I was asking.
So you can either deal with it or unplug your modem.
On June 05 2012 06:48 oncearunner wrote: Jesus christ what is wrong with you people? This guy is trying to raise publicity for his stream and you guys are bringing nothing but bad publicity.
The fact that your asking your ridiculously harsh questions under the guise of helping him is hilarious. If you wanted to help, you would either a-watch the stream, b-post a blindly positive comment such as "great idea, will tune in!" or c-keep ur criticisms to urself.
I dont know where this community gets this false sense of entitlement from. Unless your getting paid to share your opinion, keep it to yourself if its degrading to the OP. There is absolutely nothing you could say that will stop this guy from streaming this.
Keep streamimg brother, i think this is a great unique experience!
posted from my phone, forgive any typos
Public forum, public critisism. For that matter, anything posted on the internet is subject to critisism. The guy even said all of my questions were "valid", and I even had someone else on this thread agree with the general questions I was asking.
So you can either deal with it or unplug your modem.
public forum public criticism? how about showing some decency. he said they were valid questions because the OP is a gentlemen and doesnt want to come off rude. The OP is clearly much classier than you. I applaud him for entertaining you.
The fact of the matter is the OP is trying out a new stream, noone will watch it if its a bad idea and that is how he will know. If its a great stream, then kudos to him. Let the man work.
Posted from my phone, please forgive any typos.
ishyishy United States. June 05 2012 07:34. Posts 794
On June 05 2012 06:48 oncearunner wrote: Jesus christ what is wrong with you people? This guy is trying to raise publicity for his stream and you guys are bringing nothing but bad publicity.
The fact that your asking your ridiculously harsh questions under the guise of helping him is hilarious. If you wanted to help, you would either a-watch the stream, b-post a blindly positive comment such as "great idea, will tune in!" or c-keep ur criticisms to urself.
I dont know where this community gets this false sense of entitlement from. Unless your getting paid to share your opinion, keep it to yourself if its degrading to the OP. There is absolutely nothing you could say that will stop this guy from streaming this.
Keep streamimg brother, i think this is a great unique experience!
posted from my phone, forgive any typos
Public forum, public critisism. For that matter, anything posted on the internet is subject to critisism. The guy even said all of my questions were "valid", and I even had someone else on this thread agree with the general questions I was asking.
So you can either deal with it or unplug your modem.
public forum public criticism? how about showing some decency. he said they were valid questions because the OP is a gentlemen and doesnt want to come off rude. The OP is clearly much classier than you. I applaud him for entertaining you.
The fact of the matter is the OP is trying out a new stream, noone will watch it if its a bad idea and that is how he will know. If its a great stream, then kudos to him. Let the man work.
Posted from my phone, please forgive any typos.
I'm pretty sure none of my posts on this thread so far have been intentionally malicious, I'm not trolling or flaming, I'm just carrying on a small conversation in my own way. Also, who ever said I had to care about my "tone" of words? What you are doing now is blatently taking stabs at me for my posts, which all but this one, have stayed on topic, and that most certainly is against TL policy.
And on top of that, I only wanted the OP responses, I dont care what you feel or what you think about my posts.
Last edit: 2012-06-05 07:36:34
PariahCaste United States. June 05 2012 10:53. Posts 73
First off i want to say that we as an organization mostly come from a performance background (theatre, singing, etc) so we are in NO way thin skinned or mind criticism (as long as it it constructive).
I want to thank those who are giving support we very much appreciate it. We know not everyone is going to be interested in the type of play through we are posting. It is a casual fun play through Diablo III and for those that enjoy just chilling out and watching 4 wackos play through this game while being silly and (hopefully) funny while doing it.
Ishyishy had valid points but as someone else said he is obviously not our target audience.
On a side note SC2 is the main game for our team and one of our players (PC Spacegoon) is pushing to be a pro SC2 gamer. We very much understand the amazing feeling of both playing and watching competitive gaming! It is one of the main reasons we love e-sports so much!
However not everyone is as competitive as that and they have a place in e-sports as well. We are just hoping we are putting on a good show and people enjoy it.
Thanks for all the comments and please keep them coming! ^_^
On June 05 2012 10:53 PariahCaste wrote: First off i want to say that we as an organization mostly come from a performance background (theatre, singing, etc) so we are in NO way thin skinned or mind criticism (as long as it it constructive).
I want to thank those who are giving support we very much appreciate it. We know not everyone is going to be interested in the type of play through we are posting. It is a casual fun play through Diablo III and for those that enjoy just chilling out and watching 4 wackos play through this game while being silly and (hopefully) funny while doing it.
Ishyishy had valid points but as someone else said he is obviously not our target audience.
On a side note SC2 is the main game for our team and one of our players (PC Spacegoon) is pushing to be a pro SC2 gamer. We very much understand the amazing feeling of both playing and watching competitive gaming! It is one of the main reasons we love e-sports so much!
However not everyone is as competitive as that and they have a place in e-sports as well. We are just hoping we are putting on a good show and people enjoy it.
Thanks for all the comments and please keep them coming! ^_^
your a classy man pariah. i wish you and ur team the best of luck
C:Squidoku, Warrior Princess! 
. I do agree with you this is not the only way and maybe not the fastest but we were going to play D3 anyway, sure the editing was a lot of work but I think it is a small price to pay to share with others our enjoyment. I do not expect just this to get us critical acclaim like Day[9] or TB but I don't want people writing it off merely because we are not "super famous".
