Let's Play Archive, Claims and Rules ver. 4.0 - Read Before Posting!

I'm not sure anyone was suggesting this.

Then what were you suggesting?

I believe he was saying that before JoeSchmo starts two LPs at once, he should complete one LP of his own as goodwill?

Basically. Don't let New Guy run fifty LPs at once before he proves he can finish the first one.

Solution without a problem. When has this been an issue?

On the other hand, I've stopped reading LPs on this forum because of how many of them I've seen drop off the face of the earth. That may be more of a function on which LPs I read though , as there are probably tens of completed LPs that just didn't interest me.

(Emphasis mine, although in fairness to Falselogic that was only a small piece of a larger whole which is worth discussing.)

Let me clarify that there's very little you can do to stop people from "abandoning" an LP. It's a pretty easy thing to do (heck, I nearly did so several times; it's not always as easy as just "updating")!

What you can do is try and create an environment where LPs get the love they deserve. I think there are two ways of doing this; this first is by getting people to do some kind of test post (which could potentially take the form of a Micro or Abandoned LP, but I would rather see the options kept "open"). They can see how much work goes into an update, and maybe we can give them some constructive feedback.

The second is just by keeping the forum in a state of activity. The more people who are reading these threads, the more comments you'll get, and the more encouragement you'll give to people who LP games, which in turn should increase the rate of completion.

What I don't think you do is focus on the Abandoned LPs as some mark of shame on the forum. Negativity just feeds into negativity; there as a period where I was struggling to continue my FFT LP where I literally avoided the forum. I'm not going to lie: Brickroad's FF2 LP was a huge source of motivation, because it both reminded me how great LPs can be, but also served as (weirdly enough) competition.

Put (perhaps) in a stranger way, I would rather see 5 LPs that have a 25% chance each of completing, than 1 LP that has a 100% chance of finishing. The former would bring much more traffic and vitality to the forum than the latter. I mean hey, if you just want to read "completed" LP threads (and some people do!) we're already keeping good track of that.

- Eddie

Step one of getting more participation in the LP threads: relax the forum's registration protocol. I frequently get YouTube PMs from people who want to post here but either can't figure out how to register or don't want to deal with the hassle. (And meaning no offense to big cheeses, it is a hassle.)

If that's not going to happen I don't really know what else can be done. Popular games get more comments by far, so if your goal is to get the largest audience possible, stick to an A-list title. (And anyone thinking "oh he's just saying that because he's Brickroad and his LPs are always popular" should go check out my RHEM thread sometime!)

AFAIK the whole reason registration is so locked down is because of spambots. Like keep an eye on the "most recent member" thing down at the bottom of the main page, its 95% some stupid garbage name registered by a bot. I'd love to see it relaxed myself but there'd have to be some kind of forum software shift to something that uses much more advanced screening protocols to make it viable I think.

It wasn't my attention to argue that the protocols were unnecessary, just to point out that they demonstrably prevent legitimate users from registering and commenting on LP threads.

I personally have no problem with our LPs (and TT in general) being a semi-gated community.

Never has the monocled avatar been so appropriate

I was lifting my pinky, too. =)

I have also had friends want to post within my LPs, and have been blocked by the fact that they cannot register. It is definitely an issue, at the very least.

That's not to say that gated communities can't garner strong LP support. Something Awful is frequently locked behind a paywall, yet is still one of the largest places for LPs on the internet, after-all.

I'm not going to suggest that a software move is necessary, but doesn't vBulletin have something that isn't quite so labour intensive? Or at the very least, could it be made very obvious what the steps are? You're worried about an influx of new people who drop their projects and leave a mess, but if getting new people is such a hassle, then they're not going to even bother in the first place. As Brick said, a solution without a problem.

And I also agree with Brick regarding the LP lists. As a forum, incomplete LPs are only an issue when we give them such large billing right in the index. If they were instead listed in a separate location, then the information is still there for folks who want to see if there's an LP they could finish, but it's not in your face and kind of depressing.

I do not agree that we need to have a large ratio of completed LPs vice incomplete. Most venues, I would imagine, would tend to have roughly the same percentage as TT, spread out over the larger numbers. If there is a problem with the ratio of incomplete LPs, it's entirely because we make it very obvious which ones are abandoned.

LPs get abandoned for many reasons, and our drawing attention to them really doesn't help anything. It should be a pleasant surprise when one comes out of retirement, not a "it's about damn time" sort of reaction that having a "wall of shame" causes in the minds of would-be LPers. Remove the stress of failure, and you raise the odds of success in the long run.

To that end, might I suggest that our current list of "abandoned" LPs have a second category? I suggested a while ago that allowing for "on sabbatical" LPs would help a lot (ie. the LP author fully intends to come back to it at some point, just not in the usual timeframe). Being able to put it on the back burner indefinitely can help a lot, especially for something fairly high-stress (like FF12's extra content; I fully intend to complete that, but not until I'm good and ready).

Of course, we of the Talking Time forums can do our part too. The number one cause of LP abandonment, as best I can tell, is the feeling that nobody cares about your LP. Everyone practically falls over themselves to say something in the LPs posted by Brickroad, OctoPrime, and the other long-timers, but just look at the discrepancy between those threads and a lot of the newcomers' threads. Take a more active participating role in LPs on the forums if you want to see them continue. Even if you're just saying "nice update" in a few more words, the encouragement alone can spare an LP from being forsaken by its author.

