Thank you so much for the feedback, this is exactly what I was hoping for. At the end of the day, making this video showed me that making content is hard, and making good / informative / structured / engaging content is even harder. I've learned a lot from your comments and have re-watched the video a few times to gain a better understanding of how I could approach things going forward and what I'm really trying to get out of creating this guide series.
NotCube wrote:1. Add timestamps to the video so people can sort of "search" through the content.....
• Noted and I will start to do this moving forward.
NotCube wrote:2. If you find yourself in a lot of dead time, consider typing the whole script out. Then read off of it as a narration. Doing this also lets you review the entire video content as a whole, so you can reorganize and adjust them as needed. Cheers.
• The first portion of the video where I walked through what Median was / how to install was scripted. I like how that flowed and will work toward developing the skills to be able to script more of a video while still sounding natural and informative.
Cheno wrote:I feel like this format is too heavy in the "Let's play"-area and too light in the guide area. If the point is to teach new people how Median works, then I think more focus should be put on the why and not so much on the what. One example is when you went over the talent tree, you basically do no explaining of how the talent tree works and in regards to the uber skills, you push it off to when it will become immediately relevant, in a future episode.
Engersion wrote:Hey man, I think this would be better suited as a walkthrough series instead of a game guide. Doing a character guide from the beginning to at least 120 would require too much delving into the inner workings of the game to function coherently in a video.
My suggestion is to separate the leveling part as a walkthrough. If you really want to delve into the documentation and mechanics of the game, have a separate series where you quote footage of your walkthrough as examples instead.
• I think both of you hit the nail on the head here, the purpose of the video and the execution are a little confused. It's not necessarily super informative nor is it super entertaining, as it's trying to do both.
Engersion wrote:Maybe it can do with more personality.
• This is tough! I have personality in RL (I swear) but getting it through while talking into a microphone and looking at my monitor is a skill that needs to be developed.
Moving forward with this series I've decided to play the Bowazon through to level 120, recording relevant parts as I go and developing a "guide" that will take a new player from a lvl 1 Amazon to a lvl 120 Bowazon that is capable of entering early endgame. From that, I will produce two videos which provide a quick overview of Normal / Nightmare progression (vid 1) and Hell / end-game progression (vid 2). These videos should be short and succinct (~20 minutes) and provide a template for a new player who wants to hop into Median, get a taste for the game and get a character who is somewhat capable. These videos should be much more informative, information should be easier to digest and pack a bit more of a "punch" as I can clip and condense the entertaining / exciting parts of leveling a new character.
From there, I can make videos that cover topics more in depth and are on the informative side, or just record playthroughs, knowing that they are positioned to be on the entertaining side (if they are or not is another story...).
At the end of the day, I'm looking to give back to the community somehow and produce something that may be of value to someone. I've spent years and years consuming guides and walkthroughs and videos for each game I play and I feel that it's time to give back. After all, the level of production needs to meet the level of consumption in our for a community to thrive.
Thanks again for the feedback. I'll post my next video here to see what everyone thinks!