I'm not sure that new people should have to finish an LP or be forced to do a mini-LP before starting a new one, but I would be 100% for people with abandoned LPs to either have to finish their abandoned one, do a mini-LP, or at the very least do a few test posts before being allowed to do another one. I know since I abandoned my very old/very bad LP, I've been reluctant to try a new one until I at the very least do a mini LP first.

I tend to do obscure or niche games because who wants to read about a game everyone ever has played? However, this means they don't get a lot of comments and then I question if anyone is even reading. Then I get discouraged and quit. I realize this is entirely my own problem but that hasn't stopped it from happening every time.

Basically what I'm saying is that Octo is the best poster because he comments when no one else does.

It blows my mind that Brick and Eddie were able to make such great must-read LPs. FFII and Tactics are two of the most played games ever. That they were able to make such engaging reads through shear passion and effort and breath new light into such familiar games is inspiring.

So inspiring that I'm inspired to LP the game I've always wanted to, that I love more than any other, despite that it holds no surprises for anyone. Hopefully I can do it the justice that Brick and Eddie brought to theirs.



But it won't be for a bit. First, there's a ghosty lion to finish up.

Loki, as promised I will make you the worst fan art imaginable for your next LP because I love them.

(I will also try and comment more because I'm bad at that)

A small image of a bird colored black and white.

God, that's my #1 problem with my current pair. They get 200+ views an update and zero (or one by my brother occasionally) comments.

But hey, not like I can really do any reader suggestion stuff stuff since I've got everything screenshotted already and the game servers are permanently down for FFXIV 1.0.

I'm bad at leaving LP comments because unless I know a game remarkably well myself there's just nothing to say but "nice job hoss".

I suppose I could make more of an effort to post "nice job hoss". Would that help?

I know I'm not the only one who is really excited about a LP but doesn't think they have anything interesting to say about it. I doubt it offers any consolation to the poster that I am in fact reading, even if I'm not participating.

EDIT: ...or, what Brick said.

Yeah, that's kind of the problem. I understand where you're coming from, because it's true. I knew going into G Gen World that it was going to be a niche game, but beyond the part in the middle where there as suddenly great discussion about the series (which made me feel pretty great), I got almost no real discussion or suggestions (which made me feel pretty bad).

You can't force people into commenting, though. A lot of people do, in fact, enjoy what you do, but that doesn't mean they say anything. And after a (short) time, even just having people go "Cool update, bro" gets old, and might as well be the same as posting nothing at all.

As well, which is kind of shown elsewhere on the Internet, but the default stance of most people is that if they were entertained or they thought it was good, well, that's what they expected. So they don't need to make a comment. I know I get this frequently with some of the LPs here; a bunch that I've been following have been great! But at the same time I don't feel the need to actually "converse" with them. I don't really have anything I want to add that wasn't already said in the update, more often then not. And while that's a logical standpoint, I can see where it can make the LPer feel like they're doing badly, since I'm pretty sure my own video works have had that exact problem. Or maybe I'm just terrible, and no one wants to tell me.

But the fact that this is coming up as a suggestion probably also ties into the fact that TT is a gated community. For the most part, we know who everyone else is, and kind of what they like. Even if someone wants to do an LP of something unusual, if it's not within most folks' tastes, there's not going to be all that much obvious excitement about it. That might be why so many people are using TT more as a "home base", and instead present their LPs elsewhere and link back here.

Again, not saying that being gated is bad, however there's more to the commentary angle then just "people are not responding."

Y'all need to start asking leading questions at the end of your posts, like good SEO-sucking blogs.

I'm aware that the lack of commenting on LPs isn't due to actual disinterest. Hell, I've run a fair number of LPs myself where literally nobody said a thing between updates for close to half-a-dozen updates. My point is, it's demoralizing even if you know from view count alone that people are reading. You know that people care enough to keep reading, but nobody seems to care enough to actually say anything about it.

Perhaps we need some sort of "conversation squad", if you will, to act as icebreakers for LPs that have just updated. Unless the author outright asks people for input (and sometimes not even then!), it generally takes someone's anecdote or question about something regarding the game to get the discussion moving. Any volunteers?

Which is really difficult when you're a lobster.

I'm really bad at this too, I'll admit. Especially since I don't know if I'd have gotten through NetHack without comments.

One thing that helps, on the writer's side, is to (if possible) deliberately leave hooks in the text to get people to post. It could be a "what should I name this character/do now" thing, could be a question about audience opinion, could be a test to see if someone knows something. It's hard to change the mass behavior of others, but much easier to change what you yourself do. Some games will make this much easier than others, of course.

I deliberately tried to start a punderstorm once. When it didn't happen I was convinced no one was paying attention.

Meh, you can never really forecast when they'll happen.

Punderstorms won't materialize when there's high pressure to start one. Everyone knows that.

Saying something incorrect can sometimes bait a storm of corrections. Not the most fun comments in the world but better than nothing. Probably